Straight to Journal Publications, Other Publications, and Book Draft on Environmental and Resource Economics.
  Current Working Papers  
Short Abstracts:
Full Abstracts:
1   Environmental, Resource and Climate Economics
1.1 Uncertainty in the Analytic Climate Economy.
     Short: The paper analyzes the optimal carbon tax under uncertainty about carbon dynamics, temperature response, and climate damages. Building on the Analytic Climate Economy (ACE), I derive a general stochastic solution for an arbitrary degree of Arrow-Pratt risk aversion, which I disentangle from the base model's intertemporal elasticity of substitution (Epstein-Zin preferences). Temperature dyanmics as opposed to carbon dynamics becomes the crucial driver of the risk premium and the stochastic model is even more senstivity to time preference than the deterministic model. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.2 Pricing Climate Risk. With Svenn Jensen.
     Short: We derive a general formula for the risk premium on the optimal carbon price in response to the large uncertainties surrounding the climate's sensitivity to antropogenic emissions. The formula expands simple precautionary savings analysis to more complex economic interactions, and it trains economic intuition about policy response to uncertainty. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.3 SolACE - Solar Geoengineering in an Analytic Climate Economy. With Felix Meier.
     Short: We discuss optimal and strategic sulfur-based geoengeneering in a quantitative analytic integrated assessment model of climate change. In the strategic setting, two active regions play a dynanmic game targeting different temperatures based on heterogenous characteristics. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.4 Uncertain Remedies to Fight Uncertain Consequences: The Case of Solar Geoengineering. With Felix Meier.
     Short: Solar geoengineering can counteract the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Deterministic integrated assessment models show major net benefits from solar geoengineering, but are highly sensitive to the assumed damages from and effectiveness of solar geoengineering. We analyze how uncertainties and the anticipation of learning affect opimtal mitigation and geoengineering polies. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.5 The Macroeconomics of Clean Energy Subsidies. With Greg Casey and Woongchan Jeon.
     Short: The paper analyzes whether clean energy subsidies can make up for a lack of Pigovian taxation in a quantitative climate-economy model. We show that, at common parameter values, clean energy subsidies can increase fossil use and explain the roles of the substitubility between clean and fossil energy and of the price elasticity of demand for energy services. (collapse) Full Abstract
Current projects with drafts available on conference websites and upon request:
1.6 IAMs and CO2 Emissions – An Analytic Discussion
     Short: The paper discusses the core drivers of carbon dioxide emissions in a variety of integrated assessment models of climate change (IAMs), including an almost exact analytic solution of DICE's emissions and a careful discussion of emissions in Golosov et al. (2014) and Traeger's (2018) more complex IAMs. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.7 Self-Enforcing Agreements. With Hiroaki Sakamoto.
     Short: We suggest a new equilibrium concept for coalition-formation games with externalities and voluntary participation. It connects free-riding constraints with belief formation and ideas related to von Neumann-Morgenstern stability. Compared to much of the literature on international environmental agreeemnts, our concept predicts larger coalitions that are more sensitive to the number of players. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.8 Pricing an Unknown Climate. With Svenn Jensen.
     Short: Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions trigger many feedbacks with unknown warming implications. Given these uncertainties are insufficiently described by simple likelihoods, we integrate ambiguity and (rational) ambiguity aversion into DICE-based integrated assessment model of climate change to evaluate the implications of ambiguity for optimal climate policy. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.9 Carbon dioxide removal in an analytic global climate economy. With Felix Meier, Wilfried Rickels, and Martin Quaas.
     Short: Net-zero climate policies rely on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. We analyze CDR technologies in an analytic global integrated assessment model of climate change and show that the availability of CDR has only a minor impact on optimal carbon pricing. (collapse) Full Abstract
