new review article

[Michael Ross]

Hi Everyone,

I'm writing to share my new review article, "The New Political Economy of Climate Change," in World Politics, January 2025.  Here's the abstract:

Many economists argue that climate change is a result of market failure and needs market-based solutions. Political scientists tend to see climate change as a result of political failures and emphasize the role of interest groups, social movements, and political institutions. This review compares the two approaches and discusses their policy implications. It describes how carbon pricing has become central to economists’ policy advice, how economists use integrated assessment models to estimate the ‘optimal’ carbon price, and why these estimates are both deeply uncertain and heuristically valuable. By contrast, political scientists seek to explain variation in the tepid and halting climate policies of governments, arguing they are the result of collective action problems, time inconsistencies, and increasingly, distributive conflict. Their frameworks also have different policy implications. Many suggest that certain policies – including subsidies for renewable energy and green industrial policies – will have greater political success since they tend to create new constituencies that can protect climate policies against future reversals. Both approaches, however, are challenged by heightened partisan polarization in the US and Europe over climate policies. En route this essay discusses three books that offer new insights about the distributional struggles over climate policies. These books – alongside other recent studies – help explain why the climate policies of most governments have been frail and uneven, and what might be necessary to change this.

If you can't access it through the journal website, you can download an uncorrected draft here. 

Best wishes,

Michael

Prof. Michael L. Ross

UCLA Department of Political Science
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