It is a well known result that taking distributional constraints into account when allocating tradable permits to different agents can lead to an imperfectly competitive permit market. Hence, the emission target is no longer met at least cost. In this paper we suggest an allocation rule for...

Consider a model for optimal timing of emissions reduction, trading off the cost of the reduction against the time-additive aggregate of environmental damage, the disutility from the pollutant stock M(t) the infrastructure contributes to. Intuitively, the optimal timing for an infinitesimal...

In this paper we analyze how restricting intertemporal trading by prohibiting borrowing of emission permits affects the ability of a dominant agent to exploit its market power, and the consequences this has for the cost-effectiveness of implementing an emissions target. We show that the...

We investigate how moral concerns about permit trading affect an endogenous pollution permit trading equilibrium, where governments choose non-cooperatively the amount of permits they allocate to domestic industries. Politicians may feel reluctant to allow permit trading and/or may prefer that...

I explore possible impacts of reciprocal preferences on participation in international environmental agreements. Reciprocal countries condition their willingness to abate on others' abatement. No participation is always stable. A full or majority coalition can be stable, provided that...

In 2007, the Norwegian government reformed the vehicle registration tax in order to reduce the CO2 emissions intensity of the new car fleet by incentivizing the purchase of more fuel efficient cars. This paper identifies the impact of the new tax structure on four dimensions: 1) the average CO2...

Energy-intensive infrastructure may tie up fossil energy use and carbon emissions for a long time after investments, making the structure of such investments crucial for society. Much or most of the resulting carbon emissions can often be eliminated later, through a costly retrofit. This paper...

An intertemporal optimal strategy for accumulation of reversible capital and management of an exhaustible resource is analyzed for a global economy when resource depletion generates discharges that add to a stock pollutant that affects the likelihood for hitting a tipping point or threshold of...

Are African girls more exposed than boys to risk of infant mortality during crises and if so, is the difference due to discrimination? To answer these questions, we combine retrospective fertility data on over 1.5 million births from Demographic and Health Surveys with data on rainfall...

Countries with an active climate policy often use several other policy instruments in addition to a price on carbon emissions, such as subsidies to renewable energy. An obvious reason for subsidizing alternatives to carbon energy is that the price of carbon emissions is "too low". The paper...