Tradable emission permits share many characteristics with financial assets. As on financial markets, speculators are likely to be active on large markets for emission permits such as those developing under the Kyoto Protocol. We show how the presence of speculators on a market for emission...

Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries committed to emission reductions may fulfill part of their obligations by implementing emission reduction projects in developing countries. In doing so, they make use of the so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Two important issues...

This paper investigates the relation between the optimal amount of pollution permits issued by an environmental agency and the mechanisms used to trade these permits in the "secondary market". We show that when permits are traded using a quote-driven mechanism, the total amount of permits to be...

This paper analyzes how the way emission permits are traded-their market microstructure-affects the optimal policy to be adopted by the environmental agency. The microstructure used is one of a quote driven market type, which characterizes many financial markets. Market makers act as...

When modeling the effects of innovation on the marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve, many studies in environmental economics have posited, implicitly or explicitly, a uniform downward shift. The purpose of this paper is to thoroughly investigate this claim in a simple theoretical framework by...