the Aim of my article was to point out two things. First, to William Nordhaus’t received the economics prize for their ideas about how we should act on climate change, but because he developed models where the economy and climate change considerations be integrated in a single framework. Second, it is important to discuss both the assumptions made when these models are used and how the results then relate to all other possible trade-offs that are to take into account.
How both lines can get it for that I would have the intention to ”conceal the criticism” is not easy to comprehend. I have, on the contrary, for a long time in the other context, the lifting of the arguments put forward by the economists Jonathan Metzger mentions in his reply and is, therefore, entirely agree with that a discussion of their critique is important. Such a discussion must, however, take their starting point in trying to explain how the models work, the assumptions made based on things that we (albeit with great uncertainty) can observe, and what assumptions are made on the basis of other positions.
It is true that the assumptions play a major role, and also that the uncertainty is large, but they will not come from thin air and deposited far from arbitrary. But they are also not written in stone and the meaning of the choices made should therefore definitely be discussed seriously, which I also write in my article.
as regards the desire for serious debate are worse off in the second reply of Haikola. With the usual intellectual varnish, here in the form of Prokrustes and Pangloss, they persisted in evoking the classic nidbilden of the economist as a starry-type with an excessive faith in the perfect market. This despite the fact that the common denominator of Nordhaus and Roma, as said, is precisely their emphasis on how market imperfections justify the taxes, subsidies and other government interventions.
Oddly enough, it is only Nordhaus hung out as ”unscientific” in this context, despite the fact that both Roma and Nordhaus have exactly the same type of economic base. It is not possible to understand why, but I guess it is because the Roma conclusions on that there is a need of subsidies for technology development happens to coincide with what they themselves think is a good measure.
In one passage, it shall be illustrated how wrong it is to trust to the ”price mechanism”. But rather than worry about how much we actually know about the effect of making it more expensive to emit carbon dioxide (we know much) choose the following sentence: ”to just take a simple example, it is rarely the fastighetsbyggaren that pays the bills, why a carbon tax does not constitute an incentive to build energy-efficient.”
again, It is difficult to know what is meant here, but it sounds very much like one of the most common misunderstandings about the effect of taxes, the so-called skatteincidens. It is something which is taken up in all the basic courses in economics. The effect of the carbon tax on building energy-efficient has nothing to do with whether it is the builder who pays the tax. It depends on if the person who ultimately pays the electricity bill is willing to pay more for an energy-efficient house. The higher taxes are, the more you are willing to pay for an energy-efficient house, and the greater the incentive for the builder to build energy-efficient despite the fact that not ”fastighetsbyggaren pay the electricity bill”.
In another sense, it is stated that ”the Static equilibrium models are the wrong tool to analyze the dynamic system” with a reference to an old article by Nordhaus in which an early so-called Dice-model is presented. Dice stands for Dynamic integrated climate-economy, not a static model; in order to not talk about how bad the the reference representing the current models. And so here it continues, and for each point of this type of fault so cut it just on the shoulders and as you go further in what they think they know to be true.
(although I think that it is very important). I do not believe that economic models are the only way to understand the world. On the contrary, I have for a long time endeavoured to try to understand other perspectives and how they can enrich my own. But in every such discussion is my starting point to try and find me a new concepts, and be humble before that there might be things I am not supposed to.
Haikola with several writes in his reply the following about me and my article: ”His attitude to scientific disagreement should be silenced in order to not nourish the external opponent is deeply anti-intellectual.” I leave that for each reader to self-assess who is anti-intellectual in this debate.
