IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2021-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Macro Effects of Climate Policy Uncertainty

Author

Abstract

Uncertainty surrounding if and when the U.S. government will implement a federal climate policy introduces risk into the decision to invest in capital used in conjunction with fossil fuels. To quantify the macroeconomic impacts of this climate policy risk, we develop a dynamic, general equilibrium model that incorporates beliefs about future climate policy. We find that climate policy risk reduces carbon emissions by causing the capital stock to shrink and become relatively cleaner. Our results reveal, however, that a carbon tax could achieve the same reduction in emissions at less than half the cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephie Fried & Kevin Novan & William B. Peterman, 2021. "The Macro Effects of Climate Policy Uncertainty," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-018, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2021-18
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2021.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2021018pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2021.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bovenberg, A Lans & Goulder, Lawrence H, 1996. "Optimal Environmental Taxation in the Presence of Other Taxes: General-Equilibrium Analyses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 985-1000, September.
    2. Lawrence H. Goulder & Marc A. C. Hafstead & Roberton C. Williams III, 2016. "General Equilibrium Impacts of a Federal Clean Energy Standard," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 186-218, May.
    3. Derek Lemoine, 2017. "Green Expectations: Current Effects of Anticipated Carbon Pricing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 499-513, July.
    4. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W.H. Parry & Roberton C. Williams III & Dallas Burtraw, 2002. "The Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Instruments for Environmental Protection in a Second-Best Setting," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 27, pages 523-554, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Stephie Fried, 2018. "Climate Policy and Innovation: A Quantitative Macroeconomic Analysis," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 90-118, January.
    6. Derek Lemoine & Christian Traeger, 2014. "Watch Your Step: Optimal Policy in a Tipping Climate," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 137-166, February.
    7. Roberton C. Williams III & Hal Gordon & Dallas Burtraw & Jared C. Carbone & Richard D. Morgenstern, 2015. "The Initial Incidence of a Carbon Tax Across Income Groups," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 68(1), pages 195-214, March.
    8. Kyle C. Meng, 2017. "Using a Free Permit Rule to Forecast the Marginal Abatement Cost of Proposed Climate Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 748-784, March.
    9. Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2004. "Prediction Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 107-126, Spring.
    10. Sagiri Kitao, 2018. "Policy Uncertainty and Cost of Delaying Reform: The Case of Aging Japan," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 27, pages 81-100, January.
    11. Juan Carlos Conesa & Sagiri Kitao & Dirk Krueger, 2009. "Taxing Capital? Not a Bad Idea after All!," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 25-48, March.
    12. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2008. "Public policies against global warming: a supply side approach," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(4), pages 360-394, August.
    13. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Withagen, Cees, 2012. "Is there really a green paradox?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 342-363.
    14. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Rezai, Armon, 2020. "The risk of policy tipping and stranded carbon assets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    15. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Pablo Guerrón-Quintana & Keith Kuester & Juan Rubio-Ramírez, 2015. "Fiscal Volatility Shocks and Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(11), pages 3352-3384, November.
    16. Lucas Bretschger & Susanne Soretz, 2022. "Stranded Assets: How Policy Uncertainty affects Capital, Growth, and the Environment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 83(2), pages 261-288, October.
    17. Stephie Fried & Kevin Novan & William Peterman, 2018. "The Distributional Effects of a Carbon Tax on Current and Future Generations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 30-46, October.
    18. Chris Papageorgiou & Marianne Saam & Patrick Schulte, 2017. "Substitution between Clean and Dirty Energy Inputs: A Macroeconomic Perspective," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 281-290, May.
    19. Michael Hoel, 2010. "Is there a Green Paradox?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3168, CESifo.
    20. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007, Elsevier.
    21. Elizabeth Baldwin & Yongyang Cai & Karlygash Kuralbayeva, 2018. "To Build or Not to Build? Capital Stocks and Climate Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 6884, CESifo.
    22. Margaret E. Slade & Henry Thille, 2009. "Whither Hotelling: Tests of the Theory of Exhaustible Resources," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 239-259, September.
    23. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    24. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    25. Bovenberg, A.L. & Goulder, L.H., 1996. "Optimal environmental taxation in the presence of other taxes : General equilibrium analyses," Other publications TiSEM 5d4b7517-c5c8-4ef6-ab76-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    26. John Livernois, 2009. "On the Empirical Significance of the Hotelling Rule," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 3(1), pages 22-41, Winter.
    27. Tobias Kronenberg, 2008. "Should We Worry About The Failure Of The Hotelling Rule?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 774-793, September.
    28. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    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. Ryan Rafaty & Geoffroy Dolphin & Felix Pretis, 2020. "Carbon pricing and the elasticity of CO2 emissions," Working Papers EPRG2035, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    2. He, Mengxi & Zhang, Yaojie, 2022. "Climate policy uncertainty and the stock return predictability of the oil industry," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Meinerding, Christoph & Schüler, Yves S. & Zhang, Philipp, 2023. "Shocks to transition risk," Discussion Papers 04/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. van den Bijgaart, Inge & Rodriguez, Mauricio, 2023. "Closing wells: Fossil development and abandonment in the energy transition," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Liu, Guangqiang & Zeng, Qing & Lei, Juan, 2022. "Dynamic risks from climate policy uncertainty: A case study for the natural gas market," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Syed, Qasim Raza & Apergis, Nicholas & Goh, Soo Khoon, 2023. "The dynamic relationship between climate policy uncertainty and renewable energy in the US: Applying the novel Fourier augmented autoregressive distributed lags approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    7. Siddique, Md. Abubakar & Nobanee, Haitham & Hasan, Md. Bokhtiar & Uddin, Gazi Salah & Hossain, Md. Naiem & Park, Donghyun, 2023. "How do energy markets react to climate policy uncertainty? Fossil vs. renewable and low-carbon energy assets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    8. Chen, Zhonglu & Zhang, Li & Weng, Chen, 2023. "Does climate policy uncertainty affect Chinese stock market volatility?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 369-381.
    9. Shabir Mohsin Hashmi & Xuyou Yu & Qasim Raza Syed & Li Rong, 2024. "Testing the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis amidst climate policy uncertainty: sectoral analysis using the novel Fourier ARDL approach," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(7), pages 16503-16522, July.
    10. Yan, Wan-Lin & Cheung, Adrian (Wai Kong), 2023. "The dynamic spillover effects of climate policy uncertainty and coal price on carbon price: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    11. Zhang, Zhihao, 2023. "Are climate risks helpful for understanding inflation in BRICS countries?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).
    12. Raza, Syed Ali & Khan, Komal Akram, 2024. "Climate policy uncertainty and its relationship with precious metals price volatility: Comparative analysis pre and during COVID-19," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    13. Su, Chi-Wei & Yuan, Xi & Tao, Ran & Shao, Xuefeng, 2022. "Time and frequency domain connectedness analysis of the energy transformation under climate policy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).

