Nearly all the macroeconomic literature on environmental policies deals with taxes and tradable permits. A policy instrument that still needs to be looked at is a switch in government expenditure away from environmentally-damaging goods, in particular fossil fuels, and toward resource- and...

We develop an endogenous growth model with capital, labor and energy as production factors and three productivity variables that measure accumulated innovations for energy production, energy savings, and neutral growth. All markets are complete and perfect, except for research, for which we...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a modification of a standard four input production process where energy is used in an inefficient way due to partly unnecessary waste of energy. In this production process, R&D investment is an additional input in order to improve energy efficiency. It...

This paper considers the problem of how a government, having decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, identifies the policy or mix of policies that achieves this reduction at the lowest possible net economic cost. This involves accounting for the fact that each potential policy for reducing...

The paper models the combined use of taxation and voluntary agreements when there is asymmetric information between the regulator and industry on the firms' actual emissions. The model incorporates the following features: 1) the regulator does not know the firm's special production...

Experience with existing multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) shows that trade measures agreed to within the MEAs themselves may not necessarily lead to a dispute between parties. On the contrary, there is a great chance that disputes may arise from national measures undertaken to fulfil...

This econometric study assesses the efficiency of the income tax credit system implemented in France in 2005 on households' retrofitting investment decisions, focusing on insulation measures. A logit model with random individual effects is estimated using an unbalanced panel of 23,879 households...

We focus on two utility programs intended to reduce energy usage and the associated CO2 emissions - a home energy audit and rebates on the purchase of high-efficiency air-source heat pumps. We use a unique panel dataset from participating and non-participating households to estimate the average...

Improving end-use energy efficiency - that is, the energy-efficiency of individuals, households, and firms as they consume energy - is often cited as an important element in efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. Arguments for improving energy efficiency usually rely on the idea that...

We compare a range of energy efficiency policies in a durable good market subject to both energy-use externalities and price-quality discrimination by a monopolist. We find that the social optimum can be achieved with differentiated subsidies. With ad valorem subsidies, the subsidization of the...