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5211. The Economics of Inaction on Climate Change: A Sensitivity Analysis

Author:
Frank Ackerman and Ian J. Finlayson
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Economic models of climate change often take the problem seriously, but paradoxically conclude that the optimal policy is to do almost nothing about it. We explore this paradox as seen in the widely used DICE model. Three aspects of that model, involving the discount rate, the assumed benefits of moderate warming, and the treatment of the latest climate science, are sufficient to explain the timidity of the model's optimal policy recommendation. With modifications to those three points, DICE shows that the optimal policy is a much higher and rapidly rising marginal carbon price; that higher carbon price has a greater effect on physical measures of climate impacts. Our modifications exhibit nonlinear interactions; at least at low discount rates, there is synergy between individual changes to the model. At low discount rates, the inherent uncertainty about future damages looms larger in the analysis, rendering long-run economic modeling less useful.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, and Environment

5212. Can Climate Change Save Lives? A comment on "Economy-wide estimates of the implications of climate change: Human health"

Author:
Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
In a recent article in this journal, Francesco Bosello, Roberto Roson, and Richard Tol make the surprising prediction that the first stages of global warming will, on balance, save a large number of lives. Bosello et al. fail to substantiate this remarkable estimate, and they make multiple mistaken or misleading assumptions. They rely on research that identifies a simple empirical relationship between temperature and mortality, but ignores the countervailing effect of human adaptation to gradual changes in average temperature. While focusing on small changes in average temperatures, they ignore the important health impacts of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes. They extrapolate this pattern far beyond the level that is apparently supported by their principal sources, and introduce an arbitrary assumption that may bias the result toward finding benefits from warming.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, and Environment
Political Geography:
San Francisco

5213. Ethics and International Debt: A View from Feminist Economics

Author:
Julie A. Nelson
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Feminist scholars examine not only the gendered impacts of development programs whose design has been influenced by disciplines such as economics, but also the gendered biases that permeate the models and methods of the disciplines themselves. This essay draws on aspects of feminist critiques of economics, philosophy, psychology, law, and finance to analyze the way in which international debt is discussed. Feminist critiques raise serious questions about the rational choice framework that often undergirds scholarly discussions of “agents,” “contract,” “ethics,” and “capital and debt.”
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, and International Trade and Finance

5214. Die Europäische Union: Stolpersteine auf dem Weg zur Integration (The European Union: Stumbling Blocks on the Road to Integration)

Author:
Lutz Unterseher
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
If one believes the officials in Brussels, the European Union, along with its institutional predecessors, has been a story of thoroughly successful economic integration. It is claimed that this development has to a considerable extent resulted from the impact of market forces, but also from the Union's (formerly: the Community's) well-conceived policies to promote competitiveness in certain regions and branches of industry as well as economic cohesion in general. The reality is somewhat sobering, however
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Brussels

5215. Mechanized Tube Artillery as an Integral Element of Expeditionary Forces

Author:
Lutz Unterseher
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
Somewhat before the demise of the Crusader system, which would have been the world's heaviest mechanized howitzer, a vivid debate on the future of artillery began. This has further intensified in the related debate between the proponents of solid armor and the advocates of 'traveling light'.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, and War

5216. QDR 2006: Do the forces match the mission? DOD gives little reason to believe

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
As originally conceived the Quadrennial Defense Review was meant to help ensure the internal consistency of mid-and longer-term US defense planning. By “internal consistency” I here mean a concordance of strategy, assets, and budgets. As critics often put it in the past: the point is to show how the force fits the strategy and the budget fits the force. The exercise is supposed to “connect” our military strategy with our force development plans and, in turn, connect these with current and future budgets. In this regard, the 2006 QDR is long on assertion and short on quantification – “short” as in utterly lacking.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Economics, and War
Political Geography:
United States

5217. Global Imbalances and Low Interest Rates: An Equilibrium Model vs. A Disequilibrium Reality

Author:
Jeffrey Frankel
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Caballero, Farhis Gourinchas (2006) are motivated by three current properties of the world financial system: Fact 1: US current account deficits are large and rising. Fact 2: Long-term interest rates have been low since 2002. Fact 3: The share of US assets in world portfolios has been rising. Fact 3 follows naturally from fact 1; Fact 2 is the real anomaly.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy

5218. The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years after the Beginning of the Conflict

Author:
Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Three years ago, as America was preparing to go to war in Iraq, there were few discussions of the likely costs. When Larry Lindsey, President Bush's economic adviser, suggested that they might reach $200 billion, there was a quick response from the White House: that number was a gross overestimation. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz claim e d that Iraq could “really finance its own reconstruction,” apparently both underestimating what was required and the debt burden facing the country. Lindsey went on to say that “The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.”
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Economics
Political Geography:
Iraq, America, and Middle East

5219. What's So Special About China's Exports?

Author:
Dani Rodrik
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
The phenomenal performance of China constitutes the great economic miracle of the last quarter century. China's economy has expanded by leaps and bounds, at historically unprecedented rates that few economists would have found plausible or feasible ex ante. More importantly, this growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people from deep poverty and has helped improve health, education, and other social standards. China has accomplished all this using its own brand of experimental gradualism--increasingly relying on markets and on price signals, yet until very recently doing so within the boundaries of a highly unorthodox set of institutions.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

5220. Budgets to Make America Safer

Author:
Cindy Williams
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Since September 2001, federal budgets for national security have climbed more than 50 percent in real terms. Unfortunately, much of the added money reflects “business as usual” rather than programs aimed at making the nation safer from today's threats. Compared with past decades, national security spending makes up a relatively small share of the U.S. economy. Nevertheless, with the federal debt growing rapidly and as large numbers of baby boomers approach retirement age, many observers expect future federal budgets to be tight. Thus it is critically important to ensure that national security funds go to projects that make the nation more secure. This article examines broad changes in national security budgets since September 2001. It first reviews the three categories of federal spending for national security. It then examines how budgets in those categories have changed since September 2001. It ends with a look at alternatives that seem more relevant in an era of international mass-casualty terrorism.
Topic:
Security, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
America and North America