IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20130130.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Modified Ramsey Discounting for Climate Change

Author

Listed:
  • Richard S.J. Tol

    (University of Sussex, United Kingdom; VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The Ramsey rule for the consumption rate of discount assumes a transfer of money of a (representative) agent at one point in time to the same agent at another point in time. Climate policy (implicitly) transfers money not just over time but also between agents. I propose three alternative modifications of the Ramsey rule to account for this. Taking the Ramsey rule as given, I derive an intuitively clear but ad hoc modification. Using the assumptions underlying the Ramsey rule, I derive a consistent but more elaborate modification. If the discount rate is differentiated by victim, the consistent modified Ramsey rule is simpler and identical to regional equity weights. I apply the modified Ramsey rules to estimates of the marginal damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions. The results confirm that optimal climate policy has differentiated carbon taxes. Results also show that the standard Ramsey rule drastically underestimates the social cost of carbon.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard S.J. Tol, 2013. "Modified Ramsey Discounting for Climate Change," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-130/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20130130
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/13130.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801.
    2. Tol, Richard S. J., 2011. "Modified Ramsey Discounting for Climate Change," Papers WP368, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    3. Richard Tol, 2002. "Estimates of the Damage Costs of Climate Change, Part II. Dynamic Estimates," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 21(2), pages 135-160, February.
    4. Helgeson, Jennifer & Dietz, Simon & Atkinson, Giles D. & Hepburn, Cameron & Sælen, Håkon, 2009. "Siblings, not triplets: social preferences for risk, inequality and time in discounting climate change," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-28.
    5. 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.
    6. Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Zuber, 2012. "Climate policies deserve a negative discount rate," Working Papers halshs-00728193, HAL.
    7. Martin L. Weitzman, 2009. "On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-19, February.
    8. Frances Ruane & Xiaoheng Zhang, 2007. "Location Choices of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Europe after 1992," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp220, IIIS.
    9. Schelling, Thomas C, 1992. "Some Economics of Global Warming," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 1-14, March.
    10. Richard Tol, 1999. "Spatial and Temporal Efficiency in Climate Policy: Applications of FUND," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 14(1), pages 33-49, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Fankhauser, Samuel & Tol, Richard S.J. & Pearce, David W., 1998. "Extensions and alternatives to climate change impact valuation: on the critique of IPCC Working Group III's impact estimates," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 59-81, February.
    13. Richard Tol, 2002. "Estimates of the Damage Costs of Climate Change. Part 1: Benchmark Estimates," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 21(1), pages 47-73, January.
    14. Richard S. J. Tol, 2009. "The Economic Effects of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 29-51, Spring.
    15. Tol, Richard S. J., 2001. "Equitable cost-benefit analysis of climate change policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 71-85, January.
    16. Seán Lyons & Karen Mayor & Richard S.J. Tol, 2008. "Environmental Accounts for the Republic of Ireland: 1990-2005," Papers WP223, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    17. Kristen A. Sheeran, 2006. "Who Should Abate Carbon Emissions? A Note," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 35(2), pages 89-98, October.
    18. Christian Gollier, 2010. "Discounting, Inequalities and Economic Convergence," CESifo Working Paper Series 3262, CESifo.
    19. William D. Nordhaus, 2007. "A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 686-702, September.
    20. David Pearce & Ben Groom & Cameron Hepburn & Phoebe Koundouri, 2003. "Valuing the Future," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 4(2), pages 121-141, April.
    21. Martin L. Weitzman, 2007. "A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 703-724, September.
    22. Nicholas Stern, 2008. "The Economics of Climate Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 1-37, May.
    23. -, 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).
    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. Disa Asplund, 2019. "Combining discounting and distributional weights. Lessons from climate change economic assessments," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 181-201.
    2. Cherp, Aleh & Vinichenko, Vadim & Jewell, Jessica & Suzuki, Masahiro & Antal, Miklós, 2017. "Comparing electricity transitions: A historical analysis of nuclear, wind and solar power in Germany and Japan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 612-628.
    3. Yingying Lu & David I. Stern, 2016. "Substitutability and the Cost of Climate Mitigation Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 64(1), pages 81-107, May.
    4. del Río, Pablo, 2017. "Why does the combination of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and a renewable energy target makes economic sense?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 824-834.
    5. Basurto, Saul, 2016. "A Mexican Ricardian analysis: land rental prices or net revenues?," 90th Annual Conference, April 4-6, 2016, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 236362, Agricultural Economics Society.
    6. Mark van de Logt, 2016. "?The Most Dangerous Man on the Planet\," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 3505987, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    7. Tol, Richard S. J., 2011. "Modified Ramsey Discounting for Climate Change," Papers WP368, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. Vally Koubi & Sebastian Stoll & Gabriele Spilker, 2016. "Perceptions of environmental change and migration decisions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 439-451, October.
    9. Keller, Victor & Lyseng, Benjamin & Wade, Cameron & Scholtysik, Sven & Fowler, McKenzie & Donald, James & Palmer-Wilson, Kevin & Robertson, Bryson & Wild, Peter & Rowe, Andrew, 2019. "Electricity system and emission impact of direct and indirect electrification of heavy-duty transportation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 740-751.
    10. Moritz Bohland & Jana Lippelt & Ana Maria Montoya Gómez & Thomas Ruppert & Marie-Theres von Schickfus, 2015. "Climate Notes: Looking Ahead to the World Climate Conference in Paris," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 68(22), pages 56-63, November.

    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. 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.
    2. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "Targets for global climate policy: An overview," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 911-928.
    5. 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.
    6. Pindyck, Robert S., 2012. "Uncertain outcomes and climate change policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 289-303.
    7. Skott, Peter & Davis, Leila, 2013. "Distributional biases in the analysis of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 188-197.
    8. Fleurbaey, Marc & Zuber, Stéphane, 2015. "Discounting, risk and inequality: A general approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 34-49.
    9. Kverndokk, Snorre & Rose, Adam, 2008. "Equity and Justice in Global Warming Policy," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 2(2), pages 135-176, October.
    10. David Anthoff & Richard Tol, 2009. "The Impact of Climate Change on the Balanced Growth Equivalent: An Application of FUND," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 43(3), pages 351-367, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Davidson, Marc D., 2014. "Zero discounting can compensate future generations for climate damage," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 40-47.
    13. Robert S. Pindyck, 2011. "Modeling the Impact of Warming in Climate Change Economics," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present, pages 47-71, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    15. Hepburn, Cameron & Koundouri, Phoebe & Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Pantelidis, Theologos, 2009. "Social discounting under uncertainty: A cross-country comparison," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 140-150, March.
    16. Kousky, Carolyn & Kopp, Robert E. & Cooke, Roger M., 2011. "Risk premia and the social cost of carbon: A review," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 5, pages 1-24.
    17. Kverndokk, Snorre & Nævdal, Eric & Nøstbakken, Linda, 2014. "The trade-off between intra- and intergenerational equity in climate policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 40-58.
    18. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    19. Mark Budolfson & Francis Dennig & Marc Fleurbaey & Asher Siebert & Robert H. Socolow, 2017. "The comparative importance for optimal climate policy of discounting, inequalities and catastrophes," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 481-494, December.
    20. Arvaniti, Maria, 2016. "Uncertainty, Extreme Outcomes and Climate Change: a critique," CERE Working Papers 2016:11, CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate change; social cost of carbon; discount rate; Ramsey rule; equity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
    • 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

    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:tin:wpaper:20130130. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.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.