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Priority for the Worse Off and the Social Cost of Carbon

Author

Listed:
  • Adler, Matthew
  • Anthoff, David
  • Bosetti, Valentina
  • Garner, Greg
  • Keller, Klaus
  • Treich, Nicolas
Abstract
The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a monetary measure of the harms from carbon emission. Specifically, it is the reduction in current consumption that produces a loss in social welfare equivalent to that caused by the emission of a ton of CO2. The standard approach is to calculate the SCC using a discounted-utilitarian social welfare function (SWF)—one that simply adds up the well-being numbers (utilities) of individuals, as discounted by a weighting factor that decreases with time. The discounted-utilitarian SWF has been criticized both for ignoring the distribution of well-being, and for including an arbitrary preference for earlier generations. Here, we use a prioritarian SWF, with no time-discount factor, to calculate the SCC in the integrated assessment model RICE. Prioritarianism is a well-developed concept in ethics and theoretical welfare economics, but has been, thus far, little used in climate scholarship. The core idea is to give greater weight to well-being changes affecting worse off individuals. We find substantial differences between the discounted-utilitarian and non-discounted prioritarian SCC.

Suggested Citation

  • Adler, Matthew & Anthoff, David & Bosetti, Valentina & Garner, Greg & Keller, Klaus & Treich, Nicolas, 2016. "Priority for the Worse Off and the Social Cost of Carbon," MITP: Mitigation, Innovation and Transformation Pathways 244334, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:feemmi:244334
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.244334
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    3. Ryan Rafaty & Geoffroy Dolphin & Felix Pretis, 2020. "Carbon pricing and the elasticity of CO2 emissions," Working Papers EPRG2035, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    4. Stéphane Zuber & Marc Fleurbaey, 2019. "Discounting and Intergenerational Ethics," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-04467244, HAL.
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    6. Richard S.J. Tol, 2018. "The impact of climate change and the social cost of carbon," Working Paper Series 1318, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
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    8. Bas (B.) Jacobs & Rick (F.) van der Ploeg, 2017. "Should Pollution Taxes Be Targeted At Income Redistribution?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-070/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Kornek, Ulrike & Klenert, David & Edenhofer, Ottmar & Fleurbaey, Marc, 2021. "The social cost of carbon and inequality: When local redistribution shapes global carbon prices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    10. Jafino, Bramka Arga, 2021. "An equity-based transport network criticality analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 204-221.
    11. Suphi Sen & Serhan Sadikoglu & Changjing Ji & Edwin van der Werf, 2024. "The Effectiveness of Carbon Pricing: A Global Evaluation," CESifo Working Paper Series 11291, CESifo.
    12. Christian P. Fries & Lennart Quante, 2023. "Intergenerational Equitable Climate Change Mitigation: Negative Effects of Stochastic Interest Rates; Positive Effects of Financing," Papers 2312.07614, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
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    14. Edenhofer, Ottmar & Flachsland, Christian & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Knopf, Brigitte & Pahle, Michael, 2019. "Optionen für eine CO2-Preisreform," Working Papers 04/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
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    Resource /Energy Economics and Policy;

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    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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