Empirical essays on the economics of climate change

Climate change has been referred to as the world’s largest externality, motivating research and policies that in recent years appear to have gained additional momentum. This thesis compiles five empirical essays on the economics of climate change. The first three chapters study the costs of climate change. The last two chapters examine policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More specifically, the first two chapters identify causal effects of temperature variability to examine its possible costs under scenarios of future climate change. The third chapter studies the impacts of weather shocks in Europe paying particular attention to their heterogeneity by industry and average climate. The chapters apply novel strategies for causal identification and report evidence on new channels through which climate change affects society. The fourth chapter empirically studies the sequencing of mitigation policies by instrument type and the association between sequencing and the adoption of carbon pricing policies. The fifth chapter examines the international diffusion of carbon pricing policies and quantifies its contribution to global greenhouse gas emission reductions. Both chapters report novel evidence that speaks to current debates in research and policy about how to limit global warming.