This paper examines the relative merits of two dominant economic instruments for reducing pollution—”green” taxes and tradable permits. Theoretically, the two instruments share many similarities, and on balance, neither seems preferable to the other. In practice, however, most countries...

We consider a duopolistic industry in which pollution is a by-product of production and firms are given emission permits that they can trade. The common wisdom is that allowing for trade in emission permits promotes efficiency. We demonstrate that this common wisdom cannot automatically be...

We generalize Wirl’s (JEEM, 2009) “oligopoly meets oligopsony” model of a permit market for the case of heterogeneous players. Both oligopolists and oligopsonists reduce welfare by restricting trade. Having both in the market reinforces this. However, oligopolists seek to increase the...

Under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, forests planted on or after 1st January 1990 earn carbon credits. These credits have to be repaid when the forest is harvested. This paper analyses the effects of this scheme on the value of bareland on which radiata pine is to be planted. A real...

This article assesses the effects of banking on tradable emission permit markets and, in particular, the role of uncertainty in permit markets that allow banking. In such markets, current and future spot trade markets are linked: An increase in uncertainty about future spot markets at first...

We model a non-cooperative energy tax setting game amongst countries who join an international market in which firms trade emission permits. Countries can auction a share of their permit endowment and issue the remainder for free to a representative firm. Each country's regulator has a double...

Tradable permits are celebrated as a political instrument since they allow (i) firms to equalize marginal abatement costs through trade and (ii) the government to distribute the burden of the policy in a politically fair and feasible way. These two concerns, however, conflict in a dynamic...