This paper demonstrates how three important results in environmental economics, true under mild conditions in closed economies, are false or need serious amendment in a world with international trade in goods. Since the three results we highlight have framed much of the ongoing discussion and...

Climate policy poses a dilemma for environmental economists. The economic argument for stringent GHG abatement is far from clear. There is disagreement among both climate scientists and economists over the likelihood of alternative climate outcomes, over the nature and extent of the uncertainty...

We study local carbon policy to address the consequences of climate change. Standard analysis suggests that the social cost of carbon determines optimal carbon policy. We start by using the spatial integrated assessment model in Cruz and Rossi-Hansberg (2021) to measure the local social monetary...

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...

This paper analyzes a detailed plan to set quantitative national limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, following along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol. It is designed to fill in the most serious gaps: the absence of targets extending as far as 2100, the absence of participation by the United...

Climate change is a global "free rider" problem because significant abatement of greenhouse gases is an expensive public good requiring international cooperation to apportion compliance among states. But it is also a global "free driver" problem because geoengineering the stratosphere with...

Climate change effects on agricultural yields will be uneven over the world with a few countries, mostly in high latitudes, that may experience gains, while most will see average yield decrease. This paper aims at quantifying the role of international trade in attenuating the effects of climate...

We report numerical simulation results using a multiyear global multi country modeling framework which we use to assess the impacts of alternative emissions cuts which will likely come under consideration for the process to follow the December 2009 UNFCCC negotiation in Copenhagen. The...

Fears that globalization necessarily hurts the environment are not well-founded. A survey reveals little statistical evidence, on average across countries, that openness to international trade undermines national attempts at environmental regulation through a race to the bottom' effect. If...

In the debate about the correct discount rate to use in evaluating policy with regard to climate change, which covers the entire world and extends for centuries, the conditions for deploying benefit-cost analysis are often overlooked. Where (a) income distributional effects of policies are large...