I provide a selective review of discounting and climate policy. After reviewing evidence on the importance of the discount rate in setting policy, I ask whether standard models tend to exaggerate the sacrifices that the current generation needs to undertake in order to internalize climate...

We explain how the structure of multi-national or multi-regional environmental agreements affect their chance of success. Trade in emissions permits has ambiguous and in some cases surprising effects on both the equilibrium level of abatement, and on the ability to persuade nations or regions to...

Non-strategic firms with rational expectations make investment and emissions decisions. The investment rule depends on firms’ beliefs about future emissions policies. We compare emissions taxes and quotas when the (strategic) regulator and (nonstrategic) firms have asymmetric information about...