Someone needs to publish 'A Heterodox Economist's Guide to the AI Transition'. Complex issues like this need different perspectives. Robert Skidelsky's book is a good start. This topic is too important to ignore.

What will the super wealthy do? I suspect save a lot - asset prices will rise but real activity will slump. AI systems will let us produce more, but who will buy it all?. To me, this explains tech's interest in UBI - it will ultimately support demand for their products.

Last week's Economist thought experiment on rapid AI take-up is useful and I agreed with much of it, but it also showed the need for pluralist thinking in economics. Agreed: a lot of wealth will end up in the hands of a few people. Disagreed: what comes next. .

I've finally got round to setting up on BlueSky too, which I will mostly use for more specialized content, plus some previews from the forthcoming book with @JFMercure . And I hope to be back to blogging soon. .

Nice analysis of how to offset distributional impacts from fuel taxes in Sweden. Links the E3ME macro model to a micro analysis. @CambridgeEcon .

What we suspected all along. Time to move on.

RT @noahqk: Reupping my question given the new targets: . In a state like CT, where there's no coal-to-gas shifting and decisions on new ca….

RT @WB_AsiaPacific: #EastAsiaPacific countries are highly vulnerable to global warming, yet they are also major CO₂ emitters. The pace of….

It was a pleasure working on this with my co-authors @JFMercure, @DimitriZ and Frank Geels – each one brought a different and important perspective. Thanks also to the Productivity Institute (@TPIProductivity) for funding the work.

Lack of productivity growth is a big deal in the UK. But there need not be a trade-off between productivity growth and net-zero. In fact the two may be complementary (and this can be modelled). It’s time to change the story.

This drives productivity growth, almost by definition. We get more electricity, more mobility, more services, for lower cost. We can spend more on other things.

There is a critical difference between fossil fuels and new technologies. We spend more on fossil fuels, we exhaust cheap supplies and prices go up. We spend more on new technologies, we learn and prices go down.

The paper focuses on two key assumptions that have dominated previous work: 1) green technologies are more expensive; 2) spending on green technologies means less spending on other things. Both are misguided.

New paper out in @Climate_Policy ! For so long we’ve heard about the ‘costs’ of reducing emissions. It doesn’t have to be like that.

RT @janrosenow: To all those who believe that moving some levies from electricity to gas is unfair remember:. 1) For the average household….

Super cool. And consistent with historical analysis of the same stage of previous great waves of technological advances. Maybe not as ‘unprecedented’ as we think… but still highly uncertain times.

RT @janrosenow: Solar hit 700GW in 2020—10x what was forecast in 2006. Why? Feedback loops & non-linear change, not just tech swaps, drive….

Very nice piece on the need to consider a range of scenarios when considering climate risks.

RT @Kevin_Carey_WB: "Policymakers care about risk. Risk is the reason we have emergency services. Many countries build detailed scenarios o….

Let’s focus less on climate predictions. Let’s start talking about risk. We already do it in other policy areas. Climate change should not be an exception. Full working paper here.