IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sgc/wpaper/83.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Infinite Uncertainty, Forgotten Feedbacks, And Cost-Benefit Analysis Of Climate Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Gary W. Yohe
  • Richard S.J. Tol

    (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin)

Abstract

Tol (2003) found evidence that the uncertainty that surrounds estimates of the marginal damage of climate change may be infinite even if total damages are finite and questioned the applicability of expected cost-benefit analysis to global mitigation policy. Yohe (2003) suggested that this problem could be alleviated if international development aid were directed at eliminating the source of the problem – climate induced negative growth rates in a few regions along a handful of troublesome scenarios. The hypothesis about adding a second policy lever to the climate policy calculus is shown to hold, but not as robustly as perhaps expected. Infinite uncertainty and its implications for global mitigation policy can be avoided for a reasonable price in the relatively unlikely event that climate change can cause negative economic growth in a region or two when the portfolio of international policies includes at least two tools.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary W. Yohe & Richard S.J. Tol, 2005. "Infinite Uncertainty, Forgotten Feedbacks, And Cost-Benefit Analysis Of Climate Policy," Working Papers FNU-83, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Aug 2005.
    • Handle: RePEc:sgc:wpaper:83
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fnu.zmaw.de/fileadmin/fnu-files/publication/working-papers/maxuncaidwp.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2005
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. P. Michael Link & Richard S. J. Tol, 2004. "Possible economic impacts of a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation: an application of FUND," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 3(2), pages 99-114, September.
    2. Richard Tol, 2002. "Estimates of the Damage Costs of Climate Change. Part 1: Benchmark Estimates," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 21(1), pages 47-73, January.
    3. Richard Tol, 2002. "Estimates of the Damage Costs of Climate Change, Part II. Dynamic Estimates," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 21(2), pages 135-160, February.
    4. Tol, Richard S. J., 2002. "Welfare specifications and optimal control of climate change: an application of fund," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 367-376, July.
    5. William R. Cline, 1992. "Economics of Global Warming, The," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 39, October.
    6. Tol, Richard S. J., 1996. "The damage costs of climate change towards a dynamic representation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 67-90, October.
    7. Richard Tol, 1999. "Spatial and Temporal Efficiency in Climate Policy: Applications of FUND," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 14(1), pages 33-49, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Richard S.J. Tol, 2008. "Why Worry About Climate Change? A Research Agenda," Environmental Values, White Horse Press, vol. 17(4), pages 437-470, November.
    2. repec:sae:envval:ev17:ev1724 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Tol, Richard S.J. & Yohe, Gary W., 2009. "The Stern Review: A deconstruction," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1032-1040, March.
    4. Laurien , Finn & Keating, Adriana, 2019. "Evidence from Measuring Community Flood Resilience in Asia," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 595, Asian Development Bank.
    5. Richard S. J. Tol, 2009. "The Economic Effects of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 29-51, Spring.

    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. Tol, Richard S.J., 2006. "The Polluter Pays Principle and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Climate Change: An Application of Fund," Climate Change Modelling and Policy Working Papers 12058, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    2. Anthoff, David & Hepburn, Cameron & Tol, Richard S.J., 2009. "Equity weighting and the marginal damage costs of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 836-849, January.
    3. Richard S.J. Tol, 2004. "Exchange Rates And Climate Change: An Application Of Fund," Working Papers FNU-45, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Jun 2004.
    4. Richard S.J. Tol, 2005. "The Benefits Of Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction: An Application Of Fund," Working Papers FNU-64, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Apr 2005.
    5. Dritan Osmani & Richard Tol, 2009. "Toward Farsightedly Stable International Environmental Agreements," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(3), pages 455-492, June.
    6. Richard S.J. Tol, 2002. "Climate, Development And Malaria: An Application Of Fund," Working Papers FNU-16, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Sep 2002.
    7. Anthoff, David, 2009. "Optimal Global Dynamic Carbon Taxation," Papers WP278, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. David Anthoff & Richard Tol, 2009. "The Impact of Climate Change on the Balanced Growth Equivalent: An Application of FUND," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 43(3), pages 351-367, July.
    9. Bosello, Francesco & Roson, Roberto & Tol, Richard S.J., 2006. "Economy-wide estimates of the implications of climate change: Human health," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 579-591, June.
    10. Anthoff, David & Tol, Richard S.J., 2010. "On international equity weights and national decision making on climate change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 14-20, July.
    11. Tol, Richard S. J. & Verheyen, Roda, 2004. "State responsibility and compensation for climate change damages--a legal and economic assessment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1109-1130, June.
    12. Dihel, Nora, 2005. "Impact of services barriers on effective rates of protection in agriculture and manufacturing," Conference papers 331387, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    13. P. Michael Link & Richard S. J. Tol, 2004. "Possible economic impacts of a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation: an application of FUND," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 3(2), pages 99-114, September.
    14. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    15. Richard Tol, 2007. "The double trade-off between adaptation and mitigation for sea level rise: an application of FUND," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 12(5), pages 741-753, June.
    16. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Janda, Karel & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Selective reporting and the social cost of carbon," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 394-406.
    17. Tol, Richard S. J., 2008. "The Social Cost of Carbon: Trends, Outliers and Catastrophes," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-22.
    18. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "Targets for global climate policy: An overview," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 911-928.
    19. Tol, Richard S.J., 2005. "Emission abatement versus development as strategies to reduce vulnerability to climate change: an application of FUND," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(5), pages 615-629, October.
    20. David Anthoff & Richard Tol, 2014. "Climate policy under fat-tailed risk: an application of FUND," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 220(1), pages 223-237, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    climate policy; development aid; equity weighting; expected cost-benefit analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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:sgc:wpaper:83. 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: Uwe Schneider (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zmhamde.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.