Background paper prepared for the October 2020 IMF World Economic Outlook. This paper provides a detailed presentation of the simulation results from the October 2020 IMF World Economic Outlook chapter 3 and an additional scenario with carbon pricing only for comparison with the comprehensive...

For the world's 20 largest emitters, we use a simple trend/cycle decomposition to provide evidence of decoupling between greenhouse gas emissions and output in richer nations, particularly in European countries, but not yet in emerging markets. If consumption-based emissions-measures that...

The United States has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050, meet sectoral objectives (e.g., for carbon free power, electric vehicles) and encourage greater mitigation among large emitting countries and of international transportation emissions. Fiscal policies at the national, sectoral, and...

This paper uses two of the IMF's structural macroeconomic models to estimate the potential global impact of the boom in unconventional oil and natural gas in the United States. The results suggest that the impact on the level of U.S. real GDP over roughly the next decade could be significant,...

This paper empirically estimates the effects of electric vehicles (EVs) on passenger car emissions to inform the design of policies that encourage EV purchases in Norway. We use exceptionally rich data on the universe of cars and households from Norway, which has a very high share of EVs, thanks...

This paper estimates the carbon leakage rate across countries, arguably a key parameter in the international climate policy discussion including on border carbon adjustment, but which remains subject to significant uncertainty. We propose innovations along two lines. First, we exploit recently...

To reach the global net-zero goal, the level of carbon emissions has to fall substantially at speed rarely seen in history, highlighting the need to identify structural breaks in carbon emission patterns and understand forces that could bring about such breaks. In this paper, we identify and...

The carbon tax is a major instrument for curbing greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Yet its adoption has been limited because of concerns over its effects on economic growth, income distribution, and international competitiveness. The paper shows that policymakers can minimize...

Commonly cited environmental instruments in the legal, regulatory, and fiscal domains are intended primarily to address market failures to ensure that environmental degradation and resource use is contained to appropriate levels. However, in many instances, environmental degradation is rooted...