Many economic modelers believe that there is an “optimal economic path” for solving the climate problem that exists independent of human choices. This belief rests on the notion that Integrated Assessment Models can determine the path that “maximizes global welfare” and, in turn, this path should drive climate policy. This commentary focuses on an under-appreciated problem with that belief. We argue that the existence of pervasive increasing returns to scale, network externalities, learning curves, spillovers, and other nonlinear effects puts the idea of a single optimal economic path at odds with our current understanding of the most important forces driving the development of real economic and technological systems. We further argue that this idea is detrimental to rigorous understanding of climate solutions.

中文翻译：

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放弃气候政策“最佳经济路径”的想法

许多经济模型学家认为，解决气候问题存在一条独立于人类选择的“最佳经济路径”。这种信念基于这样的观念：综合评估模型可以确定“全球福利最大化”的路径，反过来，这条路径应该驱动气候政策。本评论重点关注这一信念中一个未被充分认识的问题。我们认为，普遍存在的规模报酬递增、网络外部性、学习曲线、溢出效应和其他非线性效应，使得单一最优经济路径的想法与我们目前对推动实体经济发展的最重要力量的理解相矛盾。和技术系统。我们进一步认为，这种想法不利于对气候解决方案的严格理解。