Lint Barrage

Brown University · Department of Economics

The present study examines the assumptions, modeling structure, and results of DICE-2023, the revised Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy (DICE), updated to 2023. The revision contains major changes in the treatment of risk, the carbon and climate modules, the treatment of nonindustrial greenhouse gases, discount rates, as well as u...

How should carbon be taxed as a part of fiscal policy? The literature on optimal carbon pricing often abstracts from other taxes. However, when governments raise revenues with distortionary taxes, carbon levies have fiscal impacts. While they raise revenues directly, they may shrink the bases of other taxes (e.g. by decreasing employment). This art...

William D. Nordhaus and Paul M. Romer received the 2018 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. This paper surveys Nordhaus’ contributions on “integrating climate change into long‐run macroeconomic analysis”, for which he was recognized with this Prize.

Concerns about intergenerational equity have led to an influential practice of setting social utility discount rates based on ethical considerations rather than to match household behavior, particularly in climate change economics (e.g., Stern, 2006). This paper formalizes the broader policy implications of this approach in general equilibrium by c...

Over the past 25 years, a growing number of countries have adopted policies that place a price on the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. Regardless of whether such carbon pricing is implemented through taxes or emissions trading schemes (ETS), these policies can raise substantial amounts of public funds. How should the re...

There have been dramatic advances in understanding the physical science of climate change, facilitated by substantial and reliable research support. The social value of these advances depends on understanding their implications for society, an arena where research support has been more modest and research progress slower. Some advances have been ma...

Contingent valuation often induces hypothetical bias. In a laboratory experiment, we test three calibration mechanisms: cheap-talk, consequentialism, and a new mechanism, the Bayesian truth serum (“BTS”). We apply the BTS in a “faith-based” format: subjects are informed about the purpose and potential efficacy of the BTS, but not its theoretical fo...