Democratic Climate Policies with Overlapping Generations
构建了一个包含政治过程微观基础的代际重叠模型，研究民主气候政策如何与其他民主政策相互关联，并发现时间不一致的社会目标和承诺问题导致资本税和气候政策低于有效水平。
Abstract An extensive climate policy literature provides various recommendations for mitigating climate change, but these recommendations 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 capable of incorporating democratic processes. I develop an overlapping generation model with political process micro-foundations and show how democratic climate policies are interconnected with other democratic policies. Time inconsistent social objectives combined with commitment issues lead to an inefficient tax on capital accumulation and a climate policy below the efficient level; while suppressing the tax on capital accumulation generates a climate policy even further below the efficient level. I derive a novel politico-economic Keynes–Ramsey rule for the market interest rate, which is useful for calculating the climate policy level. I show that individual pure time preference, individual altruism toward descendants, and young generation political power are key determinants of democratic climate policy ambition.