THOMAS DOUENNE
Essays on the economics of environmental policies: preferences, beliefs, and redistribution
(Paris School of Economics & Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Thomas Douenne defended his thesis in November, 2020. We agree with Katheline Schubert (his advisor) who writes: “In only 3 years, Thomas has managed to write four excellent papers. The four papers are already published in very good journals (The Energy Journal, Ecological Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Review of Economic Dynamics), which is very rare. About his paper published in RED, Katheline Schubert writes: “The theoretical part is beautiful, and the calibration is very smart. Thomas is a particularly promising young researcher. He is innovative. He has a strong theoretical background and strong analytical skills. He is able to do very good empirical work as well. His work ethics is impressive, as his publication record clearly shows. His dissertation is exceptional and deserves without doubt to be rewarded by a prize.”
His thesis is made of four chapters that can also be read as independent research papers.
1. “The Vertical and Horizontal Distributive Effects of Energy Taxes: a Case Study of a French Policy”, The Energy Journal (2020). The novelty of the paper is that it sheds light on the importance of the horizontal heterogeneity across households of the same class of revenues, due largely to the characteristics of their cars and their heating devices, and to the location of their home (rural vs urban).
2. “Yellow Vests, Pessimistic Beliefs, and Carbon Tax Aversion”, with Adrien Fabre, conditionally accepted at American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. In this paper the authors investigate French perceptions over carbon taxation. The originality of the paper resides in the fact that after receiving answers to questions on tax and dividend policy where revenues of the tax would be redistributed uniformly, people are given a feedback on their actual expected loss or gain (using a micro-simulation model) and are asked to revise their opinions. The authors show that that people’s beliefs are persistent and their revisions biased towards pessimism, so that only few can be convinced that the tax and dividend scheme is a desirable one.
3. “French Attitudes on Climate Change, Carbon Taxation, and other Climate Policies”, with Adrien Fabre, Ecological Economics (2020). The paper elicits knowledge, perceptions and values over climate change and examines opinions relative to carbon taxation. It also assesses support for other climate policies. Among many results, the authors find limited knowledge but high concern for climate change, and a majority support for stricter norms and green investments.
4. “Disaster Risks, Disaster Strikes, and Economic Growth: the Role of Preferences”, Review of Economic Dynamics (2020). The paper solves an endogenous growth model with endogenous disasters (their size is endogenous, and their probability of occurrence as well) and recursive preferences. The paper disentangles the various mechanisms that drive the consequences of these disasters on growth and welfare and assesses their magnitude through a calibration on US data. The paper adds to a growing literature on climate disasters.
FRIKK NESJE
Assessing climate change
(University of Oslo)
Frikk Nesje defended his dissertation in June 2020. We agree with the comments of his supervisor Geir B. Asheim: “As my PhD candidate Frikk Nesje impressed me greatly by his competence, curiosity, creativity and collegiality. He demonstrated such qualities through his work with the four papers of his dissertation entitled ‘Assessing climate change’, which he completed in February 2020 and successfully defended in June 2020”.
His thesis is made up of four chapters:
1.Cross-dynastic intergenerational altruism (solo-authored, unpublished) investigates how the discount rate is determined when the present generation has concerns for the future that extends beyond the welfare of their own descendants. A key finding is that the discount rate cannot be inferred from the market.
2. Destructive intergenerational altruism (co-authored with Geir Asheim, published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics) investigates theoretically whether increased intergenerational altruism (by decreasing the discount rate) can reduce the threat of climate change, and finds that long-term wellbeing might be seriously undermined.
3.Discounting disentangled (co-authored with Moritz A. Drupp, Mark C. Freeman and Ben Groom, published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy) investigates empirically the extent of heterogeneity in expert opinion on the appropriate discount rate, and obtains a surprising degree of consensus. The project under consideration is generic, but application to climate change is discussed.
4.Updating the Nobel Prize climate-economy model provides support for the UN climate targets (co-authored with Martin C. Hänsel, Moritz A. Drupp, Daniel Johansson, Christian Azar, Mark C. Freeman, Ben Groom and Thomas Sterner, published as Climate economics support for the UN climate targets in Nature Climate Change) investigates numerically whether the UN climate targets can be optimal in Nordhaus’ climate-economy model. It does so by using more accurate climate science relationships, together with the latest evidence from economics, including discounting views, and finds that they can.
YUTING YANG
Economic Studies on Energy Transition and Environmental Regulations
(Toulouse School of Economics)
Yuting has defended her PhD thesis entitled Economic Studies on Energy Transition and Environmental Regulations at the Toulouse School of Economics, Univeristy Toulouse Capitole, on June 29 2020. Anna Creti (University Paris Dauphine) and Werner Antweiler
(University of British Columbia) were the external evaluators, and Stefan Ambec and Nicolas Treich, the two co-supervisors.
1.Her first chapter co-authored with Nicolas Treich focuses on public safety provision. They develop a theoretical model to investigate how investment in mortality-risk reduction (e.g. pollution abatement) should be financed. The paper has been accepted in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
2.Her second chapter (job market paper) investigates how the penetration of intermittent renewables, such as solar and wind power, modifies electricity trading among countries, their energy mix and greenhouse gas emissions. She also identifies the social value of interconnection between countries. Yuting deals with a general but yet tractable model to be able to decompose the economic mechanisms underlying the results. An interesting result is that curtailment turns out to be optimal with high enough positive correlation among energy sources.
3. In the third chapter of her thesis, Yuting investigates another question using the same model: how a country can unilaterally decarbonize its energy mix when trading with partner who do not care about its carbon footprint? She determines the public policies that the country should implement depending on the decarbonization target.
