IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/ccexxx/v07y2016i02ns2010007816500020.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Some Research Challenges In The Economics Of Climate Change

Author

Listed:
  • MARSHALL BURKE

    (Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA)

  • MELANIE CRAXTON

    (Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA)

  • CHARLES D. KOLSTAD

    (Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA)

  • CHIKARA ONDA

    (Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA)

Abstract

The paper reviews progress in understanding the economics of climate change with an emphasis on identifying promising advances that are both significant and nonmarginal, as well as areas in which there are key gaps in our knowledge. We highlight several important areas in which important policy-relevant research questions remain: improving estimates of climate damage used for determining the social cost of carbon, refining integrated assessment models, and designing better climate policies. As the world moves to understand and implement country emissions reduction pledges in the context of the UNFCCC, understanding the economics of the problem will become even more important. The hope is that the paper is not only informative for existing economists already working in climate change economics, but that it also serves as an inspiration for economists in other areas, or even those in other disciplines, on ways in which to contribute to solving the problem at hand.

Suggested Citation

  • Marshall Burke & Melanie Craxton & Charles D. Kolstad & Chikara Onda, 2016. "Some Research Challenges In The Economics Of Climate Change," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(02), pages 1-14, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:ccexxx:v:07:y:2016:i:02:n:s2010007816500020
    DOI: 10.1142/S2010007816500020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010007816500020
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2010007816500020?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. Marshall Burke & Solomon M. Hsiang & Edward Miguel, 2015. "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production," Nature, Nature, vol. 527(7577), pages 235-239, November.
    2. Weitzman, Martin L., 2011. "Revisiting Fat-Tailed Uncertainty in the Economics of Climate Change," Scholarly Articles 11130443, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    3. Ian W. R. Martin & Robert S. Pindyck, 2015. "Averting Catastrophes: The Strange Economics of Scylla and Charybdis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 2947-2985, October.
    4. Derek Lemoine & Christian Traeger, 2014. "Watch Your Step: Optimal Policy in a Tipping Climate," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 137-166, February.
    5. Marshall Burke & Kyle Emerick, 2016. "Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from US Agriculture," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 106-140, August.
    6. Hunt Allcott & Michael Greenstone, 2012. "Is There an Energy Efficiency Gap?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    7. Kenneth J. Arrow & Maureen L. Cropper & Christian Gollier & Ben Groom & Geoffrey M. Heal & Richard G. Newell & William D. Nordhaus & Robert S. Pindyck & William A. Pizer & Paul R. Portney & Thomas Ste, 2014. "Editor's Choice Should Governments Use a Declining Discount Rate in Project Analysis?," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(2), pages 145-163.
    8. Robert S. Pindyck, 2013. "Climate Change Policy: What Do the Models Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 860-872, September.
    9. Severin Borenstein, 2012. "The Private and Public Economics of Renewable Electricity Generation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 67-92, Winter.
    10. Martin L. Weitzman, 2013. "Tail-Hedge Discounting and the Social Cost of Carbon," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 873-882, September.
    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. Lawrence H. Goulder & Roberton C. Williams, 2012. "The Choice Of Discount Rate For Climate Change Policy Evaluation," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(04), pages 1-18.
    13. Frances C. Moore & Delavane B. Diaz, 2015. "Temperature impacts on economic growth warrant stringent mitigation policy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(2), pages 127-131, February.
    14. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2012. "Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 66-95, July.
    15. Nicholas Stern, 2013. "The Structure of Economic Modeling of the Potential Impacts of Climate Change: Grafting Gross Underestimation of Risk onto Already Narrow Science Models," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 838-859, September.
    16. 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.
    17. Nordhaus, William D., 1993. "Rolling the 'DICE': an optimal transition path for controlling greenhouse gases," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 27-50, March.
    18. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801, November.
    19. Nordhaus, William D, 1977. "Economic Growth and Climate: The Carbon Dioxide Problem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(1), pages 341-346, February.
    20. Sterner, Thomas & Tol, Richard S. J. & Weitzman, Martin L. & Pizer, William A. & Portney, Paul R. & Arrow, Kenneth J. & Cropper, Maureen L. & Gollier, Christian & Groom, Ben & Heal, Geoffrey M. & Newe, 2014. "Should Governments Use a Declining Discount Rate in Project Analysis?," Scholarly Articles 33373349, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    21. Martin L. Weitzman, 2011. "Fat-Tailed Uncertainty in the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(2), pages 275-292, Summer.
    22. Kelly, David L. & Kolstad, Charles D. & Mitchell, Glenn T., 2005. "Adjustment costs from environmental change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 468-495, November.
    23. Kelly, David L. & Kolstad, Charles D., 1999. "Bayesian learning, growth, and pollution," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 491-518, February.
    24. 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.
    25. Frances C. Moore & Delavane B. Diaz, 2015. "Erratum: Temperature impacts on economic growth warrant stringent mitigation policy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 280-280, March.
    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. Falk, Martin & Lin, Xiang, 2018. "Sensitivity of winter tourism to temperature increases over the last decades," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 174-183.
    2. Martin Falk & Xiang Lin, 2018. "The declining dependence of ski lift operators on natural snow conditions," Tourism Economics, , vol. 24(6), pages 662-676, September.
    3. Arellano Gonzalez, Jesus, 2018. "Estimating climate change damages in data scarce and non-competitive settings: a novel version of the Ricardian approach with an application to Mexico," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274010, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Arellano Gonzalez Jesus, 2023. "Irrigation, Adaptation and Climate Change: Panel Data Evidence for Maize in Mexico," Working Papers 2023-05, Banco de México.

