After the U.S. and Australian withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, and the extension of national quotas in the Bonn- and Marrakesh-agreements, meager environmental effects and a low price of emission permits is likely to be the outcome of implementation. This paper provides an analysis of these...

All Annex B parties but Russia, Australia and USA, have ratified the Kyoto Protocol so far. It is still an open question whether Russia will ratify and secure that the Protocol enters into force. This paper therefore analyzes consequences of some proposed alternatives if the Russians decide not...

Linkage of different countries’ domestic permit markets for pollution rights into a single international market alters governments’ incentives, and may trigger adjustments of the number of allocated permits. First, this work finds that in a non-cooperative equilibrium, international...

Allocation of emission allowances may affect firms' incentives to invest in clean technologies. In this paper we show that so-called output-based allocation tends to stimulate such investments as long as individual firms do not assume the regulator to tighten the allocation rule as a consequence...

Unilateral CO2 emission reduction can lead to carbon leakage, such as relocation of power-intensive and trade-exposed industries. In the EU emission trading system, these industries are also subjected to higher cost of electricity due to emission pricing in this sector. As a result, the...

We investigate how moral concerns about permit trading affect an endogenous pollution permit trading equilibrium, where governments choose non-cooperatively the amount of permits they allocate to domestic industries. Politicians may feel reluctant to allow permit trading and/or may prefer that...