cc: t.d.davies
date: Wed Aug 23 10:07:28 2000
from: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: CONFIDENTIAL
to: John Shepherd <John.G.Shepherd@soc.soton.ac.uk>

   John,
   Not sure why you didn't get Tirpak's application - its on its way now.  Although his
   application and CV are oddly presented, he has had relevant experience at both US
   EPA and the UNFCCC in Germany.  Martin Parry and Tom Wigley speak highly
   of him - indeed, on that basis I alerted him to the position to see whether he was
   interested.
   About Gottinger ........... when he was applying I asked Terry, Jonathan and Kerry about
   him.
   Jonathan and Terry's replies are below.
   Kerry was vaguely aware of him and raised a Q. about his professional integrity.
   None of the three gave me the impression that we were onto someone good!  The logistics
   of the day will not allow us to interview more than 3 candidates, so let's see if all three
   can make the 19th and keep Gottinger in the background.
   Mike
   ****************************
   Mike,
   I know of this man, but don't know him personally.
   He has done some interesting things, but my opinion is that I doubt
   if he is of the calibre we are looking for - what do you think, Terry?
   He is in the 'opposite camp' in that his economic modelling approach
   is theoretical - neoclassical as opposed to ours which is time series
   data analysis based. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as
   he is not arrogant (a common trait in economic modellers).
   Jonathan
   ***************************
   ***************************
   Dear Mike
   1) I do not know him. I have looked up his work on the web, and if I
   have identified him correctly, he is a mathematical, neo-classical,
   game theory economist with interests in climate change and other
   environmental issues. Some text summarising a climate change
   study is copied from the web below to give you a flavour. Not much
   interdisciplinarity.
   Terry
   "Summary: Gottinger paper on endogenous model of climate change
   A major problem that is common to the existing research on climate
   change is the neglect of forces of the market mechanism. The
   existing estimates are obtained under the assumption of exogeneous
   economic activities. Clearly, such an assumption suppresses the
   feedback effects to economic activities of the predicted changes in
   climate. For example, one of the major worries in the studies on
   climate change is that higher global average temperature may have
   severe adverse effects on world agricultural production. However, of
   the productivity of agriculture falls as a result of the global warming,
   the relative price of agricultural commodities is expected to rise,
   which, under certain demand conditions, will drive down the
   production of the manufactured goods and hence the emissions of
   greenhouse gases. Taking this force into account, it is probable that
   existing models may have over-estimated the amount of future
   emissions of the greenhouse gases and their impacts on future
   climate. In order to model the dynamic interaction between
   economic activities and the climate system, a dynamic two-sector
   general equilibrium model is constructed. This paper attempts to
   answer the question "what are the possible scenarios that would
   arise from the interaction between economic activities and the
   climate system: would the world temperature reach a steady state?
   or would it be increasing forever? or something
   else?" The answer to the above question will also provide an answer
   to the following questions. The greenhouse effect is supposedly
   caused by economic activities.Will the market mechanism itself be
   able to correct this problem? In other words, will the forces
   of the price mechanism be sufficient to stop the trend of global
   warming? The model is constructed in such a way that the market
   has a built-in self-stabilizing mechanism that offsets rising
   temperature. The climate is also assumed stable. The interaction
   between the two stable systems, however, does not necessarily lead
   to a stable long-run equilibrium. It is shown that the characteristics
   of the equilibrium paths depends critically on the planet's cooling
   capability. The world economy and temperature will reach a staedy
   state as long as the rate at which the planet sheds
   heat is not too small. If this decay is too small, however, competitive
   equilibrium will, under certain conditions, lead to climatic cycles or
   even a climatic chaos. It is shown that under certain conditions the
   equilibrium law of motion of temperature displays sensitive
   dependencies on initial conditions."
   At 16:47 22/08/00 +0100, you wrote:

     Gentlemen
             Further to John Lawton & Brian's comments... if Tirpak is a possible
     candidate, can I have a copy of his CV etc, please ?
             Thanks for sending those for McIlveen & Gottinger. I'm not an economist,
     and don't know them at all. I wasn't impressed by McIlveen's application or
     his record (too little necessary detail, and basically many years as an
     operational economist for the Canadian Govt : no publications of any
     consequence) so I agree to discard him.
      However Gottinger looked much more interesting. Loads of apparently
     reputable and relevant publications in all sorts of relevant fields in
     economics and decision theory (and a broad range of interests too). Could
     we ask an economist whether he's any good : maybe someone from his year at
     Oxford (he lists Christopher Bliss as a referee : does anyone at UEA know
     him well enough to phone him and get a quick pen-picture ?)? I fear he may
     be at the mathematical end of the spectrum, but at this stage think he
     might be worth interviewing as a dark horse, unless we find that his
     personal qualities are all wrong.... but I would welcome some input from
     someone in his field (maybe the people at Cambridge or SPRU know him, even
     ??) Over to you.
             John
