Martin Weitzman
Martin Lawrence Weitzman ( born April 1, 1942 in New York City ) is an American economist and professor at Harvard University.
Life
Weitzman received a B. A. in mathematics and physics from Swarthmore College and an M.Sc. in Statistics and Operations Research from Stanford University. He received his doctorate in 1967 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Economics. From 1974 to 1989 he was a professor at MIT, he is since 1989 professor at Harvard University.
In recent years he has been particularly with ecology -oriented business management and the economic consequences of global warming. He coined the term of the Share Economy.
Weitzman Plan
The Weitzman plan is a plan to combat unemployment. Focus here is on too small a wage flexibility. Core of this concept is the division of workers' incomes coming into a fixed ( collective bargaining ) and a variable part (gain dependence).
Climate economics
As part of the scientific debate about the Stern Report of 2006 Weitzman has developed a novel concept, which he called The Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change. It builds on the findings of climate research on the climate sensitivity, a crucial variable in the modeling of climate change, and to argue that the risk of catastrophic climate change, albeit small, can not be assumed to be negligible. This results in a model developed by Weitzman to the realization that a cost -benefit analysis will always fail regardless of the other parameters, simply because of the possibility of a climate catastrophe ( Dismal Theorem ) in favor of rapid reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
Works
In addition to numerous journal articles and other publications Martin Weitzman has written the following books:
- Martin Weitzman: The share economy. Conquering stagflation. Harvard University Press, Cambridge / Massachusetts 1984, ISBN 0-674-80582-8; German translation: the participation model. Full employment through flexible wages. Campus -Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1987, ISBN 3-593-33847-5.
- Martin Weitzman: Income, wealth, and the maximum principle. Harvard University Press, Cambridge / Massachusetts 2003, ISBN 0-674-01044-2.