Economic approaches are expected to achieve environmental goals at less cost than traditional regulations, but they have yet to find widespread application. One reason is the way these tools interact with existing institutions. The federalist nature of governmental authority assigns to...

Economic approaches are expected to achieve environmental goals at less cost than traditional regulations, but they have yet to find widespread application. One reason is the way these tools interact with existing institutions. The federalist nature of governmental authority assigns to...

When it was launched in 2005, the European Union emissions trading system (EU ETS) was projected to have prices of around €30/ton CO2 and to be a cornerstone of the EU’s climate policy. The reality was a cascade of falling prices, a ballooning privately held emissions bank, and a decade of...

We use a stochastic dynamic framework to compare price collars (price ceilings and floors) in a cap-and-trade system with uncertainty in the level of baseline emissions and costs. We consider soft collars, which provide limited volume of additional emission allowances (a reserve) at the price...

California will implement a cap-and-trade program to limit emissions of carbon dioxide covering industry and electricity sector emissions in 2013, expanding to cover transportation and natural gas in 2015. Although cap-and-trade would increase annual electricity costs for the average customer by...

California will enact an economy wide cap-and-trade program on CO2. Estimates of the value of tradable emissions allowances in the first year range from roughly $2.6 to $7.8 billion, when electricity and industry are covered under the program. Those sectors receive most of their allowances for...

The parsimony of economic theory provides general insights into an otherwise complex world. However, the most straightforward organizing principles from theory have not often taken hold in environmental policy or in the decentralized climate policy regime that is unfolding. One reason is...

Climate change policy analysis has focused almost exclusively on national policy and even on harmonizing climate policies across countries, implicitly assuming that harmonization of climate policies at the subnational level would be mandated or guaranteed. We argue that the design and...

This paper examines alternative ways that the value of CO2 emissions allowances created under cap-and-trade policy could be returned to households. One approach (based on principles of economic efficiency) is effectively a "tax shift" that would use revenues from an auction of CO2 emissions...

It appears inevitable, absent legislative intervention, that regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA) will move beyond mobile sources to the industrial and power facilities that emit most U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We analyze the mechanisms available to the EPA for regulating such...