There have been five large tradable permit programs (US Acid Rain Program, US Nitrogen Budget Program, Los Angeles Regional Clean Air Management Program, EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and the US Lead Phase Down) in effect long enough to have potentially yielded data to test whether the program...

We study an environmental policy that (i) tax some emitters while others are covered by a cap-and-trade system and (ii) index the tax level to the permit price. Such a policy could be attractive in a world where abatement costs are uncertain and the regulator has information about the...

We compare a tax with thresholds (‘prices’), and tradable permits (‘quantities’), as mechanisms to control total ‘emissions’ (or other inputs or outputs) from heterogeneous parties with uncertainties in emissions, costs and benefits. The advantage of prices over quantities is much...

This paper develops a conceptual model to analyze how specific factors affect the compliance costs of three suboptimal policy instruments, when compared to the optimal ambient permit system (APS) benchmark. The model considers a non-uniformly mixed pollutant and explicitly incorporates the...

The choice between taxes and tradable permits has been independently analysed by two distinct research traditions. The first proceeds from Weitzman's partial equilibrium stochastic model and concludes that a tax should be preferred if the marginal abatement cost curve is steeper than the...

This paper presents an overview of recent U.S. fiscal developments and discusses possible implications of the sharp turn around in the government’s fiscal position. Against this back ground, it also reviews key policy challenges that will need to be addressed to cope with the mounting...

An increase in the demand for agricultural goods leads to the use of more intensive cultivation methods. Though Ricardo sees no difficulties in the intensification process, their existence is revealed by the possible occurrence of multiple equilibria. A general theory of intensive rent is based...

This paper takes on the issue of ‘Prices vs. Quantities’, see Weitzman (1974), applied to environmental regulations under uncertainty. It is shown that, from an efficiency point of view, it is generally preferable to divide the economy into two parts, one regulated through a tax and the...

International Permit Trading: Creating a Sustainable System