William Nordhaus, Nobel-winning climate economist, dies at 85

William Nordhaus, a Yale economist who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics, died Oct. 30 at 85 after battling glioblastoma. His prize recognized his work incorporating climate change into long-term economic analysis. Beginning in the 1970s, when the issue had little attention from economists, he developed the DICE model, which links carbon emissions, climate effects, and economic growth. It helps policymakers compare the economic damages of warming, such as crop losses and rising seas, with the costs of cutting emissions. Nordhaus used this framework to show how carbon taxes could reduce emissions efficiently and estimate an appropriate tax level, shaping research and policy debates about climate action.

His scholarship also addressed technological change, economic welfare, and the relationship between business and election cycles. He co-authored and later led revisions of the widely used economics textbook first written by Paul Samuelson. A Yale undergraduate from 1959, Nordhaus spent more than five decades at the university as a teacher, scholar, and administrator, serving as provost and later as vice president for finance and administration. He helped steer Yale through financial and organizational changes and, in 2014, helped create the university’s internal carbon charge. He also advised national economic institutions and served in roles including the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Colleagues remembered him as an intellectually curious scholar and a committed university citizen whose climate work sought to prevent avoidable harm from global warming.