Several jurisdictions have tied support for renewably generated electricity to local content requirements. This paper examines the economic impact of such policies using an analytical and numerical partial equilibrium model. We find that in the short-run, local content requirements can reduce...

Canadian policymakers have the policy tools needed to ameliorate the regional economic harm that taxing GHG emissions can cause. A price on GHG emissions will affect Canadian provinces differently, possibly undermining support for a policy that incurs regional transfers of income. The authors...

We assess the extent to which subsidies for home energy efficiency improvements in Canada have been paid to households that would have undertaken the improvements anyway – the so-called free rider rate. We focus on forced-air natural gas furnaces, replaced between April 1, 2007 and March 31,...

The overuse of disposable plastic bags is a major environmental problem across the globe. In recent years, numerous jurisdictions have sought to curb disposable bag use by implementing a levy or fee at the point of purchase. These levies are typically small and symbolic (around $0.05 per bag),...

Time-of-use (TOU) pricing for electricity is an effective means to allocate electricity, though regulators are increasingly employing non-market strategies to provide information and induce conservation. We evaluate a large-scale field trial in which households facing TOU pricing were given an...

There is a widespread perception that a carbon tax hits rural households disproportionally hard due to the greater dependence of these households on car travel and increased fuel needs for home heating. Yet remarkably little analysis of the regional welfare impacts of carbon taxation exists,...

We show that imposition of a state-level environmental tax in a federation crowds out preexisting federal taxes. We explain how this vertical fiscal externality can lead unilateral state-level environmental policy to generate a welfare gain in the implementing state, at the expense of other...

We show that imposition of a state-level environmental tax in a federation crowds out preexisting federal taxes. We explain how this vertical fiscal externality can lead unilateral statelevel environmental policy to generate a welfare gain in the implementing state, at the expense of other...