Discussion paper

DP15866 The Expectations Channel of Climate Change: Implications for Monetary Policy

We measure expectations about the short-run economic impact of climate change in a representative survey of US consumers. Respondents expect not much of an impact on GDP growth, but perceive a high probability of costly, rare disasters---suggesting they are salient of climate change. Furthermore, expectations vary systematically with socioeconomic characteristics, media consumption, various information treatments and over time. We calibrate a New Keynesian model to key results of the survey and spell out two implications for monetary policy. First, climate-change related disaster expectations lower the natural rate of interest substantially. Second, time-variation in disaster expectations contributes to cyclical fluctuations.

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Citation

Dietrich, A, G Müller and R Schoenle (2022), ‘DP15866 The Expectations Channel of Climate Change: Implications for Monetary Policy‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 15866. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp15866