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...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential for emissions control policy using the example of the power generation sector in China. Design/methodology/approach – The analytical model is developed using a joint production function, where carbon emissions and electricity...

In 2005, the European Union instituted the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol by implementing a carbon allocation scheme (cap and trade) to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Prior to 2005, the Scandinavian countries had imposed a carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions. In this study, the EU...

This paper examines the relative merits of two dominant economic instruments for reducing pollution—”green” taxes and tradable permits. Theoretically, the two instruments share many similarities, and on balance, neither seems preferable to the other. In practice, however, most countries...

This paper examines the effects of firm-level innovation in carbonabatement technologies on optimal cap-and-trade schemes with and without price controls. We characterize optimal cap-and-trade regulation with a price cap and price floor, and compare it to the individual cases of pure taxation...

The paper compares the effects of market-based and command-and-control climate policies on the direction of technical change and the prevention of environmental disasters. Drawing on the model proposed in Acemoglu et al. (2012, American Economic Review), we show that market-based policies...