This paper provides an exhaustive review of critical issues in the design of climate mitigation policy by pulling together key findings and controversies from diverse literatures on mitigation costs, damage valuation, policy instrument choice, technological innovation, and international climate...

Carbon markets are substantial and they are expanding. There are many lessons from experiences over the past eight years: fewer free allowances, better management of market-sensitive information, and a recognition that trading systems require adjustments that have consequences for market...

Over the past two decades, the international community has struggled to deal constructively with the problem of mitigating climate change. This is considered by many to be the preeminent public policy challenge of our time, but actual policy responses have been relatively modest. This essay...

Compliance links between CO2 emission trading programs--where firms regulated under one region's tradable permit program can comply using permits from another region, and vice-versa--are beginning to arise as a vehicle to lower costs, increase liquidity, and strengthen institutions while...

Global climate change poses a threat to the well-being of humans and other living things through impacts on ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, capital productivity, and human health. This paper briefly surveys recent research on the economics of climate change, including theoretical insights...

Quantity-based regulation with banking allows regulated firms to shift obligations across time in response to periods of unexpectedly high or low marginal costs. Despite its wide prevalence in existing and proposed emission trading programs, banking has received limited attention in past welfare...

The pollution haven hypothesis suggests that unilateral domestic climate change mitigation policy would impose significant economic costs on carbon-intensive industries, resulting in declining output and increasing net imports. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, we undertake a two-step...

This paper considers how policy updates and trading of regulated quantities over time changes the traditional comparative advantage of prices versus quantities. Quantity regulation that can be traded over time leads firms to set current prices equal to expected future prices. A government...

On efficiency grounds, the economics community has to date tended to emphasize price-based policies to address climate change -- such as taxes or a quot;safety-valvequot; price ceiling for cap-and-trade -- while environmental advocates have sought a more clear quantitative limit on emissions....

Given that technologies to significantly reduce fossil fuel emissions are currently unavailable or only available at high cost, technological change will be a key component of any long-term strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In light of this, the amount of research on the pace,...