The expansion of a given land use may affect deforestation directly if forests are cleared to free land for this use, or indirectly, via the displacement of other land-use activities from non-forest areas towards the forest frontier. Unlike direct land conversion, indirect land-use changes...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model to quantify the interaction between climate policy, industry dynamics, and the elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty energy in the economy. The model incorporates empirical observations that firms differ substantially in their potential...

We determine optimal climate policy using a dynamic climate model that accounts for the damages to capital and human health from burning fossil fuels. Our theoretical macroeconomic approach incorporates a separate health sector into an integrated climate-economy framework and provides...

We present a new framework for estimating the long-run economic impacts of natural disasters. Our approach combines a disaster impact model with a general equilibrium model of the economy. We apply the methodology to study the effects of tropical cyclones in the United States, the Caribbean...

We study clean energy subsidies in a quantitative climate-economy model. Clean energy subsidies decrease carbon emissions if and only if they lower the marginal product of dirty energy. The constrained-efficient subsidy equals the marginal external cost of dirty energy multiplied by the marginal...

Can social policies assist households in coping with the effects of extreme weather events? We evaluate the role of the Indigent Program, an income-based social assistance program in South Africa that provided free electricity and water to poor households, in helping rural households adapt to...

We analyze the use of patent protection as a new policy to direct technical change to clean technology. Contrary to popular belief, it is dirty (and not clean) innovations that should be excluded from patent protection to reduce emissions. In the shortrun, removing patent protection on dirty...

Solving major sustainability problems such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity requires overcoming a fundamental dilemma: on the one hand, central decisions on the realignment of the economy and society should be quick and far-reaching, on the other hand, actual decision-makers are...

There is widespread concern that climate policy is moving too slowly and that decarbonization of economic development is coming too late for effective climate protection. We analyze three different effects that emerge endogenously during decarbonization and amplify current policies: growing...