Quasi-option value and climate policy choices
Abstract
In the climate change issue, the environmental irreversibility (risk of an acceleration of mitigation policies if the worse happen) has to be balanced with the investment irreversibility (risk of over-cautious policies). To explore this balance, we define an option value for a precautionary climate policy. Using the simplest decision-making model, we expose how option value relates to the expected value of future information. Using quantitative data from an integrated as sessment model, we find that most of the times the environmental irreversibility dominates the investment irreversibility. For all cases explored here, the order of magnitude of the option value was significant, about 50% of the opportunity cost.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by HAL in its series Post-Print with number halshs-00002457.Length:
Date of creation: 1998
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published, Energy Economics, 1998, 20, 599-620
Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00002457
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00002457/en/
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/
Related research
Keywords: Option value; Climate change; Irreversibility;Other versions of this item:
- Ha-Duong, Minh, 1998. "Quasi-option value and climate policy choices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(5-6), pages 599-620, December.
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Hourcade, Jean-Charles & Salles, Jean-Michel & Thery, Daniel, 1992. "Ecological economics and scientific controversies. Lessons from some recent policy making in the EEC," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 211-233, December.
- Fisher, Anthony C. & Hanemann, W. Michael, 1987. "Quasi-option value: Some misconceptions dispelled," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 183-190, June.
- Ulph, Alistair & Ulph, David, 1997. "Global Warming, Irreversibility and Learning," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(442), pages 636-50, May.
- Minh Ha-Duong & Michael Grubb & Jean-Charles Hourcade, 1997. "Influence of socioeconomic inertia and uncertainty on optimal CO2-emission abatement," Post-Print halshs-00002452, HAL.
- Peck, Stephen C. & Teisberg, Thomas J., 1993. "Global warming uncertainties and the value of information: an analysis using CETA," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 71-97, March.
- Fisher, Anthony C & Hanemann, W Michael, 1990. "Option Value: Theory and Measurement," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Foundation for the European Review of Agricultural Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 167-80.
- Arrow, Kenneth J & Fisher, Anthony C, 1974. "Environmental Preservation, Uncertainty, and Irreversibility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 312-19, May.
- Henry, Claude, 1974. "Investment Decisions Under Uncertainty: The "Irreversibility Effect."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 1006-12, December.
- Kolstad, Charles D., 1994. "George Bush versus Al Gore : Irreversibilities in greenhouse gas accumulation and emission control investment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(9), pages 771-778, September.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- LANGE Andreas & TREICH Nicolas, 2007. "Uncertainty, Learning and Ambiguity in Economic Models on Climate Policy: Some Classical Results and New Directions," LERNA Working Papers 07.16.237, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
- Strand, Jon & Miller, Sebastian & Siddiqui, Sauleh, 2011. "Infrastructure investments under uncertainty with the possibility of retrofit : theory and simulations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5516, The World Bank.
- Gollier, Christian & Treich, Nicolas, 2003.
"Decision-Making under Scientific Uncertainty: The Economics of the Precautionary Principle,"
Open Access publications from University of Toulouse 1 Capitole
http://neeo.univ-tlse1.fr, University of Toulouse 1 Capitole.
- Gollier, Christian & Treich, Nicolas, 2003. " Decision-Making under Scientific Uncertainty: The Economics of the Precautionary Principle," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 77-103, August.
- Hourcade, Jean-Charles & Salles, Jean-Michel & Thery, Daniel, 1992. "Ecological economics and scientific controversies. Lessons from some recent policy making in the EEC," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 211-233, December.
- Keller, Klaus & Bolker, Benjamin M. & Bradford, D.F.David F., 2004. "Uncertain climate thresholds and optimal economic growth," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 723-741, July.
- Olivier Godard, 2007. "Climat et générations futures - Un examen critique du débat académique suscité par le Rapport Stern," Working Papers hal-00243059, HAL.
- Laurent Gilotte & Michel de Lara, 2005. "Precautionary Effect and Variations of the Value of Information," Working Papers 2005.28, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
- Minh Ha-Duong & Benoit Morel, 2003. "The real option with an absorbing barrier," Post-Print halshs-00003976, HAL.
- Etienne Espagne & Baptiste Perrissin Fabert & Antonin Pottier & Franck Nadaud & Patrice Dumas, 2012. "Disentangling the Stern/Nordhaus Controversy: Beyond the Discounting Clash," Working Papers 2012.61, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
- Sonja Peterson, 2004. "The Contribution of Economics to the Analysis of Climate Change and Uncertainty: A Survey of Approaches and Findings," Kiel Working Papers 1212, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
- Donaghy, Peter & Rolfe, John & Bennett, Jeffrey W., 2004. "Quasi-option values for enhanced information regarding genetically modified foods," 2004 Conference (48th), February 11-13, 2004, Melbourne, Australia 58403, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
- Hallegatte, Stephane & Shah, Ankur & Lempert, Robert & Brown, Casey & Gill, Stuart, 2012. "Investment decision making under deep uncertainty -- application to climate change," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6193, The World Bank.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00002457For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (CCSD).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

