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),...

This paper draws on a number of recent studies to shed light on several policy issues raised by the impact of environmental policies on technological innovation. First, to what extent does induced innovation raise the overall net benefits to society from environmental policies? Second, how does...

This paper examines the interdependence between imperfect competition and emissions trading. We particularly analyze the long run equilibrium in a two-sector (‘clean’ and ‘dirty’) model with Cournot competition among firms who face a fixed cost of production. The clean sector is defined...

This paper examines the interdependence between imperfect competition and emis- sions trading in a two-sector (clean and dirty) economy. We compare the welfare implica- tions of an absolute cap-and-trade scheme (permit trading) with a relative intensity-based scheme (credit trading). We nd...

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...

When environmental damages from emissions are spatially nonuniform, permit trading has been modeled most often as a “pollution offset program” in which emission permits are traded between agents, subject to constraints on ambient air quality. To date the institution envisioned to implement...

This article develops a framework for environmental policy analysis based on an encompassing assessment of transaction costs. This approach emphasizes the <italic>ex ante</italic> costs of establishing environmental entitlements, and the <italic>ex post</italic> costs of administrating, monitoring, and enforcing them. The...

This paper focuses on instrument choice while consistently estimating the returns to education in Vietnam. Using data culled from the 2 rounds of the Vietnam Living Standards Survey (VLSS), we explore different sets of exogenous instruments that rely on demand and supply side sources of...