The economic prescription for climate change is clear: price carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions to internalize climate damages. In practice, a variety of political economy constraints prevent the introduction of a carbon price equal to the full social cost of emissions. This...

It is tricky to design local regulations on global externalities, especially so if firms are mobile. We show that when costs and outside options are firms' private information, the threat of firm relocation leads to local regulations that are stricter, not looser. This result is general and...

The UK has pledged to cut greenhouse gases 68 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, to be emissions neutral by 2050, and to phase out internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030. Much progress has been made, but fully achieving these ambitious objectives with the current policy framework will be...

The paper collects comprehensive and detailed data on what 40 OECD and G20 economies do with the revenues from carbon taxes, emissions trading systems, and excise taxes on energy use. It notes that constraints – which can take the form of political commitments or legal earmarks – on revenue...

Denmark has a highly ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 70 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. While there is general agreement that carbon pricing should be the centerpiece of Denmark’s mitigation strategy, pricing needs to be effective, address equity and leakage concerns,...

Linkage of cap-and-trade systems is typically advocated by economists on a general analogy with the beneficial linking of free-trade areas and on the specific grounds that linkage will ensure cost effectiveness among the linked jurisdictions. An appropriate and widely accepted specification for...

This paper examines the determinants of voluntary individual carbon offsetting, i.e. the financial compensation of emissions from energy use. In contrast to former studies in this field, we particularly consider a comprehensive set of factors that are discussed in the context of voluntary...

The rationale of voluntary corporate initiatives is often explained with preparedness for future regulation. We test this hypothesis for the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the Climate Leaders (CL), two popular voluntary US environmental programs to curb carbon emission that were operating...

Using evidence from the EU emissions trading system, we collect verified emissions of close to 4000 highly polluting and mostly non-listed firms responsible for 26% of EU's emissions. Over the period 2013-2019, we find a non-linear relationship between leverage and emissions. A firm with higher...

Using Credit Default Swap spreads, we construct a forward-looking, market-implied carbon risk factor and show that carbon risk affects firms' credit spread. The effect is larger for European than North American firms and varies substantially across industries, suggesting the market recognises...