    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. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.t., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114941, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Kent D. Daniel & Robert B. Litterman & Gernot Wagner, 2016. "Applying Asset Pricing Theory to Calibrate the Price of Climate Risk," NBER Working Papers 22795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.T., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    5. J. Farmer & Cameron Hepburn & Penny Mealy & Alexander Teytelboym, 2015. "A Third Wave in the Economics of Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(2), pages 329-357, October.
    6. Hjort, Ingrid, 2016. "Potential Climate Risks in Financial Markets: A Literature Overview," Memorandum 01/2016, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    7. Marco Letta & Richard S. J. Tol, 2019. "Weather, Climate and Total Factor Productivity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(1), pages 283-305, May.
    8. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Wenz, Leonie, 2020. "The impact of climate conditions on economic production. Evidence from a global panel of regions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    9. Franziska Piontek & Matthias Kalkuhl & Elmar Kriegler & Anselm Schultes & Marian Leimbach & Ottmar Edenhofer & Nico Bauer, 2019. "Economic Growth Effects of Alternative Climate Change Impact Channels in Economic Modeling," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1357-1385, August.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    13. Yongyang Cai, 2020. "The Role of Uncertainty in Controlling Climate Change," Papers 2003.01615, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.
    14. Chang, Jun-Jie & Mi, Zhifu & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2023. "Temperature and GDP: A review of climate econometrics analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 383-392.
    15. Peter von zur Muehlen, 2022. "Prices and Taxes in a Ramsey Climate Policy Model under Heterogeneous Beliefs and Ambiguity," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-56, October.
    16. Tsigaris, Panagiotis & Wood, Joel, 2016. "A simple climate-Solow model for introducing the economics of climate change to undergraduate students," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 65-81.
    17. 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.
    18. Kelly, David L. & Tan, Zhuo, 2015. "Learning and climate feedbacks: Optimal climate insurance and fat tails," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 98-122.
    19. Fesselmeyer, Eric & Liu, Haoming & Salvo, Alberto, 2016. "How Do Households Discount over Centuries? Evidence from Singapore's Private Housing Market," IZA Discussion Papers 9862, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. De Juan Fernández, Aránzazu & Poncela, Pilar & Rodríguez Caballero, Carlos Vladimir, 2022. "Economic activity and climate change," DES - Working Papers. Statistics and Econometrics. WS 35044, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Estadística.

    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:wsi:ccexxx:v:07:y:2016:i:02:n:s2010007816500020. 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/cce/cce.shtml .

    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.