    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. Fried, Stephie & Novan, Kevin & Peterman, William B., 2022. "Climate policy transition risk and the macroeconomy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    2. Rausch, Sebastian & Yonezawa, Hidemichi, 2023. "Green technology policies versus carbon pricing: An intergenerational perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    3. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    4. Stephie Fried & Kevin Novan & William Peterman, 2019. "The Macro Effects of Anticipating Climate Policy," 2019 Meeting Papers 683, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Ottmar Edenhofer & Max Franks & Matthias Kalkuhl, 2021. "Pigou in the 21st Century: a tribute on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Economics of Welfare," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(5), pages 1090-1121, October.
    6. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    7. 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.
    8. Frederick van der Ploeg & Armon Rezai, 2020. "Stranded Assets in the Transition to a Carbon-Free Economy," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 281-298, October.
    9. Kyle C. Meng, 2017. "Using a Free Permit Rule to Forecast the Marginal Abatement Cost of Proposed Climate Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 748-784, March.
    10. Gronwald, Marc, 2012. "A characterization of oil price behavior — Evidence from jump models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1310-1317.
    11. Kalsbach, Oliver & Rausch, Sebastian, 2024. "Pricing carbon in a multi-sector economy with social discounting," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Lint Barrage, 2023. "Fiscal Costs of Climate Change in the United States," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 23/380, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    13. Iván Alfaro & Nicholas Bloom & Xiaoji Lin, 2024. "The Finance Uncertainty Multiplier," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(2), pages 577-615.
    14. Alex Hollingworth & Taylor Jaworski & Carl Kitchens & Ivan Rudik, 2022. "Economic Geography and the Efficiency of Environmental Regulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 9644, CESifo.
    15. Haradhan Kumar Mohajan, 2011. "Optimal Environmental Taxes Due to Health Effect," KASBIT Business Journals (KBJ), Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari Institute of Technology (KASBIT), vol. 4, pages 1-19, December.
    16. Yongyang Cai, 2020. "The Role of Uncertainty in Controlling Climate Change," Papers 2003.01615, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.
    17. Lint Barrage, 2020. "Optimal Dynamic Carbon Taxes in a Climate–Economy Model with Distortionary Fiscal Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 1-39.
    18. Garon, Jean-Denis & Paquet, Alain, 2017. "Les enjeux d'efficience et la fiscalité," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 93(3), pages 297-337, Septembre.
    19. Espinola-Arredondo, Ana & Muñoz-García, Félix & Duah, Isaac, 2019. "Anticipatory effects of taxation in the commons: When do taxes work, and when do they fail?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Dongya Koh & Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis, 2017. "Countercyclical Elasticity of Substitution," Working Papers 946, Barcelona School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate Policy; Policy Uncertainty;

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    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:fip:fedgfe:2021-18. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.