We take a first look at limitations on the use of energy-related tax credits contained in the General Business Credit (GBC) due to limitations within the regular corporate income tax as well as the AMT. Between 2000 and 2005, firms were unable to use all energy-related tax credits due to GBC...

We model the decision to invest in residential energy conservation capital as an irreversible investment in the face of price uncertainty. The irreversible nature of this investment means that there is a value to waiting to invest (an option value) which helps explain the low rate of...

Since 2006, U.S. households have received more than $18 billion in federal income tax credits for weatherizing their homes, installing solar panels, buying hybrid and electric vehicles, and other "clean energy" investments. We use tax return data to examine the socioeconomic characteristics of...

We examine technology adoption and consumer welfare disparities across demographic groups using data from an online solar photovoltaic (PV) marketplace. Low-income households are 25% less likely to purchase solar through the platform and obtain 53% lower expected consumer surplus than...

Between 1990 and 2008, air pollution emissions from U.S. manufacturing fell by 60 percent despite a substantial increase in manufacturing output. We show that these emissions reductions are primarily driven by within-product changes in emissions intensity rather than changes in output or in the...

Over the last two decades, U.S. households have received $47 billion in tax credits for buying heat pumps, solar panels, electric vehicles, and other "clean energy" technologies. Using information from tax returns, we show that these tax credits have gone predominantly to higher-income...

California has the highest Earned Income Tax (EITC) supplement to the federal EITC, with an 85% supplement rate. However, we find that despite the apparent generosity of the California EITC, there is no employment effect on less-skilled single mothers, in sharp contrast to the evidence of...

This paper proposes that strong financial, judicial, and labor market institutions provide comparative advantage in clean industries, and thereby improve a country's environmental quality. Five complementary tests support this hypothesis. First, industries that depend on institutions are...

One concern with subsidies for low-carbon technologies is that they tend to go predominantly to high-income households. Previous research has shown, for example, that the top income quintile receives 60% of subsidies for rooftop solar and 90% of subsidies for electric vehicles. This paper finds...

This paper explores the trade-off between incentive effects and administrative costs associated with the implementation of various environmental tax instruments, with special reference to carbon taxes. In a simple model, we show under what conditions it is optimal to use input rather than...