Technology policy is the most widespread form of climate policy and is often preferred over seemingly efficient carbon pricing. We propose a new explanation for this observation: gains that predominantly accrue to households with large capital assets and that influence majority decisions in...

I study the impact of subsidies for Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) on carbon emissions. I show that subsidizing innovations without considering consumer behavior can harm the environment. I provide descriptive evidence on charging instances of PHEV and combine it with a structural model of...

Accounting for nearly 8% of global annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the cement industry is considered difficult to decarbonize. While a sizeable number of abatement levers for Portland cement production are technologically ready for deployment, many are still viewed as prohibitively...

Information-based policies play an important role in environmental protection efforts around the world. These policies use information provision and/or disclosure to shape behavior in order to meet the policy objective; for example, mandatory information disclosure requires firms to measure and...

We contribute to the literature on how program design affects program performance among vulnerable groups by studying the effects of varying the subsidy level and program procedures in an energy efficiency assistance program targeting low-income households in Germany. Eligible households...

It is widely believed that an environmental tax (price regulation) and cap-and-trade (quantity regulation) are equally efficient in controlling pollution when there is no uncertainty. We show that this is not the case if some consumers (firms, local governments) are morally concerned about...

The allocation of free allowances for firms belonging to the carbon leakage list of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was found to lead to substantial overcompensation, which is why some stakeholders recently have called for a phasing out of free allowances in the near term....

This paper analyzes the impact of declining extraction costs of shale oil producers on the choice of the policy instrument of a climate coalition in the presence of a monopolistic oil supplier such as OPEC. Shale oil producers' extraction costs represent an upper bound for the oil price OPEC can...