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A Meta-Analysis of the Economic Impacts of
Climate Change Policy in the United States
Adam Rose* and Noah Dormady**

This paper provides a meta-analysis of a broad set of recent studies of the economic impacts of climate change mitigation policies. It evaluates the infiuences of the impacts of causal factors, key economic assumptions and macroeconomic linkages on the outcome of these studies. A quantité regression analysis is also performed on the meta sample, to evaluate the robustness of those key factors throughout the full range of macro findings. Results of these analyses suggest that study results are strongly driven by data inputs, economic assumptions and modeling approaches. However, they are sometimes affected in counterintuitive ways.
1. INTRODUCTION
The macroeconomic impacts of climate change mitigation policies are controversial among both scholars and the policy-making community. Results range from predictions of severe economic harm to significant overall economic gains. Given the unresolved nature of this debate, this paper seeks to shed light on it by evaluating a wide range of macroeconomic studies through a metaanalytic approach. Meta-analysis is a method for evaluating a cross-section of studies on a given topic, and evaluating the impacts of assumptions, input variables and modeling approaches on the overall findings of the studies. In essence, meta-analysis is a study of studies (Borenstein et al., 2009; Lipsey and Wilson
2001).

The Energy Joumai, Vol. 32, No. 2. Copyright ©2011 by the IAEE. All rights reserved.
*

**

Corresponding author. Research Professor, School of Policy, Planning and Development
(SPPD), University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA 90089. E-mail: adamzros@sppd.usc.edu. Ph.D. Candidate, SPPD, USC.

This paper was supported by a grant from the Center for Climate Strategies. The

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