Institute for Policy Integrity
New York University School of Law
Economists &
Climate Change
Consensus and Open Questions
J. Scott Holladay
Jonathan Horne
Jason A Schwartz
Policy Brief No. 5
November 2009
Copyright © 2009 by the Institute for Policy Integrity.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Raven & Crow.
Printed in the United States of America.
Institute for Policy Integrity
New York University School of Law
245 Sullivan Street, Suite 472
New York, New York 10012
Contents
Foreword
v
Executive Summary
vii
Why Survey Economists?
1
Survey Design
7
Results
11
Conclusion
23
Notes
25
Appendix
33
iv
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Andy Meyer for reviewing the survey and providing useful
comments; to Meghan Dwyer and Nik Dragovic for helping to
administer the survey; and to Paul Livermore‐Auer for suggestions
on analytic questions. Thanks to Richard L. Revesz and Michael A.
Livermore for guiding this project.
v
Foreword
There is considerable agreement among scientists who study the
climate that human actions, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, are
contributing to climate change on a global scale. After decades of
research, collaboration through the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, and efforts to communicate complex research
findings to the general public, the scientific consensus on the need
for action to reduce greenhouse gases is widely accepted.
Less well known is whether a similar consensus exists among the
economists who study climate change regarding the likely impacts of
greenhouse gases on the economy. Widespread media reports about
the costs of climate change legislation may lead a casual observer to
suppose that many economists would be opposed to climate change
policy, or would attribute relatively little economic risk to
greenho