Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curves of the Residential Heating Market: A Microeconomic Approach

In this paper, we develop a microeconomic approach to deduce greenhouse gas abatement cost curves of the residential heating sector. Our research is based on a system dynamics microsimulation of private households’ investment decisions for heating systems to the year 2030. By accounting for household-specific characteristics, we investigate the welfare costs of different abatement policies in terms of the compensating variation and the excess burden. We investigate two policies: (i) a carbon tax and (ii) subsidies on heating system investments. We deduce abatement cost curves for both policies by simulating welfare costs and greenhouse gas emissions to the year 2030. We find that (i) welfare-based abatement costs are generally higher than pure technical equipment costs; (ii) given utility maximizing households a carbon tax is the most welfare-efficient policy and; (iii) if households are not utility maximizing, a subsidy on investments may have lower marginal greenhouse gas abatement costs than a carbon tax.     

Emissions abatement R&D: Dynamic competition in supply schedules

This paper investigates the optimal environmental policy (the mix of emissions tax and research and development [R&D] subsidy) in a dynamic setting when two firms, producing differentiated products, compete in the output market over time. Firms compete in a differential game setting over supply schedules, which encompasses a continuum of imperfect competition equilibria from Bertrand to Cournot. Although production generates environmentally damaging emissions, firms can undertake R&D that has the sole purpose of reducing emissions. In addition to characterizing the optimal policy, we examine how the optimal tax and subsidy, and the optimal level of abatement, change as competition intensifies, as the dynamic parameters change, and as the investment in abatement technology changes. In this setting, competition increases welfare through its impact on the final goods price. However, lower prices result in larger quantities and more pollution. Our key contribution is to show how the impact of increased competition on welfare depends on the extent of the market and the nature of preferences and technology.     

Carbon Taxation, Fuel Substitution and Welfare in Australia

This paper examines the potential role for fuel substitution in electricity production in reducing carbon dioxide emissions over a ten-year time horizon. This is achieved by adding fuel substitution to output changes resulting from demand responses arising from a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. A time profile of adjustments is developed. The tax required for Australia to meet a 20 per cent reduction in emissions from 1993 levels is calculated and effects on inequality and social welfare are examined. The paper also examines the potential effect of a subsidy towards the use of low-emission fuels, financed from the carbon tax. A subsidy produces an improvement in emissions abatement and a lower tax required to reach the emissions target.     

A Note on Emissions Taxes and Incomplete Information

In contrast with what we perceive is the conventional wisdom about setting a second-best emissions tax to control a uniformly mixed pollutant under uncertainty, we demonstrate that setting a uniform tax equal to expected marginal damage is not generally efficient under incomplete information about firms’ abatement costs and damages from pollution. We show that efficient taxes will deviate from expected marginal damage if marginal damage is increasing and there is uncertainty about the slopes of the marginal abatement costs of regulated firms. Moreover, tax rates will vary across firms if a regulator can use observable firm-level characteristics to gain some information about how the firms’ marginal abatement costs vary.     

Who should bear the administrative costs of an emissions tax?

All environmental policies involve costs of implementation and management that are distinct from pollution sources’ abatement costs. In practice, regulators and sources usually share these administrative costs. We examine theoretically an optimal policy consisting of an emissions tax and the distribution of administrative costs between the government and regulated sources of pollution. Our focus is on the optimal distribution of administrative costs between polluters and the government and the optimal level of the emissions tax in relation to marginal pollution damage. We demonstrate how the policy variables affect aggregate equilibrium administrative costs and show that these effects are generally indeterminate, as is the effect of the distribution of administrative costs on aggregate emissions. Consequently, the optimal sharing of administrative costs and whether the optimal emissions tax is higher or lower than marginal damage depend on specific contexts.     

Emission taxes for genuine altruistic firms

This article develops a theoretical model that explores firms' abatement choices. The main results are: First, in a market comprised of a not sufficiently large number of heterogeneous firms always there exists a subset of firms that are willing to undertake abatement activities, if their marginal altruistic cost of emissions is positive. Second, a low emission tax induces abatement when a firm is egoistic or if its altruistic cost of emissions has a concave structure. In contrast, if the firms’ altruistic cost of emissions has a convex structure, then intermediate emission taxes are required. Third, the effect of firms’ altruistic cost of emissions on the emission tax that induce the socially optimum abatement is also conditional on the genuine altruistic preferences and finally, the social planner has an incentive to impose a Pigouvian emission tax when firms are profit maximizers. Otherwise, a lower tax suffices.     

Environmental Taxation and Strategic Commitment in Duopoly Models

In this paper, we address the issue of optimalenvironmental taxation under imperfect competition.The problem is analysed for three different types ofduopoly models, the Cournot open and closed loopmodels, and the Stackelberg model. We explicitlyanalyse the role of strategic behaviour. Each firm hasto make a choice of output level and of the level ofa strategic variable. The choice of this strategicvariable affects both marginal cost and emissions. Wecompare the properties of these three duopoly models,and derive and compare optimal environmental taxes. Weshow that whether the optimal tax is lower or higherthan marginal environmental costs depends on theinformation transmission and the effect of thestrategic variable on marginal costs. In addition, thedifferences in market shares, and the influence of thetax on the cost structure play important roles, indetermining optimal emission taxes.     

