Economics winners linked climate and growth
OSLO, NORWAY William Nordhaus of Yale University and Paul Romer of New York University’s Stern School of Business won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for bringing longterm thinking on climate issues and technological innovation into the field of economics.
The two Americans “have designed methods for addressing some of our time’s most basic and pressing questions about how we create long-term sustained and sustainable economic growth,” the Royal Swedish Academy said on Monday.
Nordhaus, 77, began working on environmental issues in the early 1970s as part of an effort to put economic costs on global warming. In the 1990s, he created the first model that calculates the interplay between the economy and the climate.
Nordhaus has long cautioned that it’s “unlikely ” that nations can achieve the targets set in the landmark Paris Agreement and that policy delays are raising the price of carbon needed to achieve the goals.
Uncertainty is no excuse for inaction, he said.
The 62-year-old Romer has argued that policy-makers should stop trying to fine-tune the business cycle and instead harness technology to foster growth. His work published in 1990 has served as the foundation for what’s called “endogenous growth theory,” a rich area of research into the regulations and policies that encourage new ideas and long-term prosperity.
Romer said he discovered economic growth was speeding up in part due to more people who were connected by technology.