The Behavioral Economics and Politics of Global Warming
Unsettling Behaviors

Provides a psychological explanation for why actual global climate policy is at odds with the prescriptions of most neoclassical economists.

Hersh Shefrin (Author)

9781009454902, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 November 2023

112 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 1.2 cm, 0.31 kg

The main goal of this Element is to provide a psychological explanation for why actual global climate policy is so greatly at odds with the prescriptions of most neoclassical economists. To be sure, the behavioral approach does focus on why neoclassical models are often psychologically unrealistic. However, in this Element the author argues that the unrealistic elements are minor compared to the psychological pitfalls driving politically determined climate policy. Why this is the case is what the author describes as the 'big behavioral question.' More precisely, the big behavioral question asks about unsettling behaviors, why there is a huge gap between actual policy and even the weakest of the prescriptions in the range of plausible recommendations coming from neoclassical economists' integrated assessment models. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

1. Introduction
2. Fear Based on Scientific Models of Global Warming
3. The Nordhaus Integrated Assessment Model
4. Behavioral Analysis of the Nordhaus-Stern Debate
5. Psychology, Politics, and Climate Policy
6. Hope for Reversing Global Warming.

Subject Areas: Finance [KFF]