Optimal pollution control in a mixed oligopoly with research spillovers

We study optimal pollution abatement under a mixed oligopoly when firms engage in emissions‐reducing research and development (R&D) with imperfect appropriation. The regulator uses a tax to curb emissions. Results show that in a mixed oligopoly, the public firm has positive emissions reduction in equilibrium; however, emissions reductions of the private firm could be positive or zero. Under certain conditions, the optimal pollution tax is positive; otherwise, the tax reverts to a subsidy. Comparing mixed and private duopolies, privatisation leads to reductions in R&D and output, but to an increase in overall emissions, so privatisation tends to make the environment worse.     

Emission Taxes and Optimal Refunding Schemes with Endogenous Market Structure

The purpose of this paper is to investigate optimal schemes for refunding the emission tax in a free-entry market where the production process generates emissions. We consider the regulation by a three-part tax policy: the government sets an emission tax, a refunding scheme, and an entry-license tax. In contrast to the case of the two-part tax-refund policy under no entry, we show that even if it is impossible to obtain subsidies from outside, the first-best outcome is always attained. Further, the government’s budget constraint is binding under the optimal schemes. Our result implies that the tax-refund system works effectively in a market with endogenous entry.     

Subsidizing (and taxing) business procurement

This paper studies the effect of a subsidy (or tax) on a market where a downstream manufacturer uses a competitive tender to procure inputs from upstream suppliers. Subsidizing input production can result in input price decreases that are greater than the effective decrease in marginal costs. That is, overshifting occurs. When the size of the subsidy is not too large, the downstream firm can enjoy an increase in profits greater than the government expenditure on the subsidy. A relatively weak sufficient condition for these results to hold is that suppliers earn a positive profit margin on the marginal unit sold, before taking into account any subsidy payment. Stronger sufficient conditions, tailored to each result, are provided.     

Relative standards: A positive and normative analysis

The paper considers relative standards which limit the level of emissions per unit of output. The representative firm is characterized by a cost function describing the actual production process, a separate abatement technology, and the fact that (gross) emissions are proportional to output. At first, the implications of a relative standard and of its marginal change for a single firm are examined. It is shown that the standard cannot be replaced by a corresponding tax. Afterwards a positive analysis is performed for an industry consisting of identical firms under perfect competition. Comparative statics are used to analyze the impacts of changes in the relative standard in a short-run and long-run equilibrium. It turns out that the standard always possesses a price effect. Moreover the relevant factors which govern price, quantity, and profit changes are revealed. Then the paper characterizes the optimal standard for the same framework. A main result is that the first-best allocation can never be obtained by means of a relative standard, even if firms are identical. The influence of the demand and supply side on an optimal standard can be demonstrated since the underlying model is simple and transparent. The resulting market price is compared to social marginal costs. Finally the investigation is extended to monopoly and symmetric oligopoly.     

Endogenous market power in an emissions trading scheme with auctioning

This paper contributes to the literature on market power in emissions permits markets, modeling an emissions trading scheme in which polluters differ with respect to their marginal abatement costs at the business-as-usual emissions. The polluters play a two-stage static complete information game in which their market power arises endogenously from their characteristics. In the first stage all polluters bid in an auction for the distribution of the fixed supply of permits issued by the regulator, and in the second stage they trade these permits in a secondary market. For compliance, they can also engage in abatement activity at a quadratic cost. Under the assumptions of the model, in equilibrium all polluters are successful in the auction. In the secondary market the low-cost emitters are net sellers and the high-cost emitters are net buyers. Moreover, the high-cost emitters are worse off as a result of the strategic behavior. In addition, the secondary market price is unambiguously above the auction clearing price. I find that the aggregate compliance cost when polluters act strategically increases in the heterogeneity of their marginal abatement costs at the business-as-usual emissions, but there exists a threshold of the fixed supply of permits above which strategic behavior is compliance cost-saving for the polluters. Finally, for a low enough variance of the marginal abatement cost at the business-as-usual emissions, strategic behavior is compliance cost-saving for the polluters, regardless of the level of the available supply of permits.     

Optimal combination of innovation and environmental policies under technology licensing

Under what conditions will a carbon tax encourage environmental innovation? Can a regulator design an optimal environmental policy to reduce emissions and to promote clean technologies? This paper studies optimal environmental policy in the situation where a monopoly innovator develops and licenses clean production technologies to downstream polluting firms. We find that (i) a higher emission tax will encourage innovation when the burden of the tax payment in the polluters' costs and/or the price-elasticity of the demand for polluting goods are small, (ii) the innovation-inducing effects of emission tax are inversely related to the emission-reduction (Pigouvian) effects of the tax, and (iii) the social optimum can be achieved by the mix of tax and subsidy. We also show that if the policy instrument is limited to the tax, the second-best tax rate would lie between the marginal damage and the first-best rate. By performing numerical simulations, we also demonstrate that the optimal mix of the emission tax and R&D subsidy can have “double dividend” benefits.     

