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Growth and Mitigation Policies with Uncertain Climate Change

Author

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  • Lucas Betschger
  • Alexandra Vinogradova
Abstract
Climate physics predicts that the intensity of natural disasters will increase in the future due to climate change. One of the biggest challenges for economic modeling is the inherent uncertainty of climate events, which crucially affects consumption, investment, and abatement decisions. We present a stochastic model of a growing economy where natural disasters are multiple and random, with damages driven by the economy's polluting activity. We provide a closed-form solution and show that the optimal path is characterized by a constant growth rate of consumption and the capital stock until a shock arrives, triggering a downward jump in both variables. Optimum mitigation policy consists of spending a constant fraction of output on emissions abatement. This fraction is an increasing function of the arrival rate, polluting intensity of output, and the damage intensity of emissions. A sharp response of the optimum growth rate and the abatement share to changes in the arrival rate and the damage intensity justifes more stringent climate policies as compared to the expectation-based scenario. We subsequently extend the baseline model by adding climate-induced fluctuations around the growth trend and stock-pollution effects, demonstrating robustness of our results. In a quantitative assessment of our model we show that the optimal abatement expenditure at the global level may represent 0.9% of output, which is equivalent to a tax of $71 per ton carbon.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucas Betschger & Alexandra Vinogradova, 2014. "Growth and Mitigation Policies with Uncertain Climate Change," OxCarre Working Papers 145, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:145
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    10. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2014. "Abrupt positive feedback and the social cost of carbon," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 28-41.
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    Cited by:

    1. Can Askan Mavi, 2017. "Creative Destruction vs Destructive Destruction ? : A Schumpeterian Approach for Adaptation and Mitigation," Working Papers halshs-01455297, HAL.
    2. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & Margot Hovsepian, 2017. "Green Technology Adoption and the Business Cycle," CESifo Working Paper Series 6485, CESifo.
    3. Marc Chesney & Pierre Lasserre & Bruno Troja, 2017. "Mitigating global warming: a real options approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 255(1), pages 465-506, August.
    4. Müller-Fürstenberger, Georg & Schumacher, Ingmar, 2015. "Insurance and climate-driven extreme events," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 59-73.
    5. Mavi, Can Askan, 2024. "Creative destruction vs destructive destruction: A Schumpeterian approach for adaptation and mitigation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 36-53.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate policy; uncertainty; natural disasters; endogenous growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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