The clean development mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol may induce a technological change in developing countries. As an alternative to the CDM-regime, developing countries may accept a (generous) cap on their own emissions, let domestic producers invest in new efficient technologies, and...

In the past 15 years, incentive-based environmental policy instruments, such as pollution taxes and tradeable pollution permits, have become an important supplement to tradition command-and-control instruments in Europe and the U.S. This paper proposes a positive theory of environmental...

Increasingly popular tailored regulation (TR) initiatives like EPA's Project XL allow plants to voluntarily substitute site-specific environmental performance standards for command-and-control regulations that dictate pollution abatement strategies. TR can significantly reduce participants'...

Endogenous firm location is analyzed in a discrete two-region-two-firm model of product differentiation. In a non-cooperative game, two regional governments first decide on the imposition (or lifting) of domestic production standards; firms then choose technology (clean or polluting), location...

The European Commission (2001a) has recently presented a directive proposal to the Parliament and the Council in order to implement a tradable permits scheme. However, as stressed by the positive political economy, due to the influence of various interest groups, very few environmental policies...

In actual environmental policy, the design of actual pollution emission taxes differs significantly with the optimal Pigovian tax. In particular, earmarking prevails and actual taxes are usually combined with regulation. Furthermore tax rates are generally too low to significantly influence...

Under the assumption of imperfect competition in a durable good industry, the present paper investigates the efficient regulation of solid waste which causes environmental damage at the end of the product's life. It turns out that the second-best waste tax falls short of the marginal...

We consider a setting where firms undertake emission-reducing R&D and the regulator, who sets the emission tax, is unable to commit credibly. Firms are subject to research spillovers in emission reduction. We examine two regimes with respect to the organization of R&D: independent R&D and an...

Environmental policies frequently target the ratio of dirty to green output within the same industry. To achieve such targets the green sector may be subsidised or the dirty sector be taxed. This paper shows that in a monopolistic competition setting the two policy instruments have different...

Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol is likely to leave Russia and other Eastern European countries with market power in the market for emission permits. Ceteris paribus, this will raise the permit price above the competitive permit price. However, Russia is also a large exporter of fossil...