1.10 The Green Transition: Non-convexities and the Need for the Big Push. With Laurens Walleghem and Niko Jaakkola.
     Short: Representing feedback effects that reflect synergies and network effects we show show how combinations of taxes and subsidies are required to push the economy from fossil intensive to mostly renewable. We discuss the role of firms’ beliefs over the transition in order to move between clean and fossil intensive steady states. (collapse) Full Abstract
2  Risk, Uncertainty, Decision Theory (and not Climate)
2.1 Characterizing and Comparing Intrinsic Risk Attitude
     Short: The paper introduces a new measure of risk aversion in a multidimensional world and carefully elaborates risk comparisons across individuals. (collapse) Full Abstract
2.2 Once Upon a Time Preference - How Rationality and Risk Aversion Change the Rationale for Discounting
      Slides of earlier version: Intertemporal Risk Aversion, Stationarity and Discounting
     Short: A comprehensive risk attitude eliminates pure time preference from the discounted expected utility model. Rational agents give more weight to the future the more they know about the consequences of their current actions. (collapse) Full Abstract
2.3 Subjective Risk, Confidence, and Ambiguity     (Slides)
     Short: How should we evaluate our uncertain future once we realize that there are different types of uncertainty? The classical von Neumann-Morgenstern then imply a rational and normatively justified form of ambiguity attitude neglected in the standard model. (collapse) Full Abstract
2.4 Discounting and Confidence
     Short: Does ambiguity or a lack of confidence in our forecast increase or decrease the weight on future consumption? How should we discount the future when confidence in our forecasts falls in futurity? (collapse) Full Abstract
Journal Publications:
 
Karp, L. and C.P. Traeger (2025), Smart Cap. Journal of the European Economic Association. Forthcoming.
     We introduce a “smart” cap and trade system that eliminates the welfare costs of asymmetric information generated by,e.g., uncertain technological progress. The cap endogenously responds to technology or macroeconomic shocks based on observed trading prices. We explain why optimal carbon prices have to respond much more sensitivitly to emission fluctuations than suggested by the slope of the social cost of carbon.
Jensen, S. and C. Traeger (2024), Uncertainty in Climate-Economic Modeling. in: Handbook of the Economics of Climate Change.
     The paper provides conceptual insights into dealing with uncertainty in climate-economic modeling and provides an overview of the corresponding literature.
Drupp, M.A., M.C. Hänsel, E.P. Fenichel, M. Freeman, C. Gollier, B. Groom, G.M. Heal, P.H. Howard, A. Millner, F.C. Moore, F. Nesje, M.F. Quaas, S. Smulders, T. Sterner, C. Traeger, F. Venmans (2024) The increasing benefits from scarce ecosystems. Science Policy Forum 383:1062-1064.
     As people get richer, and ecosystem services scarcer, policy-relevant estimates of ecosystem value must rise.
Karp, L. and C.P. Traeger (2024), Taxes versus Quantities Reassessed. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 125:1-19.
     The paper discusses the welfare implications of regulating greenhouse gases through either a tax or a cap and trade system. We explain why favoring taxes based on Weitzman's (1974) “Prices versus quantities” is misleading. Persistence of greenhouse gases and technological innovations favor cap and trade.
Traeger, C.P. (2023), ACE -- Analytic Climate Economy. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 15: 372-406.
     The Analytic Climate Economy (ACE) closes a gap between complex numeric integrated assessment models used in policy advising and stylized models built for analytic insight. It connects a general production system relying on a variety of energy sectors and fossil inputs to a climate system explicitly tracking carbon emissions, greenhouse effect, and temperature dynamics. The paper derives a closed-form soluton for the optimal carbon tax and discusses the impact of different model components and calibration assumptions.
Traeger, C., G. Perino, K. Pittel, T. Requate, A. Schmitt (2019), The Flexcap – An Innovative CO2 Pricing Method for Germany, ifo DICE Report, ISSN 2511-7823, ifo Institut, München, Vol. 18, Iss. 01, pp. 42-48.
     We discuss a practical implementation of the smart cap, which connects the advantages of cap and trade and price regulation, tailored to the German policy reform.calibration assumptions.
Lemoine, D. and C.P. Traeger (2016), Ambiguous Tipping Points. Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organization 132B: 5-18.
     We analyze the policy implications of aversion to Knightian uncertainty (or ambiguity) about the possibility of tipping points. We identify the channels analytically and evaluate the policy impact in a stochastic integrated assessment model.
Lemoine, D. and C.P. Traeger (2016), Economics of Tipping the Climate Dominoes, Nature Climate Change 6:514-20.
     We analyze optimal climate change mitigation and the cost of delaying policy in the presence of three interacting climate tipping points ("domino effect") with unknown thresholds in a stochastic integrated assessment model.
Crost, B. and C.P. Traeger (2014), Optimal CO2 Mitigation under Damage Risk Valuation, Nature Climate Change 4: 631–636, Review in News & Views.
