For sufficiently low abatement costs many countries might undertake significant emission reductions even without any international agreement on emission reductions. We consider a situation where a coalition of countries does not cooperate on emission reductions but cooperates on the development...

During recent years increased attention has been given to second-generation wood-based bioenergy. The carbon stored in the forest is highest when there is little or no harvest from the forest. Increasing the harvest from a forest, in order to produce more bioenergy, may thus conflict with the...

This paper argues that skill formation is a life-cycle process and develops the implications of this insight for Scottish social policy. Families are major producers of skills, and a successful policy needs to promote effective families and to supplement failing ones. Targeted early...

We examine international cooperation on technological development as a supplement to, or an alternative to, international cooperation on emission reductions. R&D should be increased beyond the non-cooperative level if (i) the technology level in one country is positively affected by R&D in other...

A sufficiently rapidly rising carbon tax may increase near-term emissions compared with the case of no carbon tax. Even so, such a carbon tax path may reduce total costs related to climate change, since the tax may reduce total carbon extraction. A government cannot commit to a specific carbon...

If investors fear that future carbon taxes will be lower than currently announced by policy makers, long-run investments in greenhouse gas mitigation may be smaller than desirable. On the other hand, owners of a non-renewable carbon resource that underestimate future carbon taxes will postpone...

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...

Climate mitigation policy should be imposed over a long period, and spur development of new technologies in order to make stabilization of green house gas concentrations economically feasible. The government may announce current and future policy packages that stimulate current R&D in...

A standard result in the literature on environmental economics is that efficient environmental policies regulating transboundary pollution will be adopted only if there is interjurisdictional coordination. Efficient policies can be adopted as a result of interregional treaties or mandated by a...