The Wealth Channel in Climate Change Macroeconomics.

Amid a period when the United Nations has identified climate change as one of the most pressing challenges of our time, a growing body of complex and contested literature has emerged regarding its effects on GDP. Focusing on GDP, however, ignores the wealth channel which can be of importance for climate change. As wealth is a stock variable which is driven by asset valuations and savings behaviour, climate change may damage the asset valuations and impact savings behaviour in the short and long run.

This project will investigate the role of wealth stock in climate change and climate change policy by employing a mixed methods approach. We empirically investigate the impact of national and extreme temperatures upon the country’s wealth using a benchmark panel regression method. Having tested the climate-wealth channel empirically, we shall model this link using recent developments in Theoretical Research.