This paper investigates the effect of credibility of environmental policies on environmental innovation and welfare. When the government precommits to an emission tax, the monopolist's abatement effort is lower than if the environmental policy is at the government's discretion. Time consistent...

International climate protection investments (Joint Implementation and Clean Development Mechanism projects) are burdened with problems of contract enforcement, which prevent the realisation of efficiency gains associated with these investments. The paper analyses this problem from the...

Starting from CO2 emissions data collected during both the production phase and during the lifetime of cars and trucks, we argue that impressive opportunities to reduce emissions can be found in the consumption phase. It is however obvious that energy taxes alone will not lead to a strong...

The Kyoto Protocol sets legally binding emission targets for industrialised countries without accounting for reductions carried out prior to 2008, the beginning of the first commitment period. There exists only one exception, the project-based Clean Development Mechanism where credits accrue...

We discuss the selection of the socially efficient discount rate for public investment projects that entail costs and benefits in the far distant future. We show that the discount rate should be a decreasing function of time horizon under some specific restrictions on the distribution of...

The paper explores abatement investment and location responses to environmental policy, which takes the form of emission taxes or tradable emission permits and subsidies against the costs of abatement investment, under uncertainty and irreversibility. Uncertainty is associated with output price,...

The Kyoto Protocol incorporates emissions trading, joint implementation and the clean development mechanism to help Annex I countries to meet their Kyoto targets at a lower overall cost. This paper aims to estimate the size of the potential market for all three flexibility mechanisms under the...

This paper investigates the existing Italian regulation regarding the so-called "administration by agreements" and the possibility to adapt the existing legal system to voluntary agreements in the environmental field in the light of the European guidelines on this issue. The research consists of...

The paper describes a relatively new approach to pollution reduction problem solving that relies on negotiation between polluters and authorities in which traditional economic tools of environmental policies are used and where there is the economic information asymmetry between the polluters and...

The Kyoto Protocol is the first international environmental agreement that sets legally binding greenhouse gas emissions targets and timetables for Annex I countries. It incorporates emissions trading, joint implementation and the clean development mechanism. Because each of the Articles...