"Economic Modeling and the False Tradeoff Between Environmental Protection and Economic Growth" Contemporary Economic Policy 15, 1997
Abstract
One important element of the current policy debate on what measures should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is the controversy over the costs of reducing those emissions. “Top-down ” macroeconomic and general equilibrium models give much higher estimates of the costs than “bottom-up” models based on microeconomic and engineering data. This paper investigates the causes of the divergence between the two modeling approaches.
Abstract
One important element of the current policy debate on what measures should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is the controversy over the costs of reducing those emissions. “Top-down ” macroeconomic and general equilibrium models give much higher estimates of the costs than “bottom-up” models based on microeconomic and engineering data. This paper investigates the causes of the divergence between the two modeling approaches.
"The Efficiency Paradox: Bureaucratic and Organizational Barriers to Profitable Energy-Saving Investments" Energy Policy 26, 1998
Abstract
The paradox of why profitable energy-saving investments are not undertaken continues to provoke debate. The underlying phenomenon might be called the 'efficiency paradox,' because it represents a case in which business firms, which are often presumed (or taken axiomatically) to be economically efficient, make decisions that do not maximize profits. New data from one of the US Environmental Protection Agency's voluntary pollution prevention programs enables this paradox to be explored statistically.
Abstract
The paradox of why profitable energy-saving investments are not undertaken continues to provoke debate. The underlying phenomenon might be called the 'efficiency paradox,' because it represents a case in which business firms, which are often presumed (or taken axiomatically) to be economically efficient, make decisions that do not maximize profits. New data from one of the US Environmental Protection Agency's voluntary pollution prevention programs enables this paradox to be explored statistically.
"Information Processing and Organizational Structure" (with William E. Watkins) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 36, 1998
Abstract
Standard economic theories of the firm (and other organizations) stress profit maximization as the foundation for derivation of predictable behavior. Yet statistical and case-study evidence continues to accumulate that real firms do not act as required by the neoclassical framework. Instead of being represented by ever more elaborate maximization models, the firm can be modeled simply as a network of information-processing agents.
Abstract
Standard economic theories of the firm (and other organizations) stress profit maximization as the foundation for derivation of predictable behavior. Yet statistical and case-study evidence continues to accumulate that real firms do not act as required by the neoclassical framework. Instead of being represented by ever more elaborate maximization models, the firm can be modeled simply as a network of information-processing agents.
"Estimating the Non-Environmental Consequences of Greenhouse Gas Reductions is Harder Than You Think" Contemporary Economic Policy 17, 1999
Abstract
Top-down and bottom-up models of the non-environmental consequences of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions embody different implicit theories of economic organizations. Yet neither approach is explicit in showing the detailed computations that must be traced if the activities of firms are to be described realistically. Specification of firms’ computational processes leads inevitably to a consideration of potential computational limits on the behavior of organizations.
Abstract
Top-down and bottom-up models of the non-environmental consequences of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions embody different implicit theories of economic organizations. Yet neither approach is explicit in showing the detailed computations that must be traced if the activities of firms are to be described realistically. Specification of firms’ computational processes leads inevitably to a consideration of potential computational limits on the behavior of organizations.
"Organizational Structure and the Behavior of Firms: Implications for Integrated Assessment" (with Catherine Dibble and Keyvan Amir-Atefi) Climatic Change 48, 2001
Abstract
Existing climate/economy models typically treat production through the assumptions that firms maximize profits and that inputs are transformed to outputs according to a neoclassical production function. Yet these assumptions are at variance with some of the known empirical features of business behavior. One of the most promising ways to model firms more realistically is to include organizational network structure as an integral part of the representation.
Abstract
Existing climate/economy models typically treat production through the assumptions that firms maximize profits and that inputs are transformed to outputs according to a neoclassical production function. Yet these assumptions are at variance with some of the known empirical features of business behavior. One of the most promising ways to model firms more realistically is to include organizational network structure as an integral part of the representation.
"Cutting Carbon Emissions at a Profit (Part I): Opportunities for the U.S." (with Florentin Krause, J. Andrew Hoerner, and Paul Baer) Contemporary Economic Policy 20, 2002
Abstract
This article identifies and corrects shortcomings in recent modeling studies on the economics of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The major assessments of the Kyoto Protocol --- by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Clinton White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Department of Energy Interlaboratory Working Group, and the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum --- are found to be seriously incomplete.
Abstract
This article identifies and corrects shortcomings in recent modeling studies on the economics of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The major assessments of the Kyoto Protocol --- by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Clinton White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Department of Energy Interlaboratory Working Group, and the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum --- are found to be seriously incomplete.