@article{7e7b922e911548eb86c33ef09a83bad7,
title = "Uncertainty in forecasts of long-run economic growth",
abstract = "Forecasts of long-run economic growth are critical inputs into policy decisions being made today on the economy and the environment. Despite its importance, there is a sparse literature on long-run forecasts of economic growth and the uncertainty in such forecasts. This study presents comprehensive probabilistic long-run projections of global and regional per-capita economic growth rates, comparing estimates from an expert survey and a low-frequency econometric approach. Our primary results suggest a median 2010–2100 global growth rate in per-capita gross domestic product of 2.1% per year, with a standard deviation (SD) of 1.1 percentage points, indicating substantially higher uncertainty than is implied in existing forecasts. The larger range of growth rates implies a greater likelihood of extreme climate change outcomes than is currently assumed and has important implications for social insurance programs in the United States.",
keywords = "Climate change, Economic productivity, Forecast uncertainty, Greenhouse gas emissions, Long-run growth",
author = "P. Christensen and K. Gillingham and W. Nordhaus",
note = "Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Lint Barrage, Roger Cooke, Angus Deaton, Robert Gordon, Matthew Grant, Anil Kashyap, Nick Lardy, Robert Mendelsohn, Tony Smith, Michael Spence, T. N. Srinivasan, Larry Summers, Paul Sztorc, John Weyant, Kieran Walsh, and Mark Watson for excellent comments and invaluable assistance with various parts of this project. We especially thank the forecast respondents: Daron Acemoglu, Erik Brynjolfsson, Angus Deaton, Brad DeLong, Robert Gordon, Mun Ho, Peter Klenow, Benjamin Jones, Charles Jones, Nicholas Lardy, Lawrence Lau, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, John Reilly, Michael Spence, Nicholas Stern, and David Weil. We also thank workshop participants at the Yale Workshop on Climate Change Uncertainty, the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum, the Conference on Global Economic Analysis, and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei for helpful comments. This work was partly supported by the Carnegie Commission of New York (W.N.), the Department of Energy (P.C., K.G., and W.N.), and the National Science Foundation through the Network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management under National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement GEO-1240507 (P.C., K.G., and W.N.).",
year = "2018",
month = may,
day = "22",
doi = "10.1073/pnas.1713628115",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "115",
pages = "5409--5414",
journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
issn = "0027-8424",
publisher = "National Academy of Sciences",
number = "21",
}