Climate Change Policy and Economics

Climate change policy and economics examines how societies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while managing the costs and distributional consequences of doing so, drawing on tools from welfare analysis, econometrics, and energy modeling. Carbon pricing—whether through taxes or cap-and-trade systems—sits at the center of much of this work, as researchers try to determine what price levels actually change behavior, who bears the burden, and whether revenues are recycled in ways that offset harms to lower-income households. A parallel strand of research maps out socioeconomic pathways, asking how different combinations of technology adoption, energy transition, and growth trajectories alter both the pace of warming and the feasibility of mitigation targets. Open questions persist around the political economy of policy durability, the empirical identification of climate damages at the macro level, and how to weigh near-term economic disruption against long-run risk under deep uncertainty.

Works

117,388

Total citations

1,489,582

Keywords

Climate ChangeEconomic ImpactsGreenhouse Gas EmissionsPolicy InstrumentsCarbon PricingSocioeconomic Pathways