Climate Change and NYU Volatility Institute

There is little doubt that climate change -- tracking, assessment, and hopefully its eventual mitigation -- is the burning issue of our times. Perhaps surprisingly, time-series econometric methods have much to offer for weather and climatological modeling (e.g., here), and several econometric groups in the UK, Denmark, and elsewhere have been pushing the agenda forward.

Now the NYU Volatility Institute is firmly on board. A couple months ago I was at their most recent annual conference, "A Financial Approach to Climate Risk", but it somehow fell through the proverbial (blogging) cracks. The program is here, with links to many papers, slides, and videos. Two highlights, among many, were the presentations by Jim Stock (insights on the climate debate gleaned from econometric tools, slides here) and Bob Litterman (an asset-pricing perspective on the social cost of climate change, paper here). A fine initiative!