IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ube/dpvwib/dp1008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Really Matters: Discounting, Technological Change and Sustainable Climate

Author

Listed:
  • Georg M ller-F rstenberger
  • Gunter Stephan

Abstract

This paper discusses the interplay between the choice of the discount rate, greenhouse gas mitigation and endogenous technological change. Neglecting the issue of uncertainty it is shown that the green golden rule stock of atmospheric carbon is uniquely determined, but is not affected by technological change. More general it is shown analytically within the framework of a reduced model of integrated assessment that optimal stationary stocks of atmospheric carbon depend on the choice of the discount rate, but are independent of the stock of technological knowledge. These results are then reinforced numerically in a fully specified integrated assessment analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Georg M ller-F rstenberger & Gunter Stephan, 2010. "What Really Matters: Discounting, Technological Change and Sustainable Climate," Diskussionsschriften dp1008, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    • Handle: RePEc:ube:dpvwib:dp1008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.vwiit.ch/dp/dp1008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brannlund, Runar & Ghalwash, Tarek & Nordstrom, Jonas, 2007. "Increased energy efficiency and the rebound effect: Effects on consumption and emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Loschel, Andreas, 2002. "Technological change in economic models of environmental policy: a survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2-3), pages 105-126, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Nathalie Lazaric & Kevin Maréchal, 2010. "Overcoming inertia: insights from evolutionary economics into improved energy and climate policy," Post-Print hal-00452205, HAL.
    2. Susana Silva & Isabel Soares & Óscar Afonso, 2010. "E3 Models Revisited," FEP Working Papers 393, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    3. Halvor Briseid Storrøsten, 2012. "Prices vs. quantities: Technology choice, uncertainty and welfare," Discussion Papers 677, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    4. Zhang, Hui & Cao, Libin & Zhang, Bing, 2017. "Emissions trading and technology adoption: An adaptive agent-based analysis of thermal power plants in China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 23-32.
    5. Chitnis, Mona & Sorrell, Steve & Druckman, Angela & Firth, Steven K. & Jackson, Tim, 2014. "Who rebounds most? Estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for different UK socioeconomic groups," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 12-32.
    6. Battke, Benedikt & Schmidt, Tobias S. & Stollenwerk, Stephan & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2016. "Internal or external spillovers—Which kind of knowledge is more likely to flow within or across technologies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 27-41.
    7. Perino, Grischa & Requate, Till, 2012. "Does more stringent environmental regulation induce or reduce technology adoption? When the rate of technology adoption is inverted U-shaped," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 456-467.
    8. Hübler, Michael, 2011. "Technology diffusion under contraction and convergence: A CGE analysis of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 131-142, January.
    9. Mort Webster & Karen Fisher-Vanden & David Popp & Nidhi Santen, 2017. "Should We Give Up after Solyndra? Optimal Technology R&D Portfolios under Uncertainty," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(S1), pages 123-151.
    10. Julien Lefevre, 2018. "Modeling the Socioeconomic Impacts of the Adoption of a Carbon Pricing Instrument – Literature review," CIRED Working Papers hal-03128619, HAL.
    11. Soumyananda Dinda, 2018. "Production technology and carbon emission: long-run relation with short-run dynamics," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 106-121, January.
    12. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2011-042 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Chitnis, Mona & Sorrell, Steve, 2015. "Living up to expectations: Estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for UK households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(S1), pages 100-116.
    14. Ouyang, Jinlong & Long, Enshen & Hokao, Kazunori, 2010. "Rebound effect in Chinese household energy efficiency and solution for mitigating it," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 5269-5276.
    15. Bonev, Petyo & Glachant, Matthieu & Söderberg, Magnus, 2022. "Implicit yardstick competition between heating monopolies in urban areas: Theory and evidence from Sweden," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    16. Donglan Zha & Qian Chen & Jaume Freire González, 2023. "The Gap between Expectations and Reality: Assessing the Water Rebound Effect in Chinese Agriculture," Working Papers 1415, Barcelona School of Economics.
    17. Shang, Hua & Jiang, Li & Pan, Xianyou & Pan, Xiongfeng, 2022. "Green technology innovation spillover effect and urban eco-efficiency convergence: Evidence from Chinese cities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    18. Orea, Luis & Llorca, Manuel & Filippini, Massimo, 2015. "A new approach to measuring the rebound effect associated to energy efficiency improvements: An application to the US residential energy demand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 599-609.
    19. Wang, Xiaolin & Ye, Yingying, 2024. "Environmental protection tax and firms’ ESG investment: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    20. Wiebe, Kirsten S. & Lutz, Christian, 2016. "Endogenous technological change and the policy mix in renewable power generation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 739-751.
    21. Weber, Thomas A. & Neuhoff, Karsten, 2010. "Carbon markets and technological innovation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 115-132, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Integrated Assessment; discount rate; endogenous technological change; climate change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products

    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:ube:dpvwib:dp1008. 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: Franz Koelliker (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vwibech.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.