Steffen Kallbekken and Torben K. Mideksa explain why economic analysis may demand sharp emissions reductions today rather than the gradual path recommended by Sheila Olmstead and Robert Stavins.

It is often assumed in the economic literature that the Kyoto Protocol will be implemented through a cost-efficient, comprehensive emissions trading system. However, the general experience from implementation of environmental policies suggests that governments will adopt a more differentiated...

Carbon leakage is an important concern because it can reduce the environmental effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), one of the flexibility mechanisms allowed under the protocol, has the potential to reduce carbon leakage significantly because it reduces the...

Providing consumers with information that can lead to more energy-efficient choices can help reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions while reducing costs to consumers. A natural field experiment is conducted in collaboration with an electrical retailer to test strategies for influencing...

Implementing economically efficient transport policies, in particular implementing price based instruments, is a politically challenging issue. Efficient and politically feasible policy alternatives could therefore make a very valuable contribution to solving transport challenges. Mobility...

This paper examines the political difficulty of enacting welfare-enhancing environmental taxes. Using referenda in a market experiment with externalities, we investigate the effect of trial periods on the acceptability of two theoretically equivalent Pigouvian tax schemes. While implementing...

We show that two simple and nonintrusive ‘nudges’–reducing plate size and providing social cues–reduce the amount of food waste in hotel restaurants by around 20%. The results are statistically significant. They are also environmentally substantial as food waste is a major contributor to...

The stringency of policies needed to meet a climate target is influenced by uncertain oil prices because price changes cause emission changes, making the robustness of climate policy instruments important. As a result of its dependence on oil, emissions from the transport sector are particularly...