Forecasting the Path of USS CO2 Emissions Using State-Level Information

Maximilian Auffhammer and Ralf Steinhauser

ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics

Abstract: In this paper we compare the most common reduced form models used for emissions forecasting, point out shortcomings and suggest improvements. Using a U.S. state level panel data set of CO2 emissions we test the performance of existing models against a large universe of potential reduced form models. Our preferred measure of model performance is the squared out-of-sample prediction error of aggregate CO2 emissions. We find that leading models in the literature, as well as models selected based on an emissions per capita loss measure or different in-sample selection criteria, perform significantly worse compared to the best model chosen based directly on the out-of-sample loss measure defined over aggregate emissions. Unlike the existing literature, the tests of model superiority employed here account for model search or ‘data snooping’ involved in identifying a preferred model. Forecasts from our best performing model for the United States are 100 million tons of carbon lower than existing scenarios predict.

JEL-codes: C53 Q43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 Pages
Date: 2010-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-for
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/econ/wp526.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Forecasting The Path of U.S. CO_2 Emissions Using State-Level Information (2012)
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:acb:cbeeco:2010-526

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().