Nicholas Stern

The Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE), at Tufts University in the USA, will award the annual Economics prize to LSE’s own Nicholas Stern, as well as Harvard’s Martin Weitzman, for their work on climate economics. The ceremony and Leontief Prize lectures are set for March 2011.

According to GDAE Co-director Neva Goodwin (quoting from the Tufts Institute website), “Climate change is a fundamental challenge to the survival of human civilisations. It also poses a critical challenge to economic theory and practice…. Nicholas Stern and Martin Weitzman have vigorously and effectively addressed that challenge, demonstrating with theoretical rigor and empirical analysis that we can afford the economic adjustments needed to address climate change. In fact, we can’t afford not to.”

The website also writes: “Nicholas Stern brings a long and distinguished history of research on the economics of development, but he is best known for his path-opening Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. This comprehensive assessment directly challenges the assertion, common in the field of economics, that the costs of addressing climate change outweigh the benefits. Demonstrating the theoretical fallacies in such arguments, and highlighting the importance of both international and intergenerational equity, Stern called for prompt and aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has stated that climate change calls for ‘radically transformed development paths on the back of a technological revolution’ and that ‘publicly supported low-carbon development can both create jobs, reduce risks for our planet and spark off a wave of new investment which will create a more secure, cleaner and attractive economy for all of us’.”

“Stern has served as Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank (2000 – 2003) and as Chief Economist and Special Counsellor to the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1994 – 1999). He is now the I.G. Patel Professor of Economics and Government and the Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE). In the academic year 2009-10, he was Professor at the Collège de France.”

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