Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Nordhaus on the Stern Review - NBER working paper

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"The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change"
NBER Working Paper No. W12741


Contact: WILLIAM D. NORDHAUS
Yale University - Department of Economics, National
Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Email: william.nordhaus@yale.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=96028

Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=948654

ABSTRACT: How much and how fast should the globe reduce greenhouse-gas emissions? How should nations balance the costs of the reductions against the damages and dangers of climate change?
This question has been addressed by the recent Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, which answers these questions clearly and unambiguously. We need urgent, sharp, and immediate reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. An analysis of the Stern Review finds that these recommendations depend decisively on the assumption of a near-zero social discount rate. The Review's unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of discounting assumptions that are consistent with today's market place.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm torn. Tol & Yohe; "right for the wrong reasons" or Nordhaus "F for Fail".

I slightly favour Tol and Yohe because I think that the neuroeconmics of discounting show the human discount rates are based on hunter gatherer economies rather than industrial capitalism and associated externalities.

Still, pretty torn overall.