The Macroeconomic Assessment of Energy Transition Policies: Difficult but Much Needed

The energy transition requires the implementation of various policy instruments (carbon prices, subventions, etc.) which in turn affect the macroeconomic output. For this reason, a sound macroeconomic assessment of the impact of this policy is needed. This assessment is not straightforward. First, the macroeconomic evaluation of the consequences of action versus inaction as regards climate change turns out to be very difficult. Still, macroeconomic analysts are more at ease when they try to analyze the macroeconomic consequences of certain policies compared with others. These consequences will strongly depend on the functioning of the economy, its institutions, its rigidities etc. It is thus almost an empirical question and macroeconomic models can be very useful in this respect. In the case of climate change policies, some key aspects of macroeconomic models must be emphasized, notably sound equilibrium mechanisms, an accurate description of financing capacities, or the impact of technological progress. In practice, different macroeconomic models often lead to very different evaluation of the impact of energy transition policies, which illustrate how crucial certain macroeconomic mechanisms are.