Martin Weitzman

Martin Lawrence "Marty" Weitzman (born April 1, 1942, in New York City) is a well known-economist and a Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He is among the most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. His current research is focused on environmental economics, specifically climate change and the economics of catastrophes.

Personal

Weitzman received a B.A. in Mathematics and Physics from Swarthmore College in 1963. He went on to receive an M.S. in Statistics and Operations Research from Stanford University in 1964, and then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received a Ph.D. in Economics in 1967.

Research

Weitzman's research has covered a wide range of topics including Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Green Accounting, Economics of Biodiversity, Economics of Environmental Regulation, Economics of Climate Change, Discounting, Comparative Economic Systems, Economics of Profit Sharing, Economic Planning, and Microfoundations of Macro Theory.

Much of Weitzman's current research is focused on climate change. Traditional cost-benefit analysis of climate change looks at the costs of reducing global warming (the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions) versus the benefits (potentially stopping or slowing climate change). However, in most analysises, the damages that would stem from dramatic climate change are not taken into consideration. Weitzman has added dramatic climate change to the cost-benefit......
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