One of the biggest obstacles in cross-country empirical research in the area of environmental economics is the absence of a sound indicator quantifying environmental policy stringency. A variety of indicators have been proposed and are currently used. Almost none of them rely on an explicitly...

This is the online appendix to the paper “How should we measure environmental policy stringency? A new approach” (Sauter, 2014). The main paper outlines the general methodology proposed to construct environmental policy indexes and proposes a first implementation of a CO2 input index and a...

As an important step towards building a "harmonious society" through "scientific development", China has incorporated for the first time in its five-year economic plan an energy input indicator as a constraint. While it achieved a quadrupling of its GDP while cutting its energy intensity by...

Just prior to the Copenhagen climate summit, China pledged to cut its carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 relative to its 2005 levels to help to reach an international climate change agreement at Copenhagen or beyond. This raises the issue of whether such a pledge is ambitious or just represents...

China's capital-intensive, export-oriented, spectacular economic growth since launching its open-door policy and economic reforms in late 1978 not only has created jobs and has lifted millions of the Chinese people out of poverty, but also has given rise to unprecedented environmental pollution...

China has realized that for its own sake and from the international community’s perspective, it cannot afford to continue along the conventional path of encouraging economic growth at the expense of the environment. Accordingly, the country has placed ecological goals at the same level of...

This paper by using Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP) constructs four different renewable energy scenarios for the Greek transport, energy, and industry sectors. By projecting the demand for renewable energy and the associated resulting carbon dioxide emissions up to the...

Vehicle taxation based on CO2 emissions is increasingly being adopted worldwide in order to shift consumer purchases to low-carbon cars, yet little is known about the effectiveness and overall economic impact of these schemes. We focus on feebate schemes, which impose a fee on high-carbon...

We estimate the relationship between electricity, fuel and carbon prices in Germany, France, the Netherlands, the Nord Pool market and Spain, using one-year futures for base and peak load prices for the years 2009-2012, corresponding to physical settlement during the second market phase of the...

In 2007, the Norwegian government reformed the vehicle registration tax in order to reduce the CO2 emissions intensity of the new car fleet by incentivizing the purchase of more fuel efficient cars. This paper identifies the impact of the new tax structure on four dimensions: 1) the average CO2...