A Cournot Mechanism for Pollution Control under Asymmetric Information

The contribution of this paper is to show that a simple nonlinear tax can achieve a long-run socially optimal level of pollution without the regulator knowing marginal abatement costs. Firms are charged their differential contribution to total damages, evaluated at the upper margin of current emissions. This induces a Cournot game in pollution levels. We show that the Nash equilibrium exists, corresponds to the socially optimal long-run output and emission levels and number of firms, is stable, and can be reached by iterative computations where conjectures are formed using a linear estimator based on past emission levels.     

Tradable permit allocations and sequential choice

This paper investigates initial allocation choices in an international tradable pollution permit market. For two sovereign governments, we compare allocation choices that are either simultaneously or sequentially announced. We show sequential allocation announcements result in higher (lower) aggregate emissions when announcements are strategic substitutes (complements). Whether allocation announcements are strategic substitutes or complements depends on the relationship between the follower’s damage function and governments’ abatement costs. When the marginal damage function is relatively steep (flat), allocation announcements are strategic substitutes (complements). For quadratic abatement costs and damages, sequential announcements provide a higher level of aggregate emissions.     

Tax on emissions or subsidy to renewables? Evaluating the effects on the economy and on the environment

We examine the relationship between the economy and the environment in a model where production uses nonpolluting renewable and polluting nonrenewable resources. There is policy intervention through a tax on emissions and a subsidy to renewables extraction/production. Results show that both instruments are able to decrease emissions intensity of output. However, when used together, the desired effect is higher. Empirically it is shown that the subsidy achieves higher renewables intensity and although present emissions per output are similar for both instruments, the subsidy achieves lower future levels.     

Voluntary Environmental Agreements vs. Emission Taxes in Strategic Trade Models

The purpose of the paper is to narrow the gap between the widespread use of voluntary agreements and research on the rationale of such approaches. A topical example are voluntary agreements of many industries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions because of global warming. If the industry anticipates that taxes and fees will be introduced in the coming years, it seems rational to act in advance in order to mitigate the tax levels.The conventional approach in strategic trade and tax models was to look at a two-stage game where governments set taxes first and then firms react. In such a policy regime the government is concerned about the international competitiveness of its firms and sets taxes below marginal damages. In this paper, we consider a policy regime with a reversed timing. Firms commit themselves in the face of emission taxes to abatement efforts and to lower levels of the environmentally intensive output. Then the government introduces the tax. Under this timing of strategies the tax is equal to marginal damage. Firms waive profit and reduce output in order to use less of the polluting input. The reward for this behavior will be a less strict use of policy instruments and hence lower abatement costs in the near future.     

国际多市场寡头条件下的贸易政策和产业政策

国际多市场寡头是Bulow( 1 985)提出的多市场寡头概念在国际贸易领域的自然延伸。在本文中 ,市场之间联系的纽带是本国企业具有规模收益递减的生产技术。本文的主要结论是 ,第一 ,如果本国企业与外国企业在外国市场进行价格竞争 ,那么 ,最优干预组合包括国内生产补贴与出口税 ,它们对本国福利的作用是一致的。第二 ,如果本国企业与外国企业在外国市场进行数量竞争 ,那么 ,最优干预政策组合包括国内生产补贴与出口补贴 ,它们作用于本国福利的方向是不一致的 ,这时 ,本国政府用国内生产补贴执行反托拉斯职能 ,用出口补贴执行利润转移职能。第三 ,作为模型的一个应用 ,本文论证了出口退税政策会加剧国内市场的扭曲 ;而且它不一定能够提高本国福利。     

Does Technological Innovation Really Reduce Marginal Abatement Costs? Some Theory,Algebraic Evidence,and Policy Implications

The existing literature models innovation in pollution control as a reduction in marginal abatement costs. We show that this assumption is inappropriate for production process innovations such as fuel switching. Algebraically, we examine the effects of different innovation types on marginal abatement cost curves, showing that some desirable innovations increase marginal abatement costs. Empirically, we estimate marginal abatement costs for sulfur dioxide by measuring the output distance function for electric power in Korea. Regression results confirm that production process innovations did raise marginal abatement costs in this case. One policy implication: economic instruments do not always provide stronger innovation incentives than command-and-control policies.      

Effluent taxes,market structure,and the rate and direction of endogenous technological change

This paper studies the effects of effluent taxes on firms’ allocation of resources to cost-reducing and emission-reducing R&D, and on entrepreneurs’ decisions to develop new goods and enter the market. A tax set at an exogenous rate that does not depend on the state of technology reduces growth, the level of consumption of each good, and raises the number of firms. The induced increase in the variety of goods is a benefit not considered in previous analyses. In terms of environmental benefits, the tax induces a positive rate of pollution abatement that offsets the “dirty” side of economic growth. A tax set at an endogenous rate that holds constant the tax burden per unit of output, in contrast, has ambiguous effects on growth, the scale of activity of each firm and the number of firms. Besides being novel, the potential positive growth effect of this type of effluent tax is precisely what makