• photograph: Sonja Balci, Oslo Metropolitan University

    Svenn Jensen

    Associate Professor

    Economics

    Oslo Business School

    Oslo Metropolitan University

  • Research

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    Pricing Climate Risk

    With Christian Traeger.
     

    We analyze how uncertainty about the sensitivity of the climate system to human emissions in optimal policy. We provide an approximate analytic formula for the uncertainty premium and calculate the premium for a full stochastic integrated assessment model.

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    Optimal climate change mitigation under long-term growth uncertainty: Stochastic integrated assessment and analytic findings
     

    With Christian Traeger. European Economic Review, 2014.
     
    Economic growth over the coming centuries is one of the major determinants of today׳s optimal greenhouse gas mitigation policy. At the same time, long-run economic growth is highly uncertain. This paper is the first to evaluate optimal mitigation policy under long-term growth uncertainty in a stochastic integrated assessment model of climate change. The sign and magnitude of the impact depend on preference characteristics and on how damages scale with production. We explain the different mechanisms driving optimal mitigation under certain growth, under uncertain technological progress in the discounted expected utility model, and under uncertain technological progress in a more comprehensive asset pricing model based on Epstein–Zin–Weil preferences. In the latter framework, the dominating uncertainty impact has the opposite sign of a deterministic growth impact; the sign switch results from an endogenous pessimism weighting. All of our numeric scenarios use a DICE based assessment model and find a higher optimal carbon tax than the deterministic DICE base case calibration.
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    Cutting Costs of Catching Carbon

    With Michael Hoel. Resource and Energy Economics, 2012.
     
    We use a two-period model to investigate intertemporal effects of cost reductions in climate change mitigation technologies for the power sector. The effect of cost reductions for CCS depends on how carbon taxes are set. If there is no carbon tax in period 1, but an optimally set carbon tax in period 2, a CCS cost reduction may reduce early emissions. Such an innovation may therefore be more desirable than comparable cost cuts related to renewable energy. The finding rests on the incentives fossil fuel owners face. If future profitability is reduced, they speed up extraction (the ‘green paradox’), and vice versa.
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    An Introduction to the Green Paradox: The Unintended Consequences of Climate Policies

    with Kristina Mohlin, Karen Pittel & Thomas Sterner.

    Review of Environmental Economics & Policy, 2015

     

    How important is the Green Paradox? We address this question in three ways. First, we present a simple model explaining how announcing a future climate policy may increase carbon emissions today – the Green Paradox effect. Second, we examine the theoretical and empirical literature to assess whether green paradoxes are likely to occur, and if they are, whether they are big enough to be of concern for policy makers. We consider long-term extraction costs, short-term extraction capacities, the mix of policy instruments, and potential spatial carbon leakage. We find that these and other factors mostly weaken the case for concern about the green paradox. Third, we identify the lessons the literature offers for policy makers.

  • Teaching

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    Advanced Environmental & Resource Economics

    University of Gothenburg, Fall 2014, 2015
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    Environmental Economics (Master level)

    Oslo Metropolitan University, Fall 2018

  • Experience

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    School of Economics and Business

    Norwegian University of Life Sciences

    2014-2018

    Ciriacy Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow

    Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics

    UC Berkeley

    2012-2014

    Junior Researcher

    Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics

    2007-2008

  • Education

    PhD Economics

    2012
    University of Oslo
     
    Visting Student at UC Berkeley
    2010 & 2011

    MPhil Development and Environmental Economics 

    2007 University of Oslo

    BCom Honours Economics

    2004
    Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

    Vordiplom Economics

    2003
    Universität Hohenheim
  • Refereeing

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    Nature: Climate Change

    American Economic Journal: Policy

    European Economic Review

    International Economic Review

    Journal of Public Economics

    Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control

    Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

    Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

    Environment and Resource Economics

    Environment and Development Economics

    Resource and Energy Economics

    American Journal of Agricultural Economics

    Climatic Change

  • Contact me:

    Oslo School of Business
    Oslo Metropolitan University
    PO box 4 St. Olavs plass
    NO-0130 Oslo, Norway
     

    Email

    first(dot)last

    (at)oslomet(dot)no

    LinkedIn
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