Development of Reduced-Form Models to Evaluate Macroeconomic Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

摘要

Since 2000, more than thirty-five states have or are developing comprehensive plans to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to achieve related public policy goals. Most State Climate Action Plans include detailed micro-level analyses of the mitigation policy options focusing on the direct costs/savings associated with the implementation of the options. Estimation of the macroeconomic impacts of a policy on future employment and income typically requires the use of sophisticated modeling tools, whose application is often costly and time-consuming, and thus is often prohibitive at an early phase of the policy evaluation process. In this paper, we develop reduced form statistical models that can be used to quickly and relatively inexpensively predict the likely macroeconomic impacts of various climate mitigation options. The regression models are built based on the macroeconomic modeling results of 92 GHG mitigation policy options across four major states in the U.S.