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International inequity aversion and the social cost of carbon

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  • Richard S.J. Tol

    (Economic and Social Research Institute)

Abstract

I define the rate of inequity aversion, distinguishing between the pure rate and the consumption rate. I measure the rate of aversion to inequality in consumption as expressed in the development aid given by rich countries to poor ones between 1965 and 2005. There is an ambiguous relationship between the pure rate of inequity aversion and the consumption rate, driven by the rate of risk aversion. However, for a reasonable choice of the rate of risk aversion, rich countries are shown to be inequity averse, and increasingly so over time. The social cost of carbon is very sensitive to equity weighting and assumptions about the rate of risk and inequity aversion. Estimates for the consumption rate of inequity aversion for recent data suggest that the equity-weighted social cost of carbon is less than 50% larger than the unweighted estimate.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard S.J. Tol, 2009. "International inequity aversion and the social cost of carbon," Working Papers FNU-178, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Nov 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:sgc:wpaper:178
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. 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.
    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.
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    9. Samuel Fankhauser & Richard Tol & DAVID Pearce, 1997. "The Aggregation of Climate Change Damages: a Welfare Theoretic Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(3), pages 249-266, October.
    10. Christian Azar, 1999. "Weight Factors in Cost-Benefit Analysis of Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(3), pages 249-268, April.
    11. Yohe, Gary W. & Tol, Richard S. J. & Anthoff, David, 2009. "Discounting for Climate Change," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-22.
    12. Yoram Amiel & John Creedy & Stan Hurn, 1999. "Measuring Attitudes Towards Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(1), pages 83-96, March.
    13. Fredrik Carlsson & Dinky Daruvala & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2005. "Are People Inequality-Averse, or Just Risk-Averse?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(3), pages 375-396, August.
    14. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
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    Cited by:

    1. Loïc Berger & Johannes Emmerling, 2020. "Welfare As Equity Equivalents," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 727-752, September.
    2. Richard S.J. Tol, 2018. "The impact of climate change and the social cost of carbon," Working Paper Series 1318, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Richard S J Tol, 2018. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 4-25.
    4. 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.
    5. Berger, Loïc & Emmerling, Johannes, 2017. "Welfare as Simple(x) Equity Equivalents," MITP: Mitigation, Innovation and Transformation Pathways 254044, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    6. 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.
    7. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Emmerling, Johannes & Groom, Ben, 2023. "The social cost of carbon with intragenerational inequality and economic uncertainty," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117898, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Rickels, Wilfried & Quaas, Martin F. & Ricke, Katharine & Quaas, Johannes & Moreno-Cruz, Juan & Smulders, Sjak, 2020. "Who turns the global thermostat and by how much?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    9. Emmerling, Johannes & Groom, Ben & Wettingfeld, Tanja, 2017. "Discounting and the representative median agent," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 78-81.
    10. Lanlan Luo & Shou Chen & Ziran Zou, 2020. "Determining the Generalized Discount Rate for Risky Projects," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 77(1), pages 143-158, September.
    11. Salvatore Nunnari & Massimiliano Pozzi, 2022. "Meta-Analysis of Inequality Aversion Estimates," CESifo Working Paper Series 9851, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequity aversion; risk aversion; income distribution; development aid; climate change; social cost of carbon;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • 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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