Abstract
This paper estimates that the macroeconomic damages from climate change are six times larger than previously thought. Exploiting natural global temperature variability, we find that 1°C warming reduces world GDP by 12%. Global temperature correlates strongly with extreme climatic events unlike country-level temperature used in previous work, explaining our larger estimate. We use this evidence to estimate damage functions in a neoclassical growth model. Business-as-usual warming implies a 29%present welfare loss and a Social Cost of Carbon of $1,065 per ton. These impacts suggest that unilateral decarbonization policy is cost-effective for large countries such as the United States.
A short accessible discussion of the paper can be found here: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/why-global-temperature-matters, while the current version of the working paper can be downloaded here: https://dkaenzig.github.io/diegokaenzig.com/Papers/bk\_micc.pdf
CV Diego Känzig
Diego Känzig is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Northwestern University, a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. His research interests are in macroeconomics and macro-finance with a focus on climate change and inequality. In his work, he studies the role of energy and climate change for financial and macroeconomic fluctuations and how economic inequality and household finance matter for the macroeconomy and macroeconomic policy. His research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Monetary Economics. Diego holds a PhD in Economics from London Business School and an MSc in Economics from the Universities of Bern and Basel.
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