Harvard Project Remembers Martin Weitzman for His Extraordinary Contributions to Climate-Change Economics

Faculty, scholars, and staff at the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements — with colleagues around the world — are deeply saddened by the loss of Martin L. Weitzman, recently retired professor of economics at Harvard University, who died unexpectedly on August 27, 2019. Weitzman’s contributions to climate-change — and broader environmental — economics and policy are considered extraordinarily important, within both academia and the policy community. He published widely, was elected as a fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and for more than 25 years hosted with Robert Stavins the Harvard Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy.

“Marty Weitzman was a treasure — a gift that kept on giving to both the research and policy worlds — for Harvard, for environmental economists around the world, and for the global intellectual community. His work as a theorist on environment broadly and on climate change in particular was unparalleled, and formed the basis of so much theoretical and empirical research carried out by many, many others,” said Robert N. Stavins, the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development and the director of the Harvard Project. “He developed strong arguments of why, when analyzing the benefits and costs of proposed climate policies, it was essential — from an economic perspective — to take into account the possibility of catastrophic outcomes, despite the fact that their probability might be relatively small. And that was only one of many contributions.”

In October 2018, Professor Stavins wrote in more detail about Weitzman’s contributions to the field of environmental economics — in connection with a symposium at Harvard Kennedy School to honor and celebrate Weitzman upon his retirement from Harvard University. Many of Weitzman’s colleagues from around the world — including Nobel Prize winner, climate-change economist, and keynote speaker William Nordhaus — participated. The symposium was organized by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, closely affiliated with the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.

Gernot Wagner, a student of Weitzman’s as an undergraduate and Ph.D. student at Harvard wrote, “Weitzman was an academic’s academic, a theoretician’s theorist—someone who eschewed the trends in his discipline toward churning out ever more empirical analyses with larger and larger data sets and more and more coauthors. He appreciated and admired the efforts of those who did dive into thorny empirical questions with increasingly powerful computers. His preferred tools: a No. 2 pencil, a legal pad, and a hard wooden chair.” In recent years, Wagner served as co-author with Weitzman of their 2015 book, Climate Shock (Princeton University Press). Read more from Wagner about Weitzman’s legacy.

A memorial service celebrating the life and contributions of Professor Weitzman will be scheduled at Harvard for later this Fall.