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History of Climate Economics

Editors of the Special Issue

Christophe Cassen (CNRS, CIRED Paris)

Béatrice Cointe (CNRS, CSI Paris)

Antoine Missemer (CNRS, CIRED Paris)

Call for Papers

  • 1 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/

In 2018, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to William D. Nordhaus “for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis.”1 This reflected an alignment between the Nobel Committee and growing societal concerns about global warming three years after the Paris Agreement. It also acknowledged that climate analysis could be considered a legitimate area of research for top-ranked economists. Since then, however, insufficient progress has been made in addressing climate change and in incorporating climate issues into economic research (Acemoglu, 2021; Nordhaus, 2019; Stern, 2022).

Nordhaus began his research on climate economics in the late 1970s (e.g. Nordhaus, 1977), following his initial studies on growth and energy. He was not the first economist to discuss carbon dioxide; one of the early mentions of it in the literature can be found in Ayres and Kneese (1969). Major developments in this area occurred in the 1990s, coinciding with the first reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the initial stages of international climate negotiations, beginning with the 1992 Rio conference. Thus, the history of climate economics is at least 30 years old, if not 50. We now have some hindsight on how the field unfolded, its main protagonists, issues of controversy, and their impact on the economics discipline and climate policies around the world.

So far, historians of economic thought have not explored this history much. Only a few published or ongoing works exist, addressing for instance Nordhaus’s and other key contributions (Guigourez, 2023; Masini, 2021; Pottier, 2016), the connection between resource and climate economics (Gaspard and Missemer, 2022), emissions trading schemes (Berta, 2021; Calel, 2013), or specific analytical tools such as time discounting (Cherrier and Duarte, 2024; Deringer, 2025). Some works have sought inspiration from other episodes in the history of economic thought in order to address climate issues in the 21st century (e.g. Pouchain et al., 2023). This list is not exhaustive, and all of this work is still in its preliminary stages.

More work has been carried out in connected fields such as science and technology studies (STS), sociology, and the history of science, especially on the question of climate models (Cassen and Cointe, 2022; Cointe et al., 2019; e.g. Dahan Dalmedico, 2007) and mitigation and adaptation policies (e.g. Felli, 2016; Pestre, 2020). The intersection of economic expertise and climate negotiations has also been investigated (e.g. Aykut and Dahan, 2015; Cassen, 2023). And some literature in environmental and energy history has also approached climate issues through the lens of economic ideas (e.g. Nordblad and Vettese, 2022). These different bodies of literature can certainly benefit historians of economic thought.

The objective of this special issue of Œconomia – History | Methodology | Philosophy is to promote research in the history of economic thought related to climate. A sharper understanding of how climate economics has unfolded and who has contributed to its development is necessary. Identifying nonlinearities and variations in how economists approached climate issues could also certainly provide a more nuanced view of the field. And due to the central role of climate change in today’s international agenda, climate economics is an ideal case study for examining the dialogue (or lack thereof) between economic analysis and policymaking.

The special issue intends to address three main sets of issues. (1) First, what we may call foundational issues, relating to the philosophical, ethical, epistemological, or theoretical questions underlying climate economics. These questions include for instance the role of welfare economics, intergenerational equity, responsibility, and all interdisciplinary issues (with other social sciences, engineering, and Earth-system sciences). (2) Second, what we may call analytical issues, relating to the methodological or technical questions and tools that have been important in climate economics. These questions and tools include the types and functions of models (toy models, integrated assessment models), issues relating to data availability and calibration, as well as the role of specific instruments, such as time discounting and climate damage functions. (3) Third, what we may call policy issues, relating to economists’ recommendations for climate action, but also to the interface between economic expertise (including communities of modelers) and climate policy at the national and international levels (including within the IPCC).

These three sets of issues, obviously, can combine and be intertwined.

Additionally, this special issue intends to explore the prehistory of climate economics, or how economists addressed atmospheric and global weather issues before the 1960s and 1970s. The greenhouse effect was known long before the 1960s, and historians have shown that some climate concerns existed in the distant past (though obviously not of the same kind nor at the same scale) (Fressoz and Locher, 2020). Specialists of 18th- and 19th-century economic literature are therefore also welcome to contribute if they find a relevant angle.

Finally, climate economics can also be a good candidate for exploring broader issues currently under discussion in the history of economic thought and economic methodology, such as models as “artifacts” (Halsmayer, 2024), questions of “tractability” (Cherrier, 2023), and the role of economists as public experts and policy advisors (Berman, 2022). Non-specialists in climate economics are therefore welcome to use this special issue as an opportunity to enter the field.

The following are some of the specific topics that could be addressed in the proposals. This list is not exhaustive, and all proposals are welcome.

  • Contributions on individual economists (or groups of economists) such as Nordhaus, Manne, Stern, Weitzman, Chichilnisky, Schelling, etc. or institutions such as MIT, IIASA, OECD, World Bank, European Commission, etc.

  • Contributions on the history of models (DICE, IMAGE, MESSAGE, IMACLIM, etc.) or specific instruments and/or controversies (time discounting, carbon tax, emissions trading schemes, etc.)

  • Contributions on the history of climate economics outside the English-speaking world or in the Global South

  • Contributions on climate policies and the role of economic expertise, at the national and international levels

  • Contributions on how macroeconomists or microeconomists have (or have not) considered climate issues in their main work

  • Contributions on the prehistory of economic considerations of atmospheric and global weather conditions

  • Contributions on philosophical and ethical questions (ethics, equity, justice, democracy, etc.) underlying climate economics

  • Contributions on economic outlets devoted to climate issues (academic journals, reports, etc.)

