A sizeable number of papers beginning with Roberts and Spence (1976) have studied the use of price floors and ceilings (or “collars”) to manage prices in tradable permit markets. In contrast, economists have only recently begun examining polices to manage quantities under a pollution tax....

Policy makers often express concern about the impact of carbon taxes on employment and GDP. Focusing on European countries that have implemented carbon taxes over the past 30 years, we estimate the macroeconomic impacts of these taxes on GDP and employment growth rates for various specifications...

A politically realistic approach to environmental policy seems to require avoiding significant profit-losses in major pollution-related industries. The government can avoid such losses by freely allocating some emissions permits or by exempting some inframarginal emissions from a pollution tax....

One country that tries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may fear that other countries get a competitive advantage and increase emissions ("leakage"). Estimates from computable general equilibrium (CGE) models such as Elliott et al (2010a,b) indicate that 15% to 25% of abatement might be offset...

This paper develops several points concerning the design and implementation of a carbon tax. First, if implemented without any offsetting changes in transfer programs, the carbon tax would be regressive. This regressivity could be offset with changes in either the direct tax system or transfers....

This article describes a revenue and distributionally neutral approach to reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that uses a carbon tax. The revenue from the carbon tax is used to finance an environmental earned income tax credit designed to be distributionally neutral. The credit is linked to...

We use field-level cost estimates of all oil and natural gas fields to highlight dynamic aspects of a global carbon tax. Some of the initial reduction in consumption will be offset through higher consumption later on. Only high-cost reserves will be priced out of the market, e.g., at 200 dollars...

Renewable fuel standards, low carbon fuel standards, and ethanol subsidies are popular policies to incentivize ethanol production and reduce emissions from transportation. Compared to carbon trading, these policies lead to large shifts in agricultural activity and unexpected social costs. We...

This paper employs analytical and numerical general equilibrium models to assess the efficiency impacts of two policies to reduce U.S. carbon emissions -- a carbon tax and a carbon quota -- taking into account the inter- actions between these policies and pre-existing tax distortions in factor...

Because of the global commons nature of climate change, international cooperation among nations will likely be necessary for meaningful action at the global level. At the same time, it will inevitably be up to the actions of sovereign nations to put in place policies that bring about meaningful...