11th Tinbergen Institute Conference: Combating Climate Change. Lessons from Macroeconomics, Political Economy, and Public Finance

Introduction

Climate change is generally deemed one of the most urgent and challenging problems mankind has to deal with. The damages from global warming do not only gradually diminish aggregate production via worsening of health, drops in agricultural productivity, etcetera, but also via catastrophic shocks which are more imminent and more likely to occur as global warming becomes more acute. The appropriate response thus has to deal with uncertain marginal and non-marginal impacts. It has many fascinating facets and a fruitful analysis of policies to combat global warming requires inputs from almost all disciplines of economics. Before the conference interesting contributions were expected to come from analyses at the interface of macro, international trade, public finance, political economy, and environmental and resource economics. The conference brought together leading experts from these fields to discuss recent developments, ‘xenogamy’ possibilities between the different disciplines, and new challenges related to combating climate change.

Objective

The first objective of this two-day conference was to provide insights into the optimal and politically feasible design of climate policies and to discuss the importance of Green Paradox effects if suboptimal climate policies are implemented instead. The second objective was to emphasize and show that insights and tools from the already mentioned mainstream economic disciplines of macro, international trade, public finance, and political economy are valuable for and should be incorporated into climate change economics. The conference was also designed to mark the completion of the ERC grant on ‘Political Economy of Green Paradoxes’ directed by Cees Withagen at VU University Amsterdam and Rick van der Ploeg at Oxford University.

Keynotes

Geoffrey Heal (Columbia Business School, United States)
Hans-Werner Sinn (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and CESifo, Germany)

All Speakers

Sebastian Acevedo (International Monetary Fund)
Stefan Ambec (Toulouse School of Economics)
Jean Pierre Amigues (TSE-INRA)
Geir B. Asheim (University of Oslo)
Hassan Benchekroun (McGill University)
Kirill Borissov (European University at St. Petersburg)
Lucas Bretschger (ETH Zurich)
Wolfgang Buchholz (University of Regensburg)
Robert Cairns (McGill University)
Stefano Carattini (HEG Genève)
Nguyen Thang Dao (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change)
Julien Daubanes (ETH Zurich)
Antoine d'Autume (Paris School of Economics, Paris 1 University)
Corrado Di Maria (University of East Anglia)
Ottmar Edenhofer Potsdam Institute forClimate Impact Research / Mercator
Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change / TU Berlin)
Charles Figuières (INRA)
Carolyn Fischer (Resources for the Future and FEEM)
Reyer Gerlagh (Tilburg University)
Marc Gronwald (University of Aberdeen)
Ben Groom (London School of Economics)
Geoffrey Heal (Columbia Business School)
Niko Jaakkola (Ifo Institut)
Adeel Kadri, (Manzil Pakistan (A Public Policy Think Tank)
Larry Karp (UC Berkeley)
David Klenert (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons andClimate
Change (MCC))
Snorre Kverndokk (Frisch Centre)
Gilles Lafforgue (Toulouse Business School)
Ngo Long (McGill University)
Charles F. Mason (University of Wyoming)
Linus Mattauch Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change
Antony Millner (London School of Economics)
Abay Mulatu (London Metropolitan University)
Linda Nøstbakken (Norwegian School of Economics (NHH))
Grischa Perino (University of Hamburg)
Rüdiger Pethig (University of Siegen)
Jack Pezzey (Fenner
School of Environment and Society, Australian National University)
Aude Pommeret (SEE City University of Hong Kong and IREGE)
Martin Quaas (Kiel University)
Armon Rezai (WU - Vienna University of Economics and Business)
Stephen Salant (University of Michigan and University of Maryland)
Ingmar Schumacher (IPAG Business School)
Mordechai Shechter (University of Haifa)
Hans-Werner Sinn (CESifo and University of Munich)
Jan Siegmeier (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change)
Emilson Silva (University of Alberta)
Sjak Smulders (Tilburg University)
Thomas Sterner (University of Gothenburg)
Michael Toman (Worldbank)
Yacov Tsur (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Inge van den Bijgaart (Tilburg University)
Sweder van Wijnbergen (University of Amsterdam)
Alexandra Vinogradova (ETH Zürich)
Andreas Weber (New York University Stern School of Business)
Maximilian Willner (University of Hamburg)
Franz Wirl (University of Vienna)
Anastasios Xepapadeas (Athens University of Economics and Business)
Georges Zaccour (HEC Montréal)

Scientific Committee in alphabetical order

Bas Jacobs (Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tinbergen Institute)
Gerard van der Meijden (VU Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute)
Rick van der Ploeg (University of Oxford, VU University Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute)
Florian Wagener (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute)
Sweder van Wijnbergen (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute)
Cees Withagen (VU Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute)

Local Organizing Committee (in alphabetical order)

• Jacob Janssen (VU Amsterdam and PhD student at Tinbergen Institute)
• Gerard van der Meijden (VU Amsterdam and fellow at Tinbergen Institute)
• Christina Månsson (Tinbergen Institute)
• Rick van der Ploeg (VU Amsterdam, University of Oxford and fellow at Tinbergen Institute)
• Cees Withagen (VU Amsterdam and fellow at Tinbergen Institute)