Adrien Bilal - Unveiling the Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs. Local Shocks
Abstract: This paper estimates that the macroeconomic damages from climate change are six times larger than previously thought. We exploit natural variability in global temper- ature and rely on a time series approach. A 1°C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world GDP. Global temperature shocks correlate much more strongly with extreme climatic events than country-level temperature shocks that the tradi- tional panel literature relies on, explaining why our estimate is substantially larger. We then use our reduced-form results to estimate structural damage functions in a standard neoclassical growth model. Our results imply a Social Cost of Carbon of $1,169 per ton of carbon dioxide. A business as usual warming scenario leads to a present value welfare loss of 32%. Both are multiple orders of magnitude above previous estimates.
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