Review of Environmental Economics and Policy Advance Access originally published online on April 23, 2008
Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 2008 2(1):45-60; doi:10.1093/reep/rem023
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Is the Stern Review an Economic Analysis?
* Yale University, 230 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511; telephone: 203-432-5128; e-mail: robert.mendelsohn@yale.edu.
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
| Introduction |
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Economists were initially quite enthusiastic when the British HM Treasury Department announced it was conducting an economic analysis of climate change, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Despite a growing body of research on the economics of climate change (Nordhaus 1991; Manne et al. 1995; Pearce et al. 1996; Plambeck, Hope, and Anderson 1997; Nordhaus and Boyer 2000; Tol 2002a), the insights of economics have been missing from recent national and international scientific reviews of climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007; 2001a, b, c; National Assessment Synthesis Team 2001). Economists were optimistic that this new study would inject key economic concepts back into the climate debate.
The Stern Review has been a great disappointment to some economists, this author included. An economic analysis of greenhouse gases should minimize the present value of abatement costs and
| Economic Theory |
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| Empirical Evidence |
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Integrated Assessment Models
Efficient Abatement Paths
| Discussion and Critique of the Stern Review |
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The Stern Review's Approach
Time Horizon
Baseline Scenarios
Discount Rate
Cost of Abatement
Environmental Impacts of Alternative Energy Sources
Market Damages
Nonmarket Damages
Extreme Weather Events
Knock on Damages
Uncertainty
Equity Weighting
| Summary and Conclusions |
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