Climate Economics with Arvid Viaene
A research-focused podcast on the economics of climate change and air pollution. Episodes are released every two weeks on Tuesday at 6 am CET. Episodes will be either expert interviews or solo explorations of key issues. Hosted by Dr. Arvid Viaene, a climate economist with a PhD from the University of Chicago. He has done research on the impacts of climate change on agriculture and mortality. His research on climate-related mortality has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and he has advised the European Commission on the impacts of climate policy on firm competitiveness.
Climate Economics with Arvid Viaene
#21 Dr. Richard Tol on FUND, Climate Damages and Why Adaptation Matters
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In this episode, I speak with Richard Tol about the origins of the FUND integrated assessment model and why its structure matters for climate economics.
We start with the basic question: what is an integrated assessment model actually for? From there, Richard explains how FUND was built in the early 1990s, why it took a different path from models like DICE and PAGE, and why sector-by-sector damages, public goods, demography, and adaptation all matter if you want to say something useful about climate damages.
A central theme in this conversation is that climate impacts are not just a simple function of temperature. Vulnerability changes with income, public health, infrastructure, and technological change. That has big implications for how economists should think about damages, development, and policy design.
This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.
In this episode:
- what integrated assessment models do
- how Richard Tol got started building FUND
- why FUND differs from DICE and PAGE
- adaptation, public goods, and sectoral damages
- malaria, heat, and technological change
- how FUND was calibrated from the literature
For questions, comments or suggestions, you can contact me at arvid.viaene.ce@gmail.com