Weak and strong sustainability in the SEEA: concepts and measurement.

In this paper, we explain how the latest international handbook on environmental accounting, the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting or SEEA (United Nations et al., 2003), can be used to measure weak and strong sustainability. We emphasise the importance of understanding the conceptual differences between weak and strong sustainability. We then outline what we consider to be current best practice in measurement, all the time flagging the relationship between our discussion and that of the SEEA-2003. This is an important task in our view, because, despite covering a very wide range of relevant conceptual and empirical issues, the handbook is by design not meant to provide clear guidelines for the purpose of measuring sustainability in either its weak or strong version.

Climate Policy under Sustainable Discounted Utilitarianism

Empirical evaluation of policies to mitigate climate change has been largely confined to the application of discounted utilitarianism (DU). DU is controversial, both due to the conditions through which it is justified and due to its consequences for climate policies, where the discounting of future utility gains from present abatement efforts makes it harder for such measures to justify their present costs. In this paper, we propose sustainable discounted utilitarianism (SDU) as an alternative principle for evaluation of climate policy. Unlike undiscounted utilitarianism, which always assigns zero relative weight to present utility, SDU is an axiomatically based criterion, which departs from DU by assigning zero weight to present utility if and only if the present is better off than the future. Using the DICE integrated assessment model to run risk analysis, we show that it is possible for the future to be worse off than the present along a ‘business as usual’ development path. Consequently SDU and DU differ, and willingness to pay for emissions reductions is (sometimes significantly) higher under SDU than under DU. Under SDU, stringent schedules of emissions reductions increase social welfare, even for a relatively high utility discount rate.climate change, discounted utilitarianism, intergenerational equity, sustainable development, sustainable discounted utilitarianism

Corruption, the Resource Curse and Genuine Saving

Genuine saving is an established indicator of weak sustainable development that measures the net level of investment a country makes in produced, natural and human capital less depreciation. Maintaining this net level of investment above zero is a necessary condition for sustainable development. However, data demonstrate that resource-rich countries are systematically failing to make this investment. Alongside the familiar resource curse on economic growth, resource abundance has a negative effect on genuine saving. In fact, the two are closely related insofar as future consumption growth is restricted by insufficient genuine saving now. In this paper, we apply the most convincing conclusion from the literature on economic growth - that it is institutional failure that depresses growth - to data on genuine saving. We regress genuine saving on four indicators of institutional quality in interaction with an indicator of resource abundance. The indicators of institutional quality are corruption, bureaucratic quality, the rule of law and political constraints on the executive. We find that reducing corruption has a positive impact on genuine savings that is robust across different estimation procedures.weak sustainability, corruption, institutional quality, resources, curse

Corruption, the resource curse and genuine saving.

Genuine saving measures net investment in produced, natural and human capital. It is a necessary condition for weak sustainable development that genuine saving not be persistently negative. However, according to data provided by the World Bank, resource-rich countries are systematically failing to meet this condition. Alongside the well-known resource curse on economic growth, resource abundance might have a negative effect on genuine saving. In fact, the two are closely related, as future consumption growth is limited by insufficient genuine saving now. In this paper, we apply the most convincing conclusion from the literature on economic growth – that it is institutional failure that depresses growth – to data on genuine saving. We regress gross and genuine saving on three indicators of institutional quality in interaction with an indicator of resource abundance. The indicators of institutional quality are corruption, bureaucratic quality and the rule of law. We find that reducing corruption has a positive impact on genuine saving in interaction with resource abundance. That is, the negative effect of resource abundance on genuine saving is reduced as corruption is reduced.

Ambiguity and insurance: capital requirements andpremiums

Many insurance contracts are contingent on events such as hurricanes, terrorist attacks or political upheavals, whose probabilities are ambiguous. This paper offers a theory to underpin the large body of empirical evidence showing that higher premiums are charged under ambiguity. We model a (re)insurer who maximises profit subject to a survival constraint that is sensitive to the range of estimates of the probability of ruin, as well as the insurer’s attitude towards this ambiguity. We characterise when one book of insurance is more ambiguous than another and general circumstances in which a more ambiguous book requires at least as large a capital holding. We subsequently derive several explicit formulae for the price of insurance contracts under ambiguity, each of which identifies the extra ambiguity load

Endogenous growth, convexity of damage and climate risk: how Nordhaus’ framework supports deep cuts in carbon emissions

‘To slow or not to slow’ (Nordhaus, 1991) was the first economic appraisal of greenhouse gas emissions abatement and founded a large literature on a topic of worldwide importance. We offer our assessment of the original article and trace its legacy, in particular Nordhaus's later series of ‘DICE’ models. From this work, many have drawn the conclusion that an efficient global emissions abatement policy comprises modest and modestly increasing controls. We use DICE itself to provide an initial illustration that, if the analysis is extended to take more strongly into account three essential elements of the climate problem – the endogeneity of growth, the convexity of damage and climate risk – optimal policy comprises strong controls. Nordhaus, W.D. (1991). ‘To slow or not to slow: the economics of the greenhouse effect’, Economic Journal, vol. 101(407), pp. 920–37

Strategic appraisal of environmental risks: a contrast between the United Kingdom's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and its Committee on Radioactive Waste Management

In this article, we compare two high-profile strategic policy reviews undertaken for the U.K. government on environmental risks: radioactive waste management and climate change. These reviews took very different forms, both in terms of analytic approach and deliberation strategy. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was largely an exercise in expert modeling, building, within a cost-benefit framework, an argument for immediate reductions in carbon emissions. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, on the other hand, followed a much more explicitly deliberative and participative process, using multicriteria decision analysis to bring together scientific evidence and stakeholder and public values. In this article, we ask why the two reviews were different, and whether the differences are justified. We conclude that the differences were mainly due to political context, rather than the underpinning science, and as a consequence that, while in our view “fit for purpose,” they would both have been stronger had they been less different. Stern's grappling with ethical issues could have been strengthened by a greater degree of public and stakeholder engagement, and the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management's handling of issues of uncertainty could have been strengthened by the explicitly probabilistic framework of Stern

Pricing ambiguity in catastrophe risk insurance

Ambiguity about the probability of loss is a salient feature of catastrophe risk insurance. Evidence shows that insurers charge higher premiums under ambiguity, but that they rely on simple heuristics to do so, rather than being able to turn to pricing tools that formally link ambiguity with the insurer’s underlying economic objective. In this paper, we apply an α-maxmin model of insurance pricing to two catastrophe model data sets relating to hurricane risk. The pricing model considers an insurer who maximises expected profit, but is sensitive to how ambiguity affects its risk of ruin. We estimate ambiguity loads and show how these depend on the insurer’s attitude to ambiguity, α. We also compare these results with those derived from applying model blending techniques that have recently gained popularity in the actuarial profession, and show that model blending can imply relatively low aversion to ambiguity, possibly ambiguity seeking