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The persistence of shocks in GDP and the estimation of the potential economic costs of climate change

Author

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  • Richard S. J. Tol

    (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, UK
    Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

  • Francisco Estrada

    (Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Circuito Exterior, Mexico
    Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

  • Carlos Gay-García

    (Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México)

Abstract

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) typically ignore the impact of climate change on economic growth, or simply scale down output and hence the entire future growth. In this manner, IAMs typically assume that the shocks caused by climate change impacts dissipate and have no persistence at all, affecting only the period when they occur. Clearly, this could lead to the underestimation of costs of climate change at global, regional, national and local scales. We adopt an empirical approach for analyzing the observed GDP series for different world regions in order to estimate the persistence of shocks on growth. We interpret the direct impact of climate change as such shocks, and use the estimated models to assess the implications for growth. We compare this to the scaling method pioneered by Nordhaus (Nordhaus and Boyer, 2000). A simple version of the widely used PAGE2002 model (Hope, 2006) is applied to conduct a sensitivity analysis varying the degree of a persistence measure in simulated future GDP. It is shown that when a persistence similar to the observed one is chosen, the economic impacts of climate change are considerably larger in comparison to the "zero persistence" implied by the original scaling method. If the persistence of shocks is ignored, as it is currently done by most IAMs, the economic impacts of climate change can be severely underestimated. Results are not sensitive to the selection of the discount rate. Moreover, it is shown that the original scaling method embedded in most IAMs can be interpreted as assuming an autonomous, costless, extremely large and effective (reactive) adaptation capacity.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard S. J. Tol & Francisco Estrada & Carlos Gay-García, 2012. "The persistence of shocks in GDP and the estimation of the potential economic costs of climate change," Working Paper Series 4312, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
  • Handle: RePEc:sus:susewp:4312
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    File URL: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/economics/documents/wps-43-2012.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Grames, Johanna & Prskawetz, Alexia & Grass, Dieter & Viglione, Alberto & Blöschl, Günter, 2016. "Modeling the interaction between flooding events and economic growth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 193-209.
    2. W. J. Wouter Botzen & Jeroen C. J. M. Van Den Bergh & Graciela Chichilnisky, 2018. "Climate Policy Without Intertemporal Dictatorship: Chichilnisky Criterion Versus Classical Utilitarianism In Dice," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(02), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Ingrid Dallmann, 2019. "Weather Variations and International Trade," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(1), pages 155-206, January.
    4. Franziska Piontek & Matthias Kalkuhl & Elmar Kriegler & Anselm Schultes & Marian Leimbach & Ottmar Edenhofer & Nico Bauer, 2019. "Economic Growth Effects of Alternative Climate Change Impact Channels in Economic Modeling," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1357-1385, August.
    5. Francisco Estrada & Richard S J Tol & Wouter J W Botzen, 2017. "Global economic impacts of climate variability and change during the 20th century," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-16, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate change; economic impacts; dynamic model;
    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

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