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Green Ambiguity

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Abstract

Agents may be unsure about the productive potential of green technology and of the non-polluting sector due to imprecise information or misguiding news. I study the impact of this deep uncertainty in the context of the transition to a low-carbon economy in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with polluting and green sectors and agents who, due to their ambiguity aversion, take decisions under pessimistic expectations about the future productivity of the latter sector. In the short term, losses of confidence can shift the balance of the economy in favor of investment in the polluting sector and lead to an increase in emissions. Coupling environmental tax and green subsidy can partially counteract this imbalance when the long-run forecast of agents ends up realizing, while also avoiding delays in the green transition. A dynamic version of the policy mix is also able to mitigate the short-term effects of drops in confidence.

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  • Marco Carli, 2025. "Green Ambiguity," CEIS Research Paper 591, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 05 Feb 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:591
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business Cycle; Ambiguity; E-DSGE;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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