A RATIONAL, SUCCESSIVE G-INDEX APPLIED TO ECONOMICS DEPARTMENTS IN IRELAND

A rational, successive g-index is proposed, and applied to economics departments in Ireland. The successive g-index has greater discriminatory power than the successive h-index, and the rational index performs better still. The rational, successive g-index is also more robust to difference in department size.rankings, individuals, departments

International inequity aversion and the social cost of carbon

I define the rate of inequity aversion, distinguishing between the pure rate and the consumption rate. I measure the rate of aversion to inequality in consumption as expressed in the development aid given by rich countries to poor ones between 1965 and 2005. There is an ambiguous relationship between the pure rate of inequity aversion and the consumption rate, driven by the rate of risk aversion. However, for a reasonable choice of the rate of risk aversion, rich countries are shown to be inequity averse, and increasingly so over time. The social cost of carbon is very sensitive to equity weighting and assumptions about the rate of risk and inequity aversion. Estimates for the consumption rate of inequity aversion for recent data suggest that the equity-weighted social cost of carbon is less than 50% larger than the unweighted estimate.Inequity aversion, risk aversion, income distribution, development aid, climate change, social cost of carbon

EMISSION ABATEMENT VERSUS DEVELOPMENT AS STRATEGIES TO REDUCE VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE: AN APPLICATION OF FUND

Poorer countries are generally believed to be more vulnerable to climate change than richer countries because poorer countries are more exposed and have less adaptive capacity. This suggests that, in principle, there are two ways of reducing vulnerability to climate change: economic growth and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Using a complex climate change impact model, in which development is an important determinant of vulnerability, the hypothesis is tested whether development aid is more effective in reducing impacts than is emission abatement. The hypothesis is barely rejected for Asia but strongly accepted for Latin America and, particularly, Africa. The explanation for the difference is that development (aid) reduces vulnerabilities in some sectors (infectious diseases, water resources, agriculture) but increases vulnerabilities in others (cardiovascular diseases, energy consumption). However, climate change impacts are much higher in Latin America and Africa than in Asia, so that money spent on emission reduction for the sake of avoiding impacts in developing countries is better spent on vulnerability reduction in those countries.climate change, climate change impacts, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, development

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT MODELLING

integrated assessment

The Polluter Pays Principle and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Climate Change: An Application of Fund

I compare and contrast five climate scenarios: (1) no climate policy; (2) non-cooperative cost-benefit analysis (NC CBA); (3) NC CBA with international permit trade; (4) NC CBA with joint and several liability for climate change damages; and (5) NC CBA with liability proportional to a country’s share in cumulative emissions. As estimates of the marginal damage costs are low, standard NC CBA implies only limited emission abatement. With international permit trade, emission abatement is even less, as the carbon tax is reduced in countries with fast-growing emissions, and because a permit market ignores the positive, dynamic externalities of abatement. Proportional liability shifts abatement effort towards the richer countries, but away from the fast-growing economies; again, long-term, global emission abatement is reduced. Joint and several liability would lead to more stringent climate policy. These findings are qualitatively robust to the size and accounting of climate change impacts, to the definition of liability, and to the baseline scenarioClimate Change, Cost-benefit Analysis, Liability, Permit Trade

TECHNOLOGY PROTOCOLS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: AN APPLICATION OF FUND

A technology protocol to govern long-term international greenhouse gas emission reduction is proposed. The protocol consists of three parameters: a graduation income, below which countries have no emission reduction obligations; a convergence rate, at which emission intensities should approach that of the most carbon-extensive countries; and an acceleration rate, at the which the most carbon-extensive countries should improve its technology over and above the business as usual scenario. Depending on the parameter values, emission reduction ranges from draconian to almost nil. The graduation income and acceleration rate have the expected effects. The effect of the convergence rate is strongly scenario-dependent; some scenarios, perhaps unrealistically assume strong technological convergence in the no policy case; in other scenarios, adopting best commercial technology in the whole world would lead to substantial emission reduction. Not surprisingly, regions prefer different parameters in the technology protocol. Adopting the opinion of the median voter, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in the year 2200 would be reduced from 1650 ppm to 950 ppm. This reduction is relatively robust to changes in crucial model parameters. The costs of complying to the technology protocol can be reduced substantially through international trade in emission permits and, particularly, banking and borrowing.climate change, international climate policy, technology, integrated assessment

Is the Uncertainty about Climate Change Too Large for Expected Cost-Benefit Analysis?

Cost-benefit analysis is only applicable if the variances of both costs and benefits are finite. In the case of climate change, the variances of the net present marginal costs and benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction need to be finite. Finiteness is hard, if not impossible to prove. The opposite is easier to establish as one needs to shows that there is one, not impossible representation of the climate change with infinite variance. The paper shows that all relevant current variables of the FUND model have finite variances. However, there is a small chance that climate change reverses economic growth in some regions. In that case, the discount rate becomes negative and the net present marginal benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction becomes very large. So large, that its variance is unbounded.Climate change, cost-benefit analysis, uncertainty

THE SOCIAL COST OF CARBON: TRENDS, OUTLIERS AND CATASTROPHES

211 estimates of the social cost of carbon are included in a meta-analysis. The results confirm that a lower discount rate implies a higher estimate; and that higher estimates are found in the gray literature. It is also found that there is a downward trend in the economic impact estimates of the climate; that the Stern Review’s estimates of the social cost of carbon is an outlier; and that the right tail of the distribution is fat. There is a fair chance that the annual climate liability exceeds the annual income of many people.climate change, social cost of carbon

THE DOUBLE TRADE-OFF BETWEEN ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION FOR SEA LEVEL RISE: AN APPLICATION OF FUND

The effects of adaptation and mitigation on the impacts of sea level rise are studied. Without either, the impacts of sea level rise would be substantial, almost wiping out entire nations before 2100; the global effect is much smaller. Adaptation would reduce impacts by a factor 10 to 100. As adaptation depends on socio-economic status, the rank order of most vulnerable countries is not the same as the rank order of most exposed countries. Adaptation would come at a minor cost compared to the damage avoided. Because the momentum of sea level rise is so large, mitigation can reduce impacts only to a limited extent. Stabilising carbon dioxide concentrations at 550 ppm would cut impacts up to 2100 by about 10%. However, if the costs of emission reduction are also factored in, then avoided impacts are less by up to 25% (average 10%). This is partly due to the reduced availability of resources for adaptation, and partly due to the increased sensitivity to wetland loss by adaptation.Sea level rise, mitigation, adaptation

OF THE H-INDEX AND ITS ALTERNATIVES: AN APPLICATION TO THE 100 MOST PROLIFIC ECONOMISTS

The h-index is a recent but already quite popular way of measuring research quality and quantity. However, it discounts highly-cited papers. The g-index corrects for this, but it is sensitivity to the number of never-cited papers. Besides, h- or g-index-based rankings have a large number of ties. Therefore, this paper introduces two new indices, and tests their performance for the 100 most prolific economists. A researcher has a t-number (f-number) of t (f) if t (f) is the largest number for which it holds that she has t (f) publications for which the geometric (harmonic) average number of citations is at least t (f). The new indices overcome the shortcomings of the old indices.rankings