IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v52y2014i4p1135-41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Ethics of Efficient Markets and Commons Tragedies: A Review of John Broome's Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World

Author

Listed:
  • William Nordhaus

Abstract

What are the ethical implications of our contributions to global warming on an individual level? In his extended essay, John Broome analyzes the moral implications of our imposing damages on future generations through our greenhouse-gas emissions. He argues that we as individuals owe restitution to those who are in the future damaged by these unjust acts. He suggests that restitution can be accomplished by completely offsetting emissions and thereby having a zero carbon footprint. This review examines the force of his arguments and suggests that off-setting emissions on an individual basis is an imperfect substitute for collective action or more encompassing contributions to those hurt by our externalities. (JEL D63, Q21, Q54, Q58)

Suggested Citation

  • William Nordhaus, 2014. "The Ethics of Efficient Markets and Commons Tragedies: A Review of John Broome's Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1135-1141, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:52:y:2014:i:4:p:1135-41
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.52.4.1135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jel.52.4.1135
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/ds/5204/jel.52.4.1135_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801.
    2. Will Gans & Beat Hintermann, 2013. "Market Effects of Voluntary Climate Action by Firms: Evidence from the Chicago Climate Exchange," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(2), pages 291-308, June.
    3. Zhang, Junjie & Wang, Can, 2011. "Co-benefits and additionality of the clean development mechanism: An empirical analysis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 140-154, September.
    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. Choi, Jaerim & Lim, Sunghun, 2023. "Ostrom Meets the Pandemic: Lessons from Asian Rice Farming Traditions," 97th Annual Conference, March 27-29, 2023, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 334543, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.

    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. Hjort, Ingrid, 2016. "Potential Climate Risks in Financial Markets: A Literature Overview," Memorandum 01/2016, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    2. Stéphane Hallegatte, 2008. "A Proposal for a New Prescriptive Discounting Scheme: The Intergenerational Discount Rate," Working Papers 2008.47, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    3. 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.
    4. Strand, Jon, 2011. "Carbon offsets with endogenous environmental policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 371-378, March.
    5. Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Public economics as if time matters: Climate change and the dynamics of policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 4-17.
    6. Lotze-Campen, Hermann & von Witzke, Harald & Noleppa, Steffen & Schwarz, Gerald, 2015. "Science for food, climate protection and welfare: An economic analysis of plant breeding research in Germany," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 79-84.
    7. Pycroft, Jonathan & Vergano, Lucia & Hope, Chris & Paci, Daniele & Ciscar, Juan Carlos, 2011. "A tale of tails: Uncertainty and the social cost of carbon dioxide," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 5, pages 1-29.
    8. Du, Yimeng & Takeuchi, Kenji, 2019. "Can climate mitigation help the poor? Measuring impacts of the CDM in rural China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 178-197.
    9. Oliver Schenker, 2013. "Exchanging Goods and Damages: The Role of Trade on the Distribution of Climate Change Costs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 54(2), pages 261-282, February.
    10. Luigi Aldieri & Jonas Grafström & Kristoffer Sundström & Concetto Paolo Vinci, 2019. "Wind Power and Job Creation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, December.
    11. Alejandro Lopez-Feldman, 2013. "Climate change, agriculture, and poverty: A household level analysis for rural Mexico," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(2), pages 1126-1139.
    12. Min Gong & David Krantz & Elke Weber, 2014. "Why Chinese discount future financial and environmental gains but not losses more than Americans," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 103-124, October.
    13. Söderholm, Patrik & Pettersson, Fredrik, 2008. "Climate policy and the social cost of power generation: Impacts of the Swedish national emissions target," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 4154-4158, November.
    14. Bikki Jaggi & Alessandra Allini & Riccardo Macchioni & Annamaria Zampella, 2018. "Do investors find carbon information useful? Evidence from Italian firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1031-1056, May.
    15. Bommier, Antoine & Lanz, Bruno & Zuber, Stéphane, 2015. "Models-as-usual for unusual risks? On the value of catastrophic climate change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-22.
    16. Steve Newbold & Charles Griffiths & Christopher C. Moore & Ann Wolverton & Elizabeth Kopits, 2010. "The "Social Cost of Carbon" Made Simple," NCEE Working Paper Series 201007, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Aug 2010.
    17. Simona Šarotar Žižek & Matjaž Mulej & Sonja Treven, 2010. "Requisite Holism Of Individuals As A Precondition For The Humankind’S Way Out From The 2008- Crisis," Analele Stiintifice ale Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Iasi - Stiinte Economice (1954-2015), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 57, pages 399-419, november.
    18. Tsai, Bi-Huei & Chang, Chih-Jen & Chang, Chun-Hsien, 2016. "Elucidating the consumption and CO2 emissions of fossil fuels and low-carbon energy in the United States using Lotka–Volterra models," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 416-424.
    19. Otto Brøns-Petersen & Søren Havn Gjedsted, 2021. "Climate change and institutional change: what is the relative importance for economic performance?," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 23(2), pages 333-360, April.
    20. Richard Tol, 2011. "Regulating knowledge monopolies: the case of the IPCC," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 827-839, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q21 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:aea:jeclit:v:52:y:2014:i:4:p:1135-41. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.