Putting a price on carbon is considered a crucial step for China’s endeavor of harnessing the market forces to reduce its energy consumption and carbon emissions. Indeed, aligned with China’s grand experiment with low-carbon provinces and low-carbon cities in six provinces and thirty-six...

China has gradually recognized that the conventional path of encouraging economic growth at the expense of the environment cannot be sustained. It has to be changed. This article focuses on China’s efforts towards energy conservation and environmental quality. The article discusses a variety...

We examine the impact of an optimal emissions tax on research and development of emission reducing green technology (E-R&D) in the presence of R&D spillovers. We show that the size and effectiveness of the optimal emissions tax depends on the type of the R&D spillover: input or output spillover....

This paper represents an empirical investigation of the “weak” and “strong” Porter Hypothesis (PH) focusing on the manufacturing sectors of European countries between 1997 and 2009. By and large, the literature has analyzed the impact of environmental regulation on innovation and on...

The social cost of carbon (SCC), commonly referred to as the carbon price, is the monetized damage from emitting one unit of CO2 to the atmosphere. The SCC is typically obtained from large-scale computational Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) that consolidate interdisciplinary climate research...

In many cases consumers cannot observe firms’ investment in quality or safety, but have only beliefs on the average quality of the industry. In addition, the outcome of the collective investment game of the firms may be stochastic since firms cannot control perfectly the technology or external...

In the context of transboundary air pollution policy the broad ambition is to achieve reductions in the level of environmental and societal damage associated with certain pollutant concentrations and exposure rates in a cost effective manner. Policy formulation and legislative frameworks in this...

Myriad policy measures aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector, promote generation from renewable sources, and encourage energy conservation. To what extent do innovation and energy efficiency (EE) market failures justify additional interventions when a carbon price is...

Many environmental-policy problems are characterized by complexity and uncertainty. Government’s choice concerning these policies commonly relies on information provided by a bureaucracy. Environmental bureaucrats often have a political motivation of their own, so they might be tempted to...

China’s rampant environmental pollution problems and rising greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting climate change are undermining its long-term economic growth. China, from its own perspective cannot afford to and, from an international perspective, is not meant to continue on the...