An annual discriminative and revenue-neutral auction is linked to the new Acid Rain Program which allows electric utilities all over the US to trade SO2 emission permits. This innovative SO2 auction distributes 2% of the permits in circulation and takes place at the Chicago Board of Trade.

The paper presents empirical findings on CO2 taxation within the OECD countries. Taxes are not uniform, a nd households pay a tax rate which is five times higher than that paid by industry on average.

The paper shows that cost-effective involvement of the source location involves utmost difficulty in practice. Based on the RAINS model, it is recommended that source location should be ignored in a European market for SO2, as is the case in the U.S. Acid Rain Program. The RAINS-model predicts a...

This paper analyzes what the effect of the inclusion of emissions trading in an international environmental agreement has on the abatement commitments of the trading countries and on aggregate emissions. We discuss, in a very general model, both the case where countries non-cooperatively set...

This paper shows a new way to approach the analysis of international environmental problems and provides a heuristic 'comparative instrument analysis' using this approach. The conclusion is that economic instruments provide certain desirable properties, especially the achievement of cost...

This paper addresses the question about strategic incentives in international environmental agreements and tries to give a positive description of how the design of the agreement influences the strategic behaviour of potential participants before they enter the treaty. A common feature of the...

Global commons such as the global atmosphere have the characteristic, in addition to that of minimum contribution threshold, that whilst the preservation cost is immediate, the benefits belong to the future generations.