Comments on: In Defense of Money

By: Last on geoengineering « Rortybomb

Last on geoengineering « Rortybomb — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:01:32 +0000

[...] then fight global warming rather than make them poorer to take a chance of fighting global warming. Karl Smith had a moving take on [...]

By: Is Waxman-Markey Stealth Aid? « Modeled Behavior

Is Waxman-Markey Stealth Aid? « Modeled Behavior — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:56:41 +0000

[...] ~ July 1st, 2009 In the comments TGGP asks Sounds like a Kaldor-Hicks efficiency type standard. The money outweighs the warming effects because if we transferred the [...]

By: kwsmith2

kwsmith2 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:59:38 +0000

Mike – Let me take that up in a future post

By: teageegeepea

teageegeepea — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:54:00 +0000

Sounds like a Kaldor-Hicks efficiency type standard. The money outweighs the warming effects because if we transferred the money to those effected they would prefer to that outcome to one in which we restricted carbon and made no transfers. However, in all likelihood we probably won't transfer much money. Foreign aid is a miniscule (yet very hated) part of the federal budget. According to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, it doesn't even go to the benefit of poor people in other countries. Rather it is how our government bribes other governments to behave to our liking. Since rich countries make up the largest portion of the global economy, most of the lost dollars due to carbon restrictions will come from them and so the money will continue to buy Hummers. Due to the declining utility of dollars for rich people, they may be more willing to give money to poor countries if they get richer (Gates & Buffet are examples), but if we take a Rawlsian rather than utilitarian view we may disregard all the utility the best off get from those Hummers and all improvements going to the poorest.

By: dWj

dWj — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:51:25 +0000

People seem to respond the same way to health care a lot of the time. Anything that requires the use of economic resources that cannot then be used for something else is subject to economic principles, especially where consumers have different tastes. Wishing it weren’t so doesn’t help.

Interesting, Mike; I kind of assumed most people were the other way around. The economic costs seem to be easier to pin down; the science as to what will happen if we emit A versus if we emit B seems much fuzzier.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:59:59 +0000

I am not well-trained in growth or macroeconomic theory. If I was to have my knee-jerk reaction it would be that (a) the cost from global warming to these regions are real and certain, (b) while the projected loss of GDP (as well as food/water estimates) from passing climate change requires a seemless End of History style globalization of markets and Solow-ian convergence of producitivity of capital and labor. That’s a knee-jerk reaction, but I’d be curious as to your opinion of it. I’m confident on (a), not sure on (b).

Because honestly I think of AGW and think that the first world is going to have to take in hundreds of millions of third world climate change refugees, something that could go seriously ugly.