When regulated firms are offered compensation to prevent them from relocating, efficiency requires that payments be distributed across firms so as to equalize marginal relocation probabilities, weighted by the damage caused by relocation. We formalize this fundamental economic logic and apply it...

A basic tenet of economics posits that when consumers or firms don't face the true social cost of their actions, market outcomes are inefficient. In the case of negative externalities, Pigouvian taxes are one way to correct this market failure, where the optimal tax leads agents to internalize...

In order to clarify ongoing debates over the competitiveness impacts of climate change regulation, we develop a precise definition that can be estimated with available domestic production, trade, and energy price data. We use this definition and a 20+ year panel of 400+ U.S. manufacturing...

This essay revisits the question of instrument choice for the regulation of externalities in the context of climate change. The central point is that the Pigouvian prescription to equate marginal control costs with the expected marginal benefits of damage reduction should guide the design of...

This paper examines the implications of alternative allowance allocation designs under a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. We focus on the impacts on industry profits and overall economic output, employing a dynamic general equilibrium model of the U.S....

We use the 2003 Consumer Expenditure Survey and emissions estimates from an input-output model to estimate the incidence of a price on carbon induced by a cap-and-trade program or carbon tax in the US context. We present results on how much difference income deciles pay for a carbon tax as well...

This paper considers the question of under what circumstances a new environmental regulation should "phase in" gradually over time, rather than being immediately implemented at full force. The paper focuses particularly on climate policy, though its insights are more general. It shows that while...

We estimate the sensitivity of scrap decisions to changes in used car values - the "scrap elasticity" - and show how it influences used car fleets under policies aimed at reducing gasoline use. Large scrap elasticities will tend to produce emissions leakage under efficiency standards as the...