Ross McKitrick

Professor of Economics

Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, Department of Economics & Finance

About

Biography

Areas of Specialization: Environmental and Applied Microeconomics

Ross McKitrick joined the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph in 1996. He received a BA in economics from Queen's University and an MA (1990) and PhD (1996) from UBC. His main area of interest is environmental economics. He is currently working on projects relating to state-contingent environmental policy, econometric methods for measuring global warming, and evaluation of climate models.

Journals in which he has published include the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Geophysical Research Letters, Energy Journal,Empirical Economics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences andCanadian Journal of Economics.

Research Interests

Areas of Specialization: Environmental and Applied Microeconomics

Dr. Ross McKitrick is a professor in the Department of Economics and Finance specializing in environmental economics. His research focuses on environmental policy and climate change including econometric applications in climatology. Dr. McKitrick has published extensively in leading journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Geophysical Research Letters, Climate Dynamics, Energy Journal, Empirical Economics, and the Canadian Journal of Economics.

In his recent article, "Reply to Comment on 'Climate Sensitivity, Agricultural Productivity and the Social Cost of Carbon in FUND' by Philip Meyer," published in Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Dr. McKitrick and co-author Dr. Dayaratna address critiques of their previous work on the social cost of carbon (SCC) using the FUND model. They explore the implications of recent empirical findings regarding CO₂ fertilization and climate sensitivity, highlighting that new satellite and experimental evidence indicates larger agricultural productivity gains from CO₂ growth than previously reflected in FUND's parameterization. The authors argue that earlier Monte Carlo analyses in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) have not adequately considered these findings. By updating the distributions of these parameters and applying varying discount rates, they demonstrate that the lower bound of the SCC is likely negative, and the upper bound is significantly lower than previously claimed, at least through the mid-21st century.

Dr. McKitrick's research provides important insights into the economic evaluation of climate policies and the modeling of environmental impacts, emphasizing the need for accurate parameterization and empirical validation in assessing the social cost of carbon.

Dayaratna, K., & McKitrick, R. (2023). Reply to comment on “climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in fund” by Philip Meyer. Environ Econ Policy Stud 25, 291–298. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-023-00364-2