We welcome all approaches and methods in the history of economic thought, including qualitative and quantitative methods and the use of archival or oral sources. We will also consider proposals from related fields, such as economic methodology and economic philosophy, science and technology studies (STS), sociology, the history of science, geography, and environmental humanities.

Procedure and Timeline

Researchers who would like to be considered for participation in this special issue of Œconomia – History | Methodology | Philosophy should express their interest by submitting an extended abstract (500 words) before January 15, 2026. Extended abstracts should be submitted on the online submission platform Manuscrits : http://journals.sfu.ca/oeconomia/index.php/oeconomia/. Please select the Section “History of Climate Economics”.

A selection of relevant proposals will be made and authors will be notified by Feb. 1, 2026.

For pre-selected proposals, full papers will be expected by July 5, 2026.

All pre-selected papers will undergo regular peer-review process. The publication of the special issue, after revision of the papers, is expected in the first semester of 2027.

Bibliographie

Acemoglu, Daron. 2021. What Climate Change Requires of Economics. Project Syndicate. https://www.project-syndicate.org/magazine/what-climate-change-requires-of-economics-by-daron-acemoglu-2021-09 [retrieved 20/11/2025].

Aykut, Stefan and Amy Dahan. 2015. Gouverner le climat ? 20 ans de négociations internationales. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

Ayres, Robert U. and Allen V. Kneese. 1969. Production, Consumption, and Externalities. American Economic Review, 59(3): 282-297.

Berman, Elizabeth Popp. 2022. Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Berta, Nathalie. 2021. A Note on John Dales and the Early History of Emissions Trading: Mixing Standards and Markets for Rights. Cahiers d’économie Politique, 79(1): 61-84.

Calel, Raphael. 2013. Carbon Markets: A Historical Overview. WIREs Climate Change, 4(2): 107-119. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.208

Cassen, Christophe. 2023. Le dilemme climat/développement dans les négociations internationales sur le climat : histoire d’un réductionnisme climato-centré (1990-2022). PhD dissertation, EHESS.

Cassen, Christophe and Béatrice Cointe. 2022. From The Limits to Growth to Greenhouse Gas Emissions Pathways: Technological Change in Global Computer Models (1972-2007). Contemporary European History, 31(4): 610-626. https://doi.org/10.1017/S096077732200042X

Cherrier, Béatrice. 2023. The Price of Virtue: Some Hypotheses on How Tractability Has Shaped Economic Models. Œconomia - History | Methodology | Philosophy, 13(1): 23-48. https://doi.org/10.4000/oeconomia.14116

Cherrier, Beatrice and Pedro Garcia Duarte. 2024. How the “Ramsey Formula” Came to Define Time Discounting in Economics (1950-2000). SSRN Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4973044

Cointe, Béatrice, Christophe Cassen, and Alain Nadaï. 2019. Organising Policy-Relevant Knowledge for Climate Action: Integrated Assessment Modelling, the IPCC, and the Emergence of a Collective Expertise on Socioeconomic Emission Scenarios. Science & Technology Studies, 32(4): 36-57. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.65031

Dahan Dalmedico, Amy (ed.). 2007. Les modèles du futur. Paris: La Découverte.

Deringer, William. 2025. The “Social Rate of Discount” and the Political Economy of the Future in Postwar America. History of Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-12134462

Felli, Romain. 2016. La grande adaptation : climat, capitalisme et catastrophe. Paris: Seuil.

Fressoz, Jean-Baptiste and Fabien Locher. 2020. Les révoltes du ciel. Une histoire du changement climatique XVe-XXe siècle. Paris: Seuil.

Gaspard, Marion and Antoine Missemer. 2022. Optimalité, équité et prix du carbone. À propos de Harold Hotelling et de sa règle en économie du climat. Revue de l’OFCE, 176: 203-228. https://doi.org/10.3917/reof.176.0203

Guigourez, Mathieu. 2023. 10$ a Ton of Carbon? The Stern-Nordhaus Controversy: Methodological and Ethical Issues. HAL Working Paper. https://hal.science/hal-04161930

Halsmayer, Verena. 2024. Managing Growth in Minitiature. Solow’s Model as an Artifact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Masini, Fabio. 2021. William Nordhaus: A Disputable Nobel [Prize]? Externalities, Climate Change, and Governmental Action. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 28(6): 985-1004. https://doi.org/10.1080/09672567.2021.1963798

Nordblad, Julia and Troy Vettese. 2022. European Histories of the Economic and Environmental: Introduction. Contemporary European History, 31(4): 481-490. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777322000698

Nordhaus, William D. 1977. Economic Growth and Climate: The Carbon Dioxide Problem. American Economic Review, 67(1): 341-346.

Nordhaus, William D. 2019. Climate Change: The Ultimate Challenge for Economics. American Economic Review, 109(6): 1991-2014. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.109.6.1991

Pestre, Dominique. 2020. Comment l’environnement a été géré depuis 50 ans. Anatomie d’un échec. In Ève Chiapello, Antoine Missemer, and Antonin Pottier (eds), Faire l’économie de l’environnement. Paris: Presses des Mines, 17-36.

Pottier, Antonin. 2016. Comment les économistes réchauffent la planète. Paris: Seuil.

Pouchain, Delphine, Emmanuel Petit, and Jérôme Ballet. 2023. Changement climatique, colère et rationalité : réflexions à la lumière de l’économie comportementale et du pragmatisme de John Dewey. Œconomia - History | Methodology | Philosophy, 13(4): 1223-1255. https://doi.org/10.4000/oeconomia.16266

Stern, Nicholas. 2022. A Time for Action on Climate Change and a Time for Change in Economics. Economic Journal, 132(644): 1259-1289. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueac005

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Notes

1 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/

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