This article revisits an analysis by Frondel, Ritter and Schmidt (2008) of Germany's Renewable Energy Act, which legislates a system of feed-in tariff s to promote the use of renewable energies. As in the original article, we argue that Germany's support scheme subsidizes renewable energy...

This article demonstrates that the large feed-in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in Germany constitute a subsidization regime that, if extended to 2020, threatens to reach a level comparable to that of German hard coal production, a notoriously outstanding example of misguided...

Guaranteeing tax reductions and exemptions, the European governments intend to increase the share of biofuels in total EU fuel consumption to 5.75% by 2010. The financial support of this EU objective is frequently justified by expected positive environmental impacts, most notably the mitigation...

The proliferation of instruments targeted at combatting climate change necessitates evidence-based evaluation to identify strategies that are not only effective and cost-efficient, but also supported by the population. In Germany, the data needed to support such analysis is scarce, however. A...

Guaranteeing tax reductions and exemptions, the European governments intend to increase the share of biofuels in total EU fuel consumption to 5.75% by 2010. The financial support of this EU objective is frequently justified by expected positive environmental impacts, most notably the mitigation...

As part of its efforts to reach the targets of the Kyoto Protocol, the European Commission is currently considering a new directive to reduce the per-kilometer CO2 emissions of newly registered automobiles. This paper critically assesses this proposal with respect to its economic and...