TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pindyck, Robert S
TI  - Modeling the Impact of Warming in Climate Change Economics
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15692
PY  - 2010
Y2  - January 2010
DO  - 10.3386/w15692
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15692
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15692.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert S. Pindyck
MIT Sloan School of Management
100 Main Street, E62-522
Cambridge, MA  02142
Tel: 617/253-6641
Fax: 617/258-6855
E-Mail: RPINDYCK@MIT.EDU
M1  - published as Robert S. Pindyck. "Modeling the Impact of Warming in Climate Change Economics," in Gary D. Libecap and Richard H. Steckel, editors, "The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present" University of Chicago Press (2011)

M3  - presented at "Climate Change:  Past and  Present Conference", May 30-31, 2009
AB  - Any economic analysis of climate change policy requires some model that describes the impact of warming on future GDP and consumption. Most integrated assessment models (IAMs) relate temperature to the level of real GDP and consumption, but there are theoretical and empirical reasons to expect temperature to affect the growth rate rather than level of GDP. Does this distinction matter in terms of implications for policy? And how does the answer depend on the nature and extent of uncertainty over future temperature change and its impact? I address these questions by estimating the fraction of consumption society would be willing to sacrifice to limit future increases in temperature, using probability distributions for temperature and impact inferred from studies assembled by the IPCC, and comparing estimates based on a direct versus growth rate impact of temperature on GDP.
ER  -