We provide evidence of an energy efficiency gap in China. Using an incentivized field experiment, we document that providing information to consumers on the energy costs of lightbulbs significantly affects their willingness to pay for energy efficient bulbs. Unlike previous literature, we do not...

We use an experiment to test whether consumers optimally acquire information on energy costs in appliance markets where, like many contexts, consumers are poorly informed and make mistakes despite freely available information. To test for optimal information acquisition we compare the average...

I build a quantitative model of economic growth that can be used to evaluate the impact of environmental policy interventions on final-use energy consumption, an important driver of carbon emissions. In the model, energy demand is driven by directed technical change. Energy supply is subject to...

Estimates of the marginal damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions require the aggregation of monetised impacts of climate change over people with different incomes and in different jurisdictions. Implicitly or explicitly, such estimates assume a social welfare function and hence a particular...

Empirical evaluation of policies to mitigate climate change has been largely confined to the application of discounted utilitarianism (DU). DU is controversial, both due to the conditions through which it is justified and due to its consequences for climate policies, where the discounting of...

We analyze welfare implications of policies promoting environmentally friendly vehicles employing rich Swiss micro-data on 23,000 newly purchased cars and their buyers. Our estimates reveal substantial income heterogeneity in price elasticity and electric vehicle (EV) adoption. While CO2 levies...

In June 2018, an agreement between key EU institutions – the Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council – was reached after a long-lasting discourse over the 2030 EU climate and energy policy package. This paper offers a comprehensive assessment of the EU package, with its...

How do parents contend with threats to the health and survival of their children? Can the social safety net mitigate negative economic effects through transfers to affected families? We study these questions by combining the universe of cancer diagnoses among Danish children with register data...

Model uncertainty is inherent in the design of optimal environmental policy. We investigate the consequences in a simple linear model, where the aim of the policymaker is to stabilize the carbon content of the atmosphere. We study how decision-makers' concerns about robustness alter policy using...

The possibility of low-probability extreme events has reignited the debate over the optimal intensity and timing of climate policy. In this paper we therefore contribute to the literature by assessing the implications of low-probability extreme events on environmental policy in a continuous-time...