Green transitions: complementarities, multiple equilibria, and tipping points

Frederick van der Ploeg and Anthony J Venables

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2025, vol. 41, issue 2, 377-394

Abstract: With strategic complementarities stemming from peer effects in demand or technological spillovers, propagation and amplification mechanisms increase the effectiveness of climate policies. This suggests that climate goals can be met with smaller policy interventions. However, if there are multiple equilibria, radical policies are needed to shift the economy from a high-emissions to a low-emissions path. Once the radical shift has taken place these policies can be withdrawn. More generally, such policies can set in motion social, technological, and political tipping points. The paper develops an analytical framework within which policies to achieve these tipping points are studied, looking at the extended role for tax and subsidy policies, at dynamics of change, and at policy under uncertainty. Our proposals offer a complementary perspective to scholars that have emphasized insights from the literature on early warning signals to advocate sensitive intervention points to obtain more effective and more transformative climate policies.

Keywords: climate policy; peer effects; learning by doing; strategic complementarities; multiple equilibria; tipping points; networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/graf018 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxford:v:41:y:2025:i:2:p:377-394.

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy is currently edited by Christopher Adam

More articles in Oxford Review of Economic Policy from Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().