I wonder if anyone is working on the possibility of internalizing catastrophic risks into current economies? Or else: why wouldn't it be useful?
After all, I think that debates on computing and internalizing carbon costs have made climate change policy a more tractable issue (and have helped foster an economic literature relevant for longtermism)... I have some hypothesis on why this wouldn't apply to other major GCR and x-risks, but I wonder if someone has already written about it.
I'll do this. I think this discussion is getting a lot of track when it comes to climate change. Precisely because low-prob catastrophic scenarios are neglected by climate change IAMs - because they lead to a collapse of the cost-benefit analysis, according to Weitzman (2009) - Stiglitz, Taylor & Stern have been advocating for target-consistent pricing. I wonder if something analogous would be feasible for x-risks.
For instance, there have been many advocates for a robot tax on automation to internalize possible damages to job markets; I... (read more)