This paper reviews a range of issues relating to tradeable carbon dioxide quotas. It considers the economic principles on which they are based, compares them with alternative carbon abatement policies, and reviews many aspects of how tradeable quotas would be implemented in practice ...

We review the optimal pattern of carbon emission abatements across countries in a simple multi-country world. We model explicitly the fact that the atmosphere is a public good. Within this framework we establish conditions for it to be necessary for optimality that the marginal cost of abatement...