Global Emissions
Work here uses large-scale economic models to evaluate various environmental policies. Some recent papers follow.
- J. R. Birge and C. H. Rosa, "Incorporating Investment Uncertainty into Greenhouse Policy Models," Technical Report 95-2, Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, 1995.
Abstract
Greenhouse gas policy decisions require comprehensive undertanding of
atmospheric, economic, and social impacts. Many studies have
considered the effects of atmospheric uncertainty in global warming, but
economic uncertainties have received much less analysis. We consider a key
component of economic uncertainty: the return on investments in new
technologies. Using a mathematical programming model, we show that
ignoring uncertainty in technology investment policy may lead to decreases as
great as 2\% in overall expected economic activity in the U.S. with even higher
losses in possible future scenarios. These results indicate that both federal
and private technology investment policies should be based on models explicitly
incorporating uncertainty.
This page is under construction. It was last modified on 3jan01. Send questions to jrbirge@northwestern.edu.