Advanced solar R&D: Combining economic analysis with expert elicitations to inform climate policy

The relationship between R&D investments and technical change is inherently uncertain. In this paper we combine economics and decision analysis to incorporate the uncertainty of technical change into climate change policy analysis. We present the results of an expert elicitation on the prospects for technical change in advanced solar photovoltaics. We then use the results of the expert elicitations as inputs to the MiniCAM integrated assessment model, to derive probabilistic information about the impacts of R&D investments on the costs of emissions abatement. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.