The price of EU allowances (EUAs) in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) fell from almost 30€/tCO2 in mid-2008 to less than 5€/tCO2 in mid-2013. The sharp and persistent price decline has sparked intense debates both in academia and among policy-makers about the decisive allowance price...

In a regulated world where government seeks to decarbonize the energy sector, firms face both indirect and direct costs of emitting CO2. This study seeks to take the perspective of the firm, which needs to maximize profits implying minimization of (carbon) cost as well. In this study, the firm...

The methods by which fuels can be converted into electricity all belong to different “technology families”: the “gas-fired-turbine-family”, the “coal-fired-turbine-family”, etc. Each family consists of different generations of similar technologies, as in a vintage model. Within a...

We provide the first revealed preference estimates of the benefits of routine weather forecasts. The benefits come from how people use advance information to reduce mortality from heat and cold. Theoretically, more accurate forecasts reduce mortality if and only if mortality risk is convex in...

We model welfare-maximizing policy in an infinite-horizon setting when the probability of a tipping point, the welfare change due to a tipping point, and knowledge about a tipping point's trigger all depend on the policy path. Analytic results demonstrate how optimal policy depends on the...

Resource markets are linked over time through extraction, storage, and durable demand-side investments. I show that an anticipated strengthening of environmental policy can increase emissions today through the first two linkages and can decrease them through the third. I then use a unique...

We analyze the policy implications of aversion to Knightian uncertainty (ambiguity) about the possibility of tipping points. We demonstrate two channels through which uncertainty aversion affects optimal policy in the general setting. The first channel relates to the policy's effect on the...