Political feasibility of emission trading systems may crucially depend on the free initial allocation of emission allowances to energy-intensive industries in order to ameliorate adverse production and employment effects. We investigate the potential trade-off between such compensation and...

To meet its commitment under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU plans to implement an emissions trading system with grandfathering of allowances. Besides having distributional impacts, the choice of the grandfathering scheme may affect efficiency if firms anticipate how future allocations depend on...

Carbon control policies in OECD countries commonly differentiate emission prices in favor of energy-intensive industries. While leakage provides a efficiency argument for differential emission pricing, the latter may be a disguised beggar-thy-neighbor policy to exploit terms of trade. Using an...

In this paper we study political-economy determinants of the differentiation of environmental taxes between sectors. Using a common-agency model, we provide predictions on tax differentiation which are then tested using data from the German Ecological Tax Reform. As the reform is revenue neutral...

Based on unique data from a world-wide survey of agents involved in international climate policy, this paper empirically analyzes the importance of equity in this field. We find that equity issues are considered highly important in international climate negotiations and that the polluter-pays...

This paper puts forward equity as an important structural element to understanding negotiation outcomes. We first advance bargaining theory to incorporate the self-serving use of equity. Agents are predicted to push equity principles which benefit them more than other parties, in particular...

We discuss self-interested uses of equity arguments in international climate negotiations. Using unique data from a world-wide survey of agents involved in international climate policy, we show that the perceived support of different equity rules by countries or groups of countries may be...