Recent literature on biofuels has questioned whether biofuels policies are likely to reduce the negative effects of climate change. Our analysis explicitly takes into account that oil is a non-renewable natural resource. A blending mandate has no effect on total cumulative oil extraction....

This paper provides a survey of top-down modelling studies on mitigation costs and ancillary benefits in the Nordic countries, the UK and Ireland. Special emphasise is put on results concerning revenue recycling, double dividend, distributional effects, and ancillary benefits. According to the...

Policies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 will affect the rate and pattern of technological change in alternative energy resources and other production processes. Imperfections in markets for non-polluting technologies imply that a decentralised economy does not deliver a...

Using a computable equilibrium model, we examine the short-run effects of a radical liberalisation of the West European natural gas and electricity markets. In each model country, oil, gas, coal and electricity are produced, traded and consumed. There are world markets for oil and coal, and...

We study the role of technology subsidies in climate policies, using a simple dynamic equilibrium model with learning-by-doing. The optimal subsidy rate of a carbon-free technology is high when the technology is first adopted, but falls significantly over the next decades. However, the...

This paper addresses the impact of endogenous technology through research and development (R&D) and learning by doing (LbD) on the timing of environmental policy. We develop two models, the first with technological change through R&D and the second with LbD. We study the interaction between...

This paper addresses the timing and interdependence between innovation and environmental policy in a model of research and development (R&D). On a first-best path the environmental tax is set at the Pigouvian level, independent of innovation policy. With infinite patent lifetime, the R&D subsidy...

We construct a model integrating the efficiency wage model of Shapiro-Stiglitz (1984) with the matching-bargaining models of Diamond, Mortensen and Pissarides (DMP). Firms and workers form pairwise matches, workers may shirk on the job, and the wage is set in an asymmetric Nash bargain over the...

We study the effects of mobility costs in a model of wage bargaining between workers and firms, where there is instantaneous matching, free firm entry, heterogeneous labour, and workers' individual productivities are discovered by firms only after being hired. We derive the employment level and...

This paper explores water pricing policy in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, in a political economy perspective. I argue that current water prices are too low and significantly below long-run marginal cost, and demonstrate that water prices must be raised significantly over the next ten...