We consider the economic optimal control problem of emissions abatement with uncertain climate thresholds. The basis of study is Nordhaus' (1994) DICE model augmented for parameter uncertainty, uncertain climate thresholds [Keller et al. 2000], and parameter learning. The method of optimization is an improved version of Storn & Price's (1995) Di erential Evolution. The algorithm is modi ed to b...

What, another paper on the new economy? When financial markets are raking through the debris of $8 trillion in lost equity value, and “.com” is a reviled four-symbol word, a paper on the impact of the new economy on productivity would seem as welcome as an analysis of the role of whales in the lighting revolution. In fact, the new economy (or, more precisely, information technologies) continues...

Climate change has become the preeminent sustainability issue, receiving significantly more political, corporate, media and public attention than other pressing environmental and social issues. Around the world, a diverse movement has emerged seeking stronger action to respond to climate change. However, this movement lacks cohesion and has failed to build sufficient political power to trigger ...

When exploring solutions to long-term environmental problems such as climate change, it is crucial to understand how the rates and directions of technological change may interact with environmental policies in the presence of uncertainty. This paper analyzes optimal technological portfolios for global carbon emissions reductions in an integrated assessment model of the coupled social-natural sy...

In this paper I comment on the reactions of William Nordhaus to a recent article of mine entitled “On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change” that appeared in the February 2009 issue of the Review of Economics and Statistics. My target audience here is PhD-level general economists, but this paper could also be viewed as a somewhat less technical supplement to my ...

The vasoconstrictor substance named serotonin was identified as 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) by Maurice Rapport in 1949. In 1951, Rapport gave Gaddum samples of 5-HT substance allowing him to develop a bioassay to both detect and measure the amine. Gaddum and colleagues rapidly identified 5-HT in brain and showed that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) antagonized its action in peripheral tissues. ...

In this paper, a new method for developing a lower bound on exact completion time distribution function of stochastic PERT networks is provided that is based on simplifying the structure of this type of network. The designed mechanism simplifies network structure by arc duplication so that network distribution function can be calculated only with convolution and multiplication. The selection of...