The article compares economical and environmental performances of a sample of Italian firms operating in five different industrial sectors, where the same EU regulation is adopted to control emissions. The application of a relatively new methodology from productivity analysis allows to compute...

This paper considers the optimal design of an emissions trading program that includes a safety valve tax that allows pollution sources to escape the emissions cap imposed by the aggregate supply of emissions permits. I demonstrate that an optimal hybrid emissions trading/emissions tax policy...

We examine the extent to which various environmental policy instruments meet major evaluation criteria, including cost-effectiveness, distributional equity, minimization of risk in the presence of uncertainty, and political feasibility. Instruments considered include emissions taxes, tradable...

This paper compares an emissions fee on measured vehicle emissions rates to a mandatory regulation that requires all vehicles to maintain emissions below a minimum standard. We model the motorist’s decision under the fee policy and simulate the fee and regulatory policies using data from an...

This paper shows the numerous problems of conventional economic analysis in the evaluation of climate change mitigation policies. The article points out the many limitations, omissions, and the arbitrariness that have characterized most evaluation models applied up until now. These shortcomings,...