Mark Budolfson

Mark Budolfson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Geography and the Environment, and the Population Wellbeing Initiative, University of Texas at Austin. He wo

Frontiers in Sustainability vol 4 Abstract Resilience is often presented as a championing solution for tackling the multi-level environmental, security, health, and financial threats facing the whole hum

A conversation with Thomas Schelling part 3

www.iffs.se Thomas Schelling, an American economist and professor of foreign affairs who in 2005 was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analyses of game-theory, is interv

A conversation with Thomas Schelling part 2

www.iffs.se Thomas Schelling, an American economist and professor of foreign affairs who in 2005 was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analyses of game-theory, is interv

A conversation with Thomas Schelling part 1

www.iffs.se Thomas Schelling, an American economist and professor of foreign affairs who in 2005 was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analyses of game-theory, is interv

Working Paper 2007 No. 3 A revised version is published in the European Sociological Review, 24 (4). Lars Brännström

Arbetsrapport 2024:3Del av Studies in the Ethics of Coordination and Climate Change Abstract In a prisoner’s dilemma, if everyone follows the strategy of self-interest, then everyone is certain to be wo

Research and ideas for a brighter future - part 1

What are the greatest challenges to our modern society and what can be done to overcome these, with a brighter future ahead? This is part two of the seminar "Research and ideas for a brighter society"

Research and ideas for a brighter future - part 2

What are the greatest challenges to our modern society and what can be done to overcome these, with a brighter future ahead? This is part two of the seminar "Research and ideas for a brighter society"

Mark Jaccard, Professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, VancouverAbstractThere are obvious reasons why for three decades most jurisdictions have failPublic surveys and observation of real-world GHG reduction successes suggest that explicit carbon pricing (carbon tax and perhaps cap-and-trade) can be substantially more politically difficult than certain regulatory policies for shifting the energy system on to a deep decarbonization trajectory. Nonetheless, some people have argued that carbon pricing is an essential GHG reduction policy, suggesting that sincere politicians must do carbon pricing no matter how politically difficult. But the claim that carbon pricing is essential is factually incorrect. Deep decarbonization can be achieved entirely with regulations. Regulatory policies are unlikely to be as economically efficient as carbon pricing. But not all regulations perform identically when it comes to the economic-efficiency criterion. Flexible regulations have some attributes that make them low cost relative to regulations that require adoption of specific technologies.This talk provides evidence that assesses both the relative economic efficiency of policies and their relative political acceptability. The findings reported here suggest that some kinds of flexible regulations can perform significantly better than explicit carbon pricing in terms of relative political cost per tonne reduced while performing only marginally worse in terms of economic cost per tonne reduced. Presumably, this type of trade-off information could be of value to politicians who sincerely want deep decarbonization but would also like to be rewarded with re-election so that they and competing politicians see the value in ambitious and sustained GHG reduction efforts.