Federal policies aimed to slow global warming would impose potentially significant costs on households that vary depending on the policy approach that is used. This paper evaluates the effects of a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program on households in each of 11 regions of the country and sorted...

A variety of recent policy measures have been advanced to promote interregional power transmission investment in the United States; among these are the designation of corridors on federal lands in western states and the identification of national interest electric transmission corridors across...

This paper evaluates the costs to households of a carbon dioxide (CO2) cap-and-trade program. We find important variation in the distribution of costs of the policy across 11 regions of the country and income deciles. The introduction of a price on CO2 is regressive, but this may be outweighed...

Some eighty years ago, economists first proposed the use of corrective taxes to internalize environmental and other externalities. Fifty years later, the portfolio of potential economic-incentive instruments was expanded to include quantity-based mechanisms--tradable permits. Thus,...

The organizers of an Aspen Institute conference have identified what they characterize as “the critical conundrum” — how business, government, and communications media balance the competing values of economic growth and a healthy environment. In this paper, prepared for discussion at the...

We use a hazard model to estimate the effect of environmental regulation on the diffusion of membrane cell production technology in the chlorine manufacturing industry. We estimate the effect of regulation on both the adoption of the membrane technology at existing plants and on the exit of...

This paper investigates a central issue in the climate change debate associated with the Kyoto Protocol: the likely performance of international greenhouse gas trading mechanisms. Virtually all design studies and many projections of the costs of meeting the Kyoto targets have assumed that an...

Market failures associated with environmental pollution interact with market failures associated with the innovation and diffusion of new technologies. These combined market failures provide a strong rationale for a portfolio of public policies that foster emissions reduction as well as the...

We examine what will be required if market-based environmental policy instruments are to become a major force in U.S. environmental policy. We define market-based instruments, and specify five categories: pollution charges; tradable permits; deposit refund systems; reducing market barriers; and...

Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions...