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Nondogmatic Climate Policy

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  • Niko Jaakkola
  • Antony Millner

Abstract

Disagreements about normative aspects of social time preferences have led to estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) that differ by orders of magnitude. We investigate how disagreements about the SCC change if planners are non-dogmatic, i.e., they admit the possibility of a change in their normative views, and internalise the preferences of future selves. Although non-dogmatic planners may disagree about all the contentious aspects of social time preferences, disagreements about the SCC reduce dramatically. Admitting the possibility of a change in views once every 40 years results in a 4.6-fold reduction in the range of recommended SCCs.

Suggested Citation

  • Niko Jaakkola & Antony Millner, 2020. "Nondogmatic Climate Policy," NBER Working Papers 27413, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27413
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    Cited by:

    1. Rick Van der Ploeg, 2020. "Discounting And Climate Policy," OxCarre Working Papers 244, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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