The influence of lobbying on climate policies; or, why the world might fail13

• Published in: Environment and development economics 2014-06, Vol.19 (3), p.329-332
• Main Author: Pezzey, John C. V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Forum; Question 7: What do you consider to be some important research questions in environment and development economics that haven't received adequate attention?
• ISSN: 1355-770X; 1469-4395
• DOI: 10.1017/S1355770X14000345

How can the malign and growing influence of lobbying on global climate policies be checked? In this short piece I link some wide-ranging suggestions for academic research by environment and development economists that is needed to further this aim, with the key idea in Acemoglu and Robinson's (2012) Why Nations Fail. Their book argues strongly that sustained, very long-term economic growth through national industrial revolutions requires ‘inclusive institutions’ that distribute political power broadly over a nation's economic, class and geographical sectors. This is because long-term growth needs technical innovations, which cause creative destruction (structural adjustment) of existing technologies, which in turn harms the interests of existing elites. If elites are too powerful, they will block new technologies, so as to keep their powers to extract rents from the rest of society, and the nation will then fail (to grow sustainably).