Allowance Price Drivers in the First Phase of the EU ETS

In the first phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the price per ton of CO2 rose to over €30 before decreasing to zero by mid 2007. I examine to what extent this variation can be explained by marginal abatement costs by deriving a structural model of the allowance price under the assumption of efficient markets. I then gradually relax the model by allowing for delayed adjustment of price to fundamentals, as well as by introducing lagged LHS variables. The pattern of the results suggests that prices were not initially driven by marginal abatement costs, but that this inefficiency was largely corrected by the first round of emission verifications.