Sustainability indices for countries provide a one-dimensional metric to valuate country-specific information on the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, environmental, and social conditions. At the policy level, they suggest an unambiguous yardstick against which a country’s...

In the European Union (EU) and in Germany the transport sector is the only sector with increasing CO2 emissions (in the EU by about 32 % and in Germany by about 1 % since 1990). Especially in road freight and air transport a further strong increase is forecasted. In the transport sector this...

This paper investigates the economic impacts of environmental tax reforms designed to reach given emission reduction targets for the German economy. Our focus is on the efficiency and employment implications of alternative schemes for emission tax differentiation between the production sector...

The Kyoto Protocol marks a break-through in global warming mitigation policies as it sets legally binding emissions targets for major emitting regions. However, realisation of the Protocol depends on the clarification of several issues one of which is the permissible scope of international...

In this paper we investigate how restrictions for emission trading to the energy-intensive power sector will affect the magnitude and distribution of abatement costs across EU countries vis-à-vis a comprehensive EU emission trading regime. We find that emission trading between European power...