IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/18704.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Social Cost of Stochastic and Irreversible Climate Change

Author

Listed:
  • Yongyang Cai
  • Kenneth L. Judd
  • Thomas S. Lontzek

Abstract

There is great uncertainty about the impact of anthropogenic carbon on future economic wellbeing. We use DSICE, a DSGE extension of the DICE2007 model of William Nordhaus, which incorporates beliefs about the uncertain economic impact of possible climate tipping events and uses empirically plausible parameterizations of Epstein-Zin preferences to represent attitudes towards risk. We find that the uncertainty associated with anthropogenic climate change imply carbon taxes much higher than implied by deterministic models. This analysis indicates that the absence of uncertainty in DICE2007 and similar models may result in substantial understatement of the potential benefits of policies to reduce GHG emissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Yongyang Cai & Kenneth L. Judd & Thomas S. Lontzek, 2013. "The Social Cost of Stochastic and Irreversible Climate Change," NBER Working Papers 18704, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18704
    Note: EEE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18704.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lemoine, Derek M. & Traeger, Christian P., 2010. "Tipping Points and Ambiguity in the Economics of Climate Change," CUDARE Working Papers 98127, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    2. Christian Traeger, 2014. "Why uncertainty matters: discounting under intertemporal risk aversion and ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(3), pages 627-664, August.
    3. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Yohe, Gary W. & Tol, Richard S. J. & Anthoff, David, 2009. "Discounting for Climate Change," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-22.
    5. Yongyang Cai & Kenneth L. Judd & Thomas S. Lontzek, 2012. "Continuous-Time Methods for Integrated Assessment Models," NBER Working Papers 18365, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    7. Martin L. Weitzman, 2009. "On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-19, February.
    8. Nordhaus, William D & Yang, Zili, 1996. "A Regional Dynamic General-Equilibrium Model of Alternative Climate-Change Strategies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 741-765, September.
    9. Pizer, William A., 1999. "The optimal choice of climate change policy in the presence of uncertainty," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 255-287, August.
    10. Mort Webster & Nidhi Santen & Panos Parpas, 2012. "An approximate dynamic programming framework for modeling global climate policy under decision-dependent uncertainty," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 339-362, August.
    11. Yongyang Cai & Kenneth Judd, 2015. "Dynamic programming with Hermite approximation," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 81(3), pages 245-267, June.
    12. Michael D. Mastrandrea & Stephen H. Schneider, 2001. "Integrated assessment of abrupt climatic changes," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(4), pages 433-449, December.
    13. Annette Vissing-Jørgensen & Orazio P. Attanasio, 2003. "Stock-Market Participation, Intertemporal Substitution, and Risk-Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 383-391, May.
    14. 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.
    15. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    16. Crost, Benjamin & Traeger, Christian P., 2010. "Risk and Aversion in the Integrated Assessment of Climate Change," CUDARE Working Papers 90935, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    17. Kenneth L. Judd, 1998. "Numerical Methods in Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262100711, December.
    18. Timothy Lenton & Juan-Carlos Ciscar, 2013. "Integrating tipping points into climate impact assessments," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 585-597, April.
    19. Thomas S. Lontzek & Daiju Narita, 2011. "Risk‐Averse Mitigation Decisions in an Unpredictable Climate System," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 113(4), pages 937-958, December.
    20. William D. Nordhaus, 2011. "Estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon: Background and Results from the RICE-2011 Model," NBER Working Papers 17540, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Christian Traeger, 2014. "Why uncertainty matters: discounting under intertemporal risk aversion and ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(3), pages 627-664, August.
    22. Kelly, David L. & Kolstad, Charles D., 1999. "Bayesian learning, growth, and pollution," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 491-518, February.
    23. Ravi Bansal & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Risks for the Long Run: A Potential Resolution of Asset Pricing Puzzles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1481-1509, August.
    24. Yongyang Cai & Kenneth L. Judd, 2010. "Stable and Efficient Computational Methods for Dynamic Programming," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(2-3), pages 626-634, 04-05.
    25. Kreps, David M & Porteus, Evan L, 1978. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 185-200, January.
    26. Geoffrey Heal & Bengt Kriström, 2002. "Uncertainty and Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 22(1), pages 3-39, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yongyang Cai & Thomas S. Lontzek, 2019. "The Social Cost of Carbon with Economic and Climate Risks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2684-2734.
    2. Mariia Belaia & Michael Funke & Nicole Glanemann, 2017. "Global Warming and a Potential Tipping Point in the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation: The Role of Risk Aversion," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(1), pages 93-125, May.
    3. Christian Traeger, 2014. "A 4-Stated DICE: Quantitatively Addressing Uncertainty Effects in Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(1), pages 1-37, September.
    4. Svenja Hector, 2013. "Accounting for Different Uncertainties: Implications for Climate Investments?," Working Papers 2013.107, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Svenja Hector(), "undated". "Accounting for Different Uncertainties: Implications for Climate Investments?," Working Papers ETH-RC-13-007, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    6. Crost, Benjamin & Traeger, Christian P., 2013. "Optimal climate policy: Uncertainty versus Monte Carlo," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 552-558.
    7. Christian Traeger, 2014. "Why uncertainty matters: discounting under intertemporal risk aversion and ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(3), pages 627-664, August.
    8. Berger, Loïc & Emmerling, Johannes, 2017. "Welfare as Simple(x) Equity Equivalents," MITP: Mitigation, Innovation and Transformation Pathways 254044, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    9. Jensen, Svenn & Traeger, Christian P., 2014. "Optimal climate change mitigation under long-term growth uncertainty: Stochastic integrated assessment and analytic findings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 104-125.
    10. van der Ploeg, Frederick & ,, 2018. "Pricing Carbon Under Economic and Climactic Risks: Leading-Order Results from Asymptotic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 12642, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Nordhaus, William, 2013. "Integrated Economic and Climate Modeling," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1069-1131, Elsevier.
    12. Kent D. Daniel & Robert B. Litterman & Gernot Wagner, 2016. "Applying Asset Pricing Theory to Calibrate the Price of Climate Risk," NBER Working Papers 22795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Lemoine, Derek & Traeger, Christian P., 2016. "Ambiguous tipping points," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PB), pages 5-18.
    14. Wonjun Chang & Thomas F. Rutherford, 2017. "Catastrophic Thresholds, Bayesian Learning And The Robustness Of Climate Policy Recommendations," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(04), pages 1-23, November.
    15. Richard S J Tol, 2018. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 4-25.
    16. Olijslagers, Stan & van der Ploeg, Frederick & van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 2023. "On current and future carbon prices in a risky world," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    17. Anderson, Evan W. & Brock, William & Sanstad, Alan H., 2016. "Robust Consumption and Energy Decisions," 2017 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2017, Chicago, Illinois 250117, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Edilio Valentini & Paolo Vitale, 2019. "Optimal Climate Policy for a Pessimistic Social Planner," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(2), pages 411-443, February.
    19. J. Farmer & Cameron Hepburn & Penny Mealy & Alexander Teytelboym, 2015. "A Third Wave in the Economics of Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(2), pages 329-357, October.
    20. Antony Millner & Simon Dietz & Geoffrey Heal, 2013. "Scientific Ambiguity and Climate Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(1), pages 21-46, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18704. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.