Legal challenges and transitions of political power cause the future of regulatory policies to be uncertain. In this article, I investigate how uncertainty about environmental policy affects investment and emissions at coal-fired power plants. I exploit a legal challenge to the Clean Air...

US environmental policy cedes substantial authority to local agencies—creating potentials for polluters/governments to strategically export emissions. We identify such strategies among coal-fueled power plants. First, we document that electricity generators locate near administrative borders....

We conduct a hybrid scenario exercise to analyze decarbonization pathways of the European power market and related distributional effects across countries as well as between consumers and producers. Our CIB analysis reveals qualitative scenarios that differ in the level of political (stringency...

Assessment of climate change policies requires aggregation of costs and benefits over time and across generations, a process ordinarily done through discounting. Choosing the correct discount rate has proved controversial and highly consequential. To clarify past analysis and guide future work,...

The efficiency of mechanisms to control CO2 emissions is limited by disagreement about the harm from these emissions. Thus existing emission control mechanisms require negotiated compromise regarding either the efficient price or the level of emissions to be tolerated. As an alternative to...

How should governments use the considerable revenue carbon taxes can raise? There are many options for cutting other taxes, increasing spending, or reducing borrowing. We organize the options into four goals: offset the new burdens that a carbon tax places on consumers, producers, communities,...

Since the early 1990s, the validity of the Porter Hypothesis has been the focus of intense research efforts to establish whether well-designed environmental regulation may enhance – rather than reduce – competitiveness. However, little consensus exists on the extent to which (if at all)...

Carbon policies introduce potentially uneven cost burdens. Anticipating these outcomes is important for policymakers seeking to achieve an equitable outcome and can be politically important as well. This paper describes the details of a microsimulation model that utilizes the price and quantity...

In this paper we empirically compare the transaction costs from monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of two environmental regulations directed to cost-efficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions: a carbon dioxide (CO2) tax and a tradable emissions system. We do this in the case of...

This paper analyzes the drivers of carbon taxes acceptability with survey data and semi-experimental techniques. Based on a sample of more than 300 individuals, it assesses the effect on acceptability of specific policy designs and individuals' perceptions of carbon taxes advantages and...