Östblom, Göran () (National Institute of Economic Research) Samakovlis, Eva () (National Institute of Economic Research)
Abstract
Much of the debate over global climate change involves estimates of the direct costs of global climate change mitigation. Recently this debate has included the issue of
ancillary benefits. These benefits consist mainly of health improvements. Although it is
generally acknowledged that air pollution affects respiratory health, and that valuations
of these impacts make up a significant proportion of the damage costs of air pollution,
these impacts are often neglected when evaluating the costs of climate policy. Since
reducing greenhouse gases has the effect of also reducing other pollutants affecting
human health and labour productivity these effects should be taken into consideration.
The analysis incorporates a linkage between air pollution and health effects into a
general equilibrium model for Sweden through a theoretical consistent framework.
Results from recent Swedish concentration-response and contingent valuation studies
are used to model direct disutility and indirect health effects that negatively affects the
productivity of labour. The costs of feedback effects on health and productivity are
compared in three different scenarios for attaining the Swedish carbon dioxide target
with alternative projected emission levels in the baseline scenario as well as alternative
harmful emission levels. Results show that not including feedback effects could mean
overstating the costs of climate policy. The magnitude of these effects are, however,
very sensitive to projected emission levels and to the judgement of harmful emission
levels.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Institute of Economic Research in its series Working Paper with number
93.
Length: 24 pages Date of creation: 28 Dec 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:hhs:nierwp:0093
Contact details of provider: Postal: National Institute of Economic Research, P.O. Box 3116, SE-103 62 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: 46-(0)8-453 59 00 Fax: 46-(0)8-453 59 80 Email: Web page: http://www.konj.se/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Britta Larsson).
References listed on IDEAS Please 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.: