Democratic climate policies with overlapping generations

Arbeitspapier

An extensive climate policy literature provides various recommendations, but they are not supported democratically since the models employed consider either infinitely-lived individuals or normative social objectives (or both). In contrast, the present paper provides policy recommendations that are able to go through democratic processes. I develop an overlapping generation model with political process micro-foundations. I analyze how democratic policies, which are directly and indirectly related to climate change, differ from standard recommended policies. The novel politico-economic formula derived for the interest rate highlights that individual pure time preference, individual altruism toward descendants, and young generation political power are key determinants of democratic climate policy ambition.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Economics Working Paper Series ; No. 22/374

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft
• Subject: Climate change ; Discounting ; Externality ; Overlapping generations ; Political economy

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Goussebaïle, Arnaud
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ETH Zurich, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research
• (where): Zurich
• (when): 2022

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000567947
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/264593
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET