IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v65y2016i3d10.1007_s10640-016-0036-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heterogeneous Beliefs and Climate Catastrophes

Author

Listed:
  • Tatiana Kiseleva

    (Free University Amsterdam)

Abstract

We study how heterogeneous beliefs about the causes and extent of global warming affect local mitigation and adaptation strategies and therefore global climate dynamics. Local policies are determined by expectations of policy makers about future climate. There are three types of expectations: strong skeptic, weak skeptic and ‘science-based’. Strong skeptics deny human-induced climate change and a possibility of a climate catastrophe. Weak skeptics believe that industrial emissions cause global warming, but deny catastrophic climate change. Science-based policy makers, considering the warning of the scientific community, account for both: human influence on climate and possible catastrophic shifts. Aggregate behavior of policy makers determines the total emission level which influences global climate dynamics. The paper argues that even if there are only skeptical policy makers the climate catastrophe can still be avoided.

Suggested Citation

  • Tatiana Kiseleva, 2016. "Heterogeneous Beliefs and Climate Catastrophes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(3), pages 599-622, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:65:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s10640-016-0036-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10640-016-0036-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-016-0036-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10640-016-0036-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karl-Göran Mäler & Anastasios Xepapadeas & Aart de Zeeuw, 2003. "The Economics of Shallow Lakes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(4), pages 603-624, December.
    2. van Wijnbergen, Sweder & Willems, Tim, 2015. "Optimal learning on climate change: Why climate skeptics should reduce emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 17-33.
    3. Hommes,Cars, 2015. "Behavioral Rationality and Heterogeneous Expectations in Complex Economic Systems," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107564978, January.
    4. Diks, Cees & van der Weide, Roy, 2005. "Herding, a-synchronous updating and heterogeneity in memory in a CBS," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 741-763, April.
    5. Wagener, F. O. O., 2003. "Skiba points and heteroclinic bifurcations, with applications to the shallow lake system," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1533-1561, July.
    6. Jonathan Boston & Frieder Lempp, 2011. "Climate change," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 24(8), pages 1000-1021, October.
    7. Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Jeroen Bergh, 2011. "Environmental Policy Theory Given Bounded Rationality and Other-regarding Preferences," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(2), pages 263-304, June.
    8. Thierry Bréchet & Carmen Camacho & Vladimir Veliov, 2014. "Model predictive control, the economy, and the issue of global warming," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 220(1), pages 25-48, September.
    9. Shogren, Jason F., 2002. "A behavioral mindset on environment policy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 355-369.
    10. Hommes, Cars & Kiseleva, Tatiana & Kuznetsov, Yuri & Verbic, Miroslav, 2012. "Is More Memory In Evolutionary Selection (De)Stabilizing?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 335-357, June.
    11. Millner, Antony & Ollivier, Hélène & Simon, Leo, 2014. "Policy experimentation, political competition, and heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 84-96.
    12. Kossioris, G. & Plexousakis, M. & Xepapadeas, A. & de Zeeuw, A. & Mäler, K.-G., 2008. "Feedback Nash equilibria for non-linear differential games in pollution control," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1312-1331, April.
    13. Gowdy, John M., 2008. "Behavioral economics and climate change policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 632-644, December.
    14. Kjell Arne Brekke & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2008. "The behavioural economics of climate change," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 24(2), pages 280-297, Summer.
    15. Miranda A. Schreurs & Yves Tiberghien, 2007. "Multi-Level Reinforcement: Explaining European Union Leadership in Climate Change Mitigation," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 19-46, November.
    16. van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M. & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada & Munda, Giuseppe, 2000. "Alternative models of individual behaviour and implications for environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 43-61, January.
    17. Jason F. Shogren & Laura O. Taylor, 2008. "On Behavioral-Environmental Economics," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(1), pages 26-44, Winter.
    18. Thierry Bréchet & Natali Hritonenko & Yuri Yatsenko, 2013. "Adaptation and Mitigation in Long-term Climate Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(2), pages 217-243, June.
    19. Udo Ebert & Heinz Welsch, 2012. "Adaptation and Mitigation in Global Pollution Problems: Economic Impacts of Productivity, Sensitivity, and Adaptive Capacity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 52(1), pages 49-64, May.
    20. Mark Kagan, 2012. "Climate Change Skepticism in the Face of Catastrophe," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-112/VIII, Tinbergen Institute, revised 29 Sep 2014.
    21. Kiseleva, Tatiana & Wagener, F.O.O., 2010. "Bifurcations of optimal vector fields in the shallow lake model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 825-843, May.
    22. Venkatachalam, L., 2008. "Behavioral economics for environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 640-645, November.
    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. Grant R. McDermott, 2021. "Skeptic priors and climate consensus," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 1-23, May.
    2. Natali Hritonenko & Victoria Hritonenko & Yuri Yatsenko, 2020. "Games with Adaptation and Mitigation," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Marcel Nutz & Florian Stebegg, 2021. "Climate Change Adaptation under Heterogeneous Beliefs," Papers 2101.08424, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2022.
    4. Marcel Nutz & Florian Stebegg, 2022. "Climate change adaptation under heterogeneous beliefs," Mathematics and Financial Economics, Springer, volume 16, number 3, February.

