The social cost of lobbying over climate policy
| Autor: | Ashwin Rode, Kyle C. Meng |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Value (ethics)
0303 health sciences 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Public economics Social cost Opposition (politics) Climate change Environmental Science (miscellaneous) Climate policy 01 natural sciences 03 medical and health sciences Politics Economics Damages Statistical analysis Social Sciences (miscellaneous) 030304 developmental biology 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
| Zdroj: | Nature Climate Change. 9:472-476 |
| ISSN: | 1758-6798 1758-678X |
| Popis: | Domestic political processes shape climate policy. In particular, there is increasing concern about the role of political lobbying over climate policy. This paper examines how lobbying spending on the Waxman–Markey bill, the most prominent and promising United States climate regulation so far, altered its likelihood of being implemented. We combine data from comprehensive United States lobbying records with an empirical method for forecasting the policy’s effect on the value of publicly listed firms. Our statistical analysis suggests that lobbying by firms expecting losses from the policy was more effective than lobbying by firms expecting gains. Interpreting this finding through a game-theoretic model, we calculate that lobbying lowered the probability of enacting the Waxman–Markey bill by 13 percentage points, representing an expected social cost of US$60 billion (in 2018 US dollars). Our findings also suggest how future climate policy proposals can be designed to be more robust to political opposition. Political interests play a key role in the passage of climate policy. This study quantifies that political lobbying reduced the probability of enacting the Waxman–Markey bill in the United States by 13 percentage points, representing US$60 billion in expected climate damages. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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