Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2019

Journal Title

U.C. Davis Law Review

ISSN

0197-4564

Abstract

Global warming, sea level rise, and extreme weather events have made climate change a top priority for policymakers across the globe. But which policies are best suited to tackle the enormous challenges presented by our changing climate? This Article proposes that policymakers turn to prediction markets to answer that crucial question. Prediction markets have a strong track record of outperforming other forecasting mechanisms across a wide range of contexts — from predicting election outcomes and economic trends to guessing Oscar winners. In the context of climate change, market participants could, for example, bet on important climate outcomes conditioned on the adoption of particular policies. These prediction markets would aggregate policy-relevant information from a variety of sources to improve upon existing decision-making methods, including expert deliberation, peer review, and cost-benefit analysis. Prediction markets also have the potential to overcome resistance to climate change mitigation efforts, particularly among market-oriented conservatives. We explain how both the federal and state governments could use prediction markets to help resolve high-profile controversies, such as how best to allocate subsidies to promote clean technology innovation and which policy strategy promises the greatest reduction in carbon emissions.

First Page

1429

Last Page

1486

Num Pages

58

Volume Number

52

Issue Number

3

Publisher

University of California - Davis

File Type

PDF

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.