The paper investigates alternative policies to regulate emissions from polluting product markets, specifically considering the case of the automobiles market. The two policies we consider are: a quota that limits the quantity produced of the polluting model and a more flexible average efficiency...

Conventional wisdom among environmental economists is that the relative slopes of the marginal social benefit and marginal social cost functions determine whether a price-based or quantity-based environmental regulation leads to higher expected social welfare. We revisit the choice between...

In this paper we examine the impacts of transaction costs on enforcing a transferable emissions permit system. We derive an enforcement strategy with a self-reporting requirement that achieves complete compliance in a cost-effective manner. In the absence of transaction costs targeted...

In theory, competitive emission permit markets minimise total abatement cost for any emissionceiling. Permit markets are often imperfectly competitive, however, if they are thin anddominated by large firms. The dominant firm(s) could exercise market power and increase otherfirms’ costs of...