We propose a new criterion which reflects both the concern for welfare (utility) and the concern for rights in the evaluation of economic development paths. The concern for rights is captured by a pre-ordering over combinations of thresholds (floors or ceilings on various quantitative...

We use a two-period model to investigate intertemporal effects of cost reductions in climate change mitigation technologies for the power sector. With imperfect climate policies, cost reductions related to carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be more desirable than com-parable cost reductions...

Optimal climate policy is studied. Coal, the abundant resource, contributes more CO2 per unit of energy than the exhaustible resource, oil. We characterize the optimal sequencing oil and coal and departures from the Herfindahl rule. “Preference reversal” can take place. If coal is very dirty...

The Green Paradox states that, in the absence of a tax on CO2 emissions, subsidizing a renewable backstop such as solar or wind energy brings forward the date at which fossil fuels become exhausted and consequently global warming is aggravated. We shed light on this issue by solving a model of...

Fossil fuels are non-renewable carbon resources, and the extraction path of these resources depends both on present and future demand. When this "Hotelling feature" is taken into consideration, the whole price path of carbon fuel will shift downwards as a response to the reduced cost of the...

We study the incidence of carbon-reduction and green-energy promotion policies in an open fossil-fuel importing general equilibrium economy. The focus is on mixed price-based or quantity-based policies. Instruments directed toward promoting green energy are shown to reduce also carbon emissions...

A central issue in the study of sustainable development is the interplay of growth and sacrifice in a dynamic economy. This paper investigates the relationship among current consumption, sacrifice, and sustainability improvement in a general context and in two canonical, stylized economies. We...

We analyze the efficiency of urbanization patterns in a stylized dynamic model of urban growth with three sectors of production. Pollution, as a force that discourages agglomeration, is caused by domestic production. We show that cities are too large and too few in number in uncoordinated...

It is commonly believed that the response of the price of corn ethanol (and hence of the price of corn) to shifts in biofuel policies operates in part through market expectations and shifts in storage demand, yet to date it has proved difficult to measure these expectations and to empirically...

Subsidies to renewable energy are costly and contentious. We estimate the reduction in prices that follows from the subsidized entry of wind power in the Nordic electricity market. A relatively small-scale entry of renewables leads to a large-scale transfer of surplus from the incumbent...