This paper examines the operation of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in a Cournot oligopoly.  We study the impact of the ETS on industry output, price, costs, emissions, and profits.  In particular, we develop formulae for the number of emissions permits that have to be freely allocated to...

Carbon leakage is a major concern for policymakers involved with environmental initiatives such as the European Union's emissions trading scheme and similar cap-and-trade proposals in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere.  This paper provides a framework for understanding the drives...

This paper examines the amount of grandfathering needed for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) to have a neutral impact on firm profits. We provide a simple formula to calculate profit-neutral grandfathering in a Cournot model with firms of different sizes and a general demand function. Using...

What is the optimal instrument design and choice for a regular attempting to control emissions by private agents in face of uncertainty arising from business cycles?  In applying Weitzman's result [Prices vs. quantities, Review of Economic Studies, 41 (1974), 477-491] to the problem of...

Following the transposition of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive into Irish law, all properties offered for sale or to let in Ireland are obliged to have an energy efficiency rating.  This paper analyses the effect of energy efficiency ratings on the sale and rental prices of...

Climate change must deal with two market failures, global warming and learning by doing in renewable use. The social optimum requires an aggressive renewables subsidy in the near term and a gradually rising carbon tax which falls in long run. As a result, more renewables are used relative to...

Many developing countries periodically face large adverse shocks to their economies.  We study two distinct types of such shocks - large declines in the price of a country's commodity exports and severe natural disasters - , both of which have occurred frequently in the recent past. ...

The World's nations have yet to reach a truly effective treaty to control the emission of greenhouse gases.  The importance of compatibility with private incentives of individual countries has been acknowledged (at least by game theorists) in designing climate policies for the post-Kyoto...

We consider information from many sciences bearing on the causes and consequences of climate change, focusing on lessons from past mass extinctions of life on Earth.  The increasing atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gases are now established, as is their source in human activity. ...

Little is known about the possible impact of an influenza pandemic on a nation's economy.  We applied the UK macroeconomic model 'COMPACT' to epidemiological data on previous UK influenza pandemics, and extrapolated a sensitivity analysis to cover more extreme disease scenarios.  Analysis...