Managing permit markets to stabilize prices
The political economy of environmental policy favors the use of quantity-based instruments over price-based instruments (e.g., tradable permits over green taxes), at least in the United States. With cost uncertainty, however, there are clear efficiency advantages to prices in cases where the marginal damages of emissions are relatively flat, such as with greenhouse gases. The question arises, therefore, of whether one can design flexible quantity policies that mimic the behavior of price policies, namely stable permit prices and abatement costs. We explore a number of "quantity- plus" policies that replicate the behavior of a price policy through rules that adjust the effective permit cap for unexpectedly low or high costs. They do so without necessitating any monetary exchanges between the government and the regulated firms, which can be a significant political barrier to the use of price instruments. © Springer 2005.
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- Agricultural Economics & Policy
- 3899 Other economics
- 3801 Applied economics
- 1499 Other Economics
- 1402 Applied Economics
- 0502 Environmental Science and Management
Citation
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Agricultural Economics & Policy
- 3899 Other economics
- 3801 Applied economics
- 1499 Other Economics
- 1402 Applied Economics
- 0502 Environmental Science and Management