IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ums/papers/2011-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Positional goods, climate change and the social returns to investment

Author

Listed:
  • Leila Davis

    (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

  • Peter Skott

    (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Abstract

The economic analysis of global warming is dominated by models based on optimal growth theory. This approach can generate biases in the presence of positional goods and status effects. We show that by ignoring these direct consumption externalities, integrated assessment models overestimate the social return to conventional investment and underestimate the optimal amount of investment in mitigation. Empirical evidence on the influence of relative consumption on utility suggests that the bias could be quantitatively significant. Our results from a simple survey support this conclusion. JEL Categories: Q13, I3, E1

Suggested Citation

  • Leila Davis & Peter Skott, 2011. "Positional goods, climate change and the social returns to investment," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2011-24, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ums:papers:2011-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.umass.edu/economics/publications/2011-24.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William D. Nordhaus, 2006. "Principles of National Accounting For Nonmarket Accounts," NBER Chapters, in: A New Architecture for the US National Accounts, pages 143-160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ackerman, Frank & Stanton, Elizabeth A. & Bueno, Ramón, 2013. "CRED: A new model of climate and development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 166-176.
    3. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July.
    4. Fafchamps, Marcel & Shilpi, Forhad, 2008. "Subjective welfare, isolation, and relative consumption," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 43-60, April.
    5. Richard Howarth, 2000. "Climate Change and the Representative Agent," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 15(2), pages 135-148, February.
    6. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2002. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 402-435, June.
    7. Robert H. Frank, 2005. "Positional Externalities Cause Large and Preventable Welfare Losses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 137-141, May.
    8. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Olivier Blanchard, 2009. "The State of Macro," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 209-228, May.
    11. 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.
    12. Dale W. Jorgenson, 2009. "A New Architecture For The U.S. National Accounts," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 1-42, March.
    13. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2005. "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 963-1002.
    14. 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.
    15. Ng, Y.K. & Wang, J., 1993. "A Case for Cardinal Utility and Aritrary Choice of Commodity Units," Papers 93-26, New South Wales - School of Economics.
    16. Armon Rezai & Duncan K. Foley & Lance Taylor, 2016. "Global Warming and Economic Externalities," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Graciela Chichilnisky & Armon Rezai (ed.), The Economics of the Global Environment, pages 447-470, Springer.
    17. Thomas Michl, 2010. "Discounting Nordhaus," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 535-549.
    18. William D. Nordhaus, 2006. "The "Stern Review" on the Economics of Climate Change," NBER Working Papers 12741, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Skott, Peter & Davis, Leila, 2013. "Distributional biases in the analysis of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 188-197.

    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. Skott, Peter & Davis, Leila, 2013. "Distributional biases in the analysis of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 188-197.
    2. Hambel, Christoph & Kraft, Holger & Schwartz, Eduardo S., 2019. "Optimal carbon abatement in a stochastic equilibrium model with climate change," SAFE Working Paper Series 92, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    3. Christoph Hambel & Holger Kraft & Eduardo Schwartz, 2015. "Optimal Carbon Abatement in a Stochastic Equilibrium Model with Climate Change," NBER Working Papers 21044, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Asjad Naqvi, 2015. "Modeling Growth, Distribution, and the Environment in a Stock-Flow Consistent Framework. WWWforEurope Policy Paper No. 18," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 57883, March.
    5. Naqvi, Syed Ali Asjad, 2015. "Modeling Growth, Distribution, and the Environment in a Stock-Flow Consistent Framework," Ecological Economic Papers 2, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    6. Luca Gerotto & Paolo Pellizzari, 2021. "A replication of Pindyck’s willingness to pay: on the efforts required to obtain results," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(5), pages 1-25, May.
    7. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter, 2011. "Does relative income matter for the very poor? Evidence from rural Ethiopia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 213-215, March.
    8. Pindyck, Robert S., 2012. "Uncertain outcomes and climate change policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 289-303.
    9. Adrian Amelung, 2016. "Das "Paris-Agreement": Durchbruch der Top-Down-Klimaschutzverhandlungen im Kreise der Vereinten Nationen," Otto-Wolff-Institut Discussion Paper Series 03/2016, Otto-Wolff-Institut für Wirtschaftsordnung, Köln, Deutschland.
    10. Ravallion, Martin & Lokshin, Michael, 2010. "Who cares about relative deprivation?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 171-185, February.
    11. Atsebi, Jean-Marc Bédhat & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2022. "Relative deprivation in Tanzania: Relative concerns and empathy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 389-408.
    12. Dobes Leo & Jotzo Frank & Stern David I., 2014. "The Economics of Global Climate Change: A Historical Literature Review," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 65(3), pages 281-320, December.
    13. Rick Baker & Andrew Barker & Alan Johnston & Michael Kohlhaas, 2008. "The Stern Review: an assessment of its methodology," Staff Working Papers 0801, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia.
    14. Armon Rezai & Frederick Van Der Ploeg, 2017. "Abandoning Fossil Fuel: How Fast and How Much," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(S2), pages 16-44, December.
    15. De Bandt Olivier, & Jacolin Luc, & Lemaire Thibault., 2021. "Climate Change in Developing Countries: Global Warming Effects,Transmission Channels and Adaptation Policies," Working papers 822, Banque de France.
    16. Chen, Joe & Choi, Yun Jeong & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2009. "How is suicide different in Japan?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 140-150, March.
    17. Tol, Richard S. J., 2011. "Modified Ramsey Discounting for Climate Change," Papers WP368, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    18. Jean-Marc Bédhat Atsebi & Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2019. "Relative Deprivation in Tanzania," Working Papers 1124, Barcelona School of Economics.
    19. Lamperti, F. & Dosi, G. & Napoletano, M. & Roventini, A. & Sapio, A., 2018. "Faraway, So Close: Coupled Climate and Economic Dynamics in an Agent-based Integrated Assessment Model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 315-339.
    20. Chen, Yu-Fu & Funke, Michael & Glanemann, Nicole, 2011. "Dark Clouds or Silver Linings? Knightian Uncertainty and Climate Change," SIRE Discussion Papers 2011-64, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    representative agent; consumption externalities; positional goods; relative consumption; welfare; global warming; discount rates.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • E1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models

    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:ums:papers:2011-24. 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: Daniele Girardi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deumaus.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.