The debate on the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is blurred, over-simplified and sometimes misguided. There appears to be confusion about what the EU ETS should deliver, whether it is effective in doing so, and how the scheme should be characterized. In our paper we aim to...

The greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in the European Union primarily uses grandfathering until 2012, which means that polluters get emission rights free of charge based on their historical emissions. Energy consumers accuse energy producers of making windfall profits by incorporating the...

This article compares tradable permits with tradable credits, two distinct economic instruments of environmental policy. It is demonstrated that under credit trading, which is an addition to (relative) emission standards, residual emissions are free of cost. Under permit trading (cap-and-trade),...