    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. Markus Pasche, 2013. "What Can be Learned from Behavioural Economics for Environmental Policy?," Jena Economics Research Papers 2013-020, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    2. Daniel Osberghaus, 2017. "Prospect theory, mitigation and adaptation to climate change," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(7), pages 909-930, July.
    3. Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Jeroen Bergh, 2011. "Environmental Policy Theory Given Bounded Rationality and Other-regarding Preferences," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(2), pages 263-304, June.
    4. Goeschl, Timo & Kettner, Sara Elisa & Lohse, Johannes & Schwieren, Christiane, 2015. "What do we learn from public good games about voluntary climate action? Evidence from an artefactual field experiment," Working Papers 0595, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    5. Goeschl, Timo & Kettner, Sara Elisa & Lohse, Johannes & Schwieren, Christiane, 2020. "How much can we learn about voluntary climate action from behavior in public goods games?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    6. Wagener, F.O.O., 2013. "Economics of environmental regime shifts," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-08, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    7. Florian Wagener, 2013. "Shallow lake economics run deep: nonlinear aspects of an economic-ecological interest conflict," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 423-450, December.
    8. Dmitry Gromov & Thorsten Upmann, 2021. "Dynamics and Economics of Shallow Lakes: A Survey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-16, December.
    9. Schubert, Christian, 2017. "Green nudges: Do they work? Are they ethical?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 329-342.
    10. Engelbert Dockner & Florian Wagener, 2014. "Markov perfect Nash equilibria in models with a single capital stock," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(3), pages 585-625, August.
    11. Alessandro Tavoni & Simon Levin, 2014. "Managing the climate commons at the nexus of ecology, behaviour and economics," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(12), pages 1057-1063, December.
    12. Heijnen, P. & Wagener, F.O.O., 2013. "Avoiding an ecological regime shift is sound economic policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1322-1341.
    13. Martin Kesternich & Christiane Reif & Dirk Rübbelke, 2017. "Recent Trends in Behavioral Environmental Economics," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 403-411, July.
    14. Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Jeroen den Bergh, 2013. "Bounded rationality and social interaction in negotiating a climate agreement," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 225-249, September.
    15. Gsottbauer, Elisabeth & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2014. "Environmental policy when pollutive consumption is sensitive to advertising: Norms versus status," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 39-50.
    16. Salerno, Gillian & Beard, Rodney & McDonald, Stuart, 2007. "Rent Seeking Behavior and Optimal Taxation of Pollution in Shallow Lakes," MPRA Paper 11225, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 22 Oct 2008.
    17. Francesco Bartaloni, 2021. "Existence of the Optimum in Shallow Lake Type Models with Hysteresis Effect," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 190(2), pages 358-392, August.
    18. Kossioris, G. & Plexousakis, M. & Xepapadeas, A. & de Zeeuw, A., 2011. "On the optimal taxation of common-pool resources," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 1868-1879.
    19. Yildiz, Özgür, 2014. "Lehren aus der Verhaltensökonomik für die Gestaltung umweltpolitischer Maßnahmen [Lessons from behavioral economics for the design of environmental policy measures]," MPRA Paper 59360, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Wagener, Florian & de Zeeuw, Aart, 2021. "Stable partial cooperation in managing systems with tipping points," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Adaptation; Catastrophes; Climate change; Heterogeneous beliefs; Skepticism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:kap:enreec:v:65:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s10640-016-0036-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.