@article{Howard:205761,
      recid = {205761},
      author = {Howard, Peter H. and Sylvan, Derek},
      title = {The Economic Climate:  Establishing Consensus on the  Economics of Climate Change},
      address = {2015-05-27},
      number = {330-2016-13703},
      pages = {61},
      month = {May},
      year = {2015},
      note = {Cover page, abstract, Tables, and Appendix are included in  addition to the 40 page length of the article.},
      abstract = {While the scientific community has established a fairly  clear consensus on the threat of
climate change,  policymakers and journalists often suggest that the  economic community
lacks a consensus view on climate change  risks and appropriate policy responses. We
conducted a  survey of 1,103 experts on the economics of climate change  – all those who
have authored an article related to climate  change in a highly ranked economics or
environmental  economics journal since 1994 – and our results reveal  several areas where
expert consensus exists, and others  where more research is necessary. In casting a wider
net  than many previous surveys of economists on climate change,  we avoid many of the
pitfalls of previous studies.

Of the  1,103 experts that received the survey, 365 responded – a  response rate of
approximately 33%. Though the response  rate varied from question to question –
particularly for  open-ended questions – it never dipped below 20%. There are  several key
takeaways from our results, particularly with  respect to the magnitude of the social cost of
carbon.  Economic experts believe that climate change will begin to  have a net negative
impact on the global economy very soon  – the median estimate was “by 2025.” On average,
economists  also predict far higher economic impacts from climate  change than the
estimates found in landmark surveys from  the 1990s (Nordhaus, 1994; Schauer, 1995).
Also while  experts on climate economics did not support a constant  discount rate
calibrated to market rates – the current  methodology employed to estimate the US social
cost of  carbon –respondents recommended rates lower than (or  roughly equal to the lower
ranges of) those used by the  U.S. government in these calculations. Given these results,  it is
unsurprising that our findings revealed a strong  consensus that the SCC should be greater
than or equal to  the current $37 estimate. While these results indicate a  growing consensus
that current damage and SCC impacts are  too low, the high variance of our results indicate
that  considerable work is still necessary to improve the values  used for discount rates and
climate impact  assumptions.

From a policy perspective, our findings also  strongly suggest that U.S. policymakers should
be concerned  about a lack of action on climate change. Experts believe  that the United
States may be able to strategically induce  other nations to reduce GHG emissions by
adopting policies  to reduce U.S. emissions. Respondents also support  unilateral emission
reductions by the United States,  regardless of the actions other nations have taken.  These
results appear to confirm an economic consensus that  domestic climate policies should be
enacted immediately to  address climate change.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/205761},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.205761},
}