     Future economic damages from climate change are highly uncertain. Using a stochastic integrated assessment model based on DICE-2007 (see 4-Stated DICE), we show how this damage uncertainty affects the optimal carbon tax, emission path, and temperature trajectory. Whereas uncertainty over the damage coefficient reduces the carbon tax, uncertainty over the damage exponent increases the optimal carbon tax more significantly. We show that the optimal carbon tax approximately doubles when using the Epstein-Zin-Weil preferences which better calibrate the model to observed asset pricing premia.  Note: The article circulated originally under the title "Risk and Aversion in Assessing Climate Policy".
Traeger, C. (2014), A 4-stated DICE: Quantitatively Addressing Uncertainty Effects in Climate Change, Environmental and Resource Economics 59: 1-37.
     The paper introduces a state reduced, recursive dynamic programming implementation of the wide-spread DICE integrated assessment model of climate change. By simplifying the climate system's representation, the model cuts DICE's state variables into half, moderating the curse of dimensionality in dynamic programming. In comparison to the AOGCMs emulated by MAGICC, the simplified climate system performs just as well as the climate module of the original DICE 2007 and DICE 2013 models. The paper also addresses numeric accuaracy and choice of basis functions. It introduces a numerically convenient normalization and solves the infinite time horizon problem at an arbitrary time step.
Traeger, C.P. (2014), On Option Values in Environmental and Resource Economics, Resource and Energy Economics 37: 242-252.
     Global warming, alterations of ecosystems, and sunk investments imply irreversible changes with uncertain future costs and benefits. The Arrow-Fisher-Hanemann-Henry quasi-option value and the Dixit-Pindyck option value both measure how irreversibility and uncertainty change the value of preserving an ecosystem or postponing an investment. This paper derives the precise relation between the two option values and shows how either of them alters the common net present value decision rule.
Jensen, S. and C.P. Traeger (2014), Optimal Climate Change Mitigation under Long-Term Growth Uncertainty: Stochastic Integrated Assessment and Analytic Findings, European Economic Review 69(C): 104-125.
     Economic growth over the coming centuries is a major determinant of today’s optimal greenhouse gas mitigation policy. At the same time, long-run economic growth is highly uncertain. This paper evaluates optimal mitigation policy under long-term growth uncertainty in a stochastic integrated assessment model of climate change. We explain the mechanisms driving optimal mitigation under deterministic growth and uncertain technological progress in the discounted expected utility model as well as in the more comprehensive Epstein-Zin-Weil framework.
Traeger, C.P. (2014), Why Uncertainty Matters - Discounting under Intertemporal Risk Aversion and Ambiguity, Economic Theory 56(3): 627-664.
     In the standard economic model, uncertainty has a negligible effect on the valuation of future project payoffs because of an implicit assumption of risk neutrality. I show that this picture changes dramatically under comprehensive risk and uncertainty attitude (intertemporal risk aversion, ambiguity). The paper also shows the importance of considering the correlation between project payoffs (e.g. greenhouse gas mitigation) and economic baseline growth in these settings.
Lemoine, D. and C.P. Traeger (2014), Watch Your Step: Optimal Policy in a Tipping Climate, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 6(1): 1–31.
     In an integrated assessment of climate change, we explicitly capture two alternative tipping points in the climate system affecting climate sensitivity and the carbon cycle, respectively. We derive the optimal climate policy accounting for endogenous welfare consequences of tipping and anticipated Bayesian learning.
Traeger, C.P. (2013), Discounting Under Uncertainty: Disentangling the Weitzman and the Gollier Effect , Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 66(3): 573–582.
     The Weitzman-Gollier puzzle: The seemingly same argument justifies falling and increasing discount rates in the face of uncertainty. The paper shows: These rates mean different things and are created by different channels through which risk affects evaluation. Both make long-term payoffs more attractive.
Crost, B. and C.P. Traeger (2013), Optimal Climate Policy: Uncertainty versus Monte-Carlo, Economic Letters 120(3): 552–558..
     We show that both size and sign can differ between the optimal climate policy under undertainty and the approximate policies obtained from individually optimizing and averaging Monte-Carlo runs.
Karp, L. and C. Traeger (2013), Discounting, In: Shogren, J.F., (ed.) Encyclopedia of Energy, Natural Resource, and Environmental Economics, volume 2, pp. 286-292 Amsterdam: Elsevier.
     We introduce the basic theory of discounting, including a discussion of normative versus positive discounting, risk, uncertainty, and catastrophes, limited substitutability of environmental goods, hyperbolic discounting, and overlapping generations.
Schneider, M., C. Traeger, and R. Winkler (2012), Trading off Generations: Equity, Discounting, and Climate Change, European Economic Review 56: 1621-1644.
     Climate change affects future generations. We develop a new continuous time overlapping generations (OLG) model with deterministic life-time, population growth, and technological progress. We analyze observational equivalences between the OLG and infinitely-lived agent economies. We employ the model to identify short-comings in the equity trade-off in Stern's normative approach to discounting, and to critically discuss implicit assumptions in Nordhaus positive, calibration-based approach to discounting.
Traeger, C. (2011), Sustainability, Limited Substitutability and Non-constant Social Discount Rates, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 62: 215–228.
     The paper explores limited substitutability in welfare between environmental and produced goods. Limited substitutability affects magnitude and term structure of optimal social discount rates. Translating the notions of weak and strong sustainability into the degree of substitutability, I show that a strong notion of sustainability results in lower weights given to long-run service and consumption streams than a weak notion of sustainability.
Traeger, C. (2009), Recent Developments in the Intertemporal Modeling of Uncertainty, Annual Review of Resource Economics 1:261-285.
     Time and uncertainty constitute essential ingredients to many of the most challenging resource problems. This review discusses models and concepts that aim at disentangling time and risk attitude and discusses resource economic applications. If also briefly reviews a generalization of risk attitude to situations where uncertainty is not captured by unique probability measures.
  

Book Draft:
 
Karp, L. and C. Traeger (2023, draft), Dynamic Environmental and Resource Economics.
     The book discusses environmental and resource ecoomics with a focus on dynamic methods in both discrete and continuous time. We cover nonrenwable and renewable resource exploitation and integrated assessment using Pontryagin's Maximum Principle and dynamic programming (discrete, continuous, stochastic, numeric). We include discussions of non-convex dynamic systems, learning, time inconsistency, and general risk and ambiguity attitude. The book aims at graduate students and researchers in the field.
  

 
Other Publications:
  
Generalized Cost-Benefit-Analysis and Social Discounting with Intertemporally Dependent Preferences. Paper Draft from 2009 with Larry Karp.
     Short: We derive the social discount rate in the context of intertemporally dependent preferences. Contains the proof underlying Dietz Venman's (2019, JEEM) "The endowment effect, discounting and the environment" (collapse) Full Abstract
PhD Thesis (Doktorarbeit):
Theoretical aspects of long-term evaluation in environmental economics
     The dissertation addresses the evaluation of long-term trade-offs between economic activity and its environmental repercussions. It concentrates on social discount rates, i.e. the weight given to the long versus the short run, and the treatment of uncertainty. The results render contributions to the fields of environmental economics and decision theory. From an applied view, they directly affect sustainability and cost benefit analysis.
The first part of my thesis is dedicated to the relation between the notions of strong and weak sustainability and the time behavior of social discount rates. The second part introduces a new concept of risk aversion, which captures the willingness to undergo preventive action. The concept also provides a way to define a simple risk measure in a mutli commodity setting. It relates aspect of standard risk aversion and intertemporal substitutability. The third part of the dissertation derives several generalized evaluation rules, based on axioms concerning the timing of uncertainty resolution, uncertainty attitude, stationarity and time consistency. In particular I give a simple axiomatization that forces the rate of pure time preference to zero. A decision maker who subscribes to these axioms only discounts for reasons of uncertainty, but not for reasons of impatience.
Master Thesis (German):
Freedom of choice and the structure of intertemporal decision-making
     The thesis investigates how freedom of choice can be integrated into economic welfare analysis. The first part examines existing static axiomatizations of freedom of choice and fleshes out their implicit normative assumptions and shortcomings. It concludes that a meaningful measure of freedom must necessarily account for individual valuation of choice alternatives and the similarity of alternatives. The second part of my thesis analyzes the temporal structure in confining and evaluating opportunity sets. It establishes a relation between evaluation of opportunity sets in terms of freedom and preference for flexibility. I explain how, in a dynamic framework with uncertainty about future preferences, the two criteria to be considered in static axiomatizations (preference valuation of alternatives and similarity judgement) merge. The last part of the thesis elaborates the consequences of these insights for the informational basis of a comprehensive welfare analysis.