Buy Coal! A Case for Supply-Side Environmental Policy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Harstad, Bard
• 署名单位: University of Oslo; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/665405
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 77-115
• 关键词: MARKET-STRUCTURE; PLANT LOCATIONS; Carbon tax; externalities; TRADE

摘要

Free-riding is at the core of environmental problems. If a climate coalition reduces its emissions, world prices change and nonparticipants typically emit more; they may also extract the dirtiest type of fossil fuel and invest too little in green technology. The coalition's second-best policy distorts trade and is not time consistent. However, suppose that the countries can trade the rights to exploit fossil-fuel deposits: As soon as the market clears, the above-mentioned problems vanish and the first-best is implemented. In short, the coalition's best policy is to simply buy foreign deposits and conserve them.