Income projections for climate change research: A framework based on human capital dynamics

•We present a model to construct long-term income projections for climate change research.•The modelling framework is based on the relationship between educational attainment, age structure dynamics and economic growth.•We use population projections by age, sex and educational attainment to obtain income per capita paths to the year 2100 for 144 countries.

The quantitative assessment of the global effects of climate change requires the construction of income projections spanning large time horizons. Exploiting the robust link between educational attainment, age structure dynamics and economic growth, we use population projections by age, sex and educational attainment to obtain income per capita paths to the year 2100 for 144 countries. Such a framework offers a powerful, consistent methodology which can be used to study the future environmental challenges and to address potential policy reactions.