Working Paper : 2009


Authors Brock, W. and Xepapadeas, A.
Title Regional climate policy under deep uncertainty: robust control and distributional concerns
Abstract We study climate change policies using the novel pattern scaling approach of regional transient climate response in order to develop a regional economy-climate model under conditions of deep uncertainty. We associate welfare weights with regions and analyze cooperative outcomes derived by the social planner's solution at the regional scale. Recent literature indicates that damages are larger in low latitude (warmer) areas and are projected to become relatively even larger in low latitude areas than at temperate latitudes. Under deep uncertainty, robust control policies are more conservative regarding emissions and, when regional distributional weights are introduced, carbon taxes are lower in the relatively poorer region. Mild concerns for robustness are welfare improving for the poor region, while strong concerns have welfare cost for all regions. We show that increasing regional temperatures will increase resources devoted to learning, in order to reduce deep uncertainty.
Creation Date 2020-03-18
Keywords regional temperature anomalies, deep uncertainty, distributional weights, cost of robustness, learning
Classification JEL Q54, Q58, D81
File Regional.Robust.Revision2020.pdf (392851 bytes)
File-Function First version

Copyright © 2009 [D.I.E.S.S. A.U.E.B.]. All rights reserved.