Norway is often referred to as the prime example of a country that has achieved high growth and low income inequality despite its vast natural resources. This contrasts sharply with many other resource abundant countries, which raises the questions why Norway has succeeded while many 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 speci.c carbon...

The focus of the green paradox literature has been either on demand-side climate policies or on effects of technological changes. The present paper addresses the question of whether there also might be some kind of green paradox related to supply-side policies, i.e. policies that permanently...

We consider an industry with firms that produce a final good emitting pollution to different degree as a side effect. Pollution is regulated by a tradable quota system where some quotas may have been allocated at the outset, i.e. before the quota market is opened. We study how volatility in...

We explore the efficacy of price and quantity controls as environmental policy instruments in a stochastic setting in which agents are risk averse. We demonstrate that the assumption of risk aversion may improve the performance of a tax relative to that of a system of tradable quotas, and that...

Without an international climate agreement, extraction of more natural gas could reduce emissions of CO2 as more “clean” natural gas may drive out “dirty” coal and oil. Using a computable equilibrium model for the Western European electricity and natural gas markets, we examine whether...

We explore the efficacy of price and quantity controls in a dynamic set up in which the decisions of some agents are irreversible. We demonstrate that the assumption of irreversibility improves the performance of a tax relative that of a system of tradable quotas and significantly alters the...

The literature on taxation of rents from nonrenewable resources uses different theoretical assumptions and methods and a variety of empirical observations to arrive at widely diverging conclusions. Many studies use models and methods which disregard uncertainty, investigating distortionary...

This paper analyses whether recycling revenues from carbon emission permit auctions can reduce unemployment in the Spanish economy. Spain's deviation from EU's intermediate emission goals is more serious than for most other EU countries, and the unemployment is also well above the EU average. We...

We consider an intertemporal policy game between changing governments that differ in their attitudes towards a particular feature of market outcomes, exemplified with environmental pollution. When in power, a government will choose policy instruments and set strictness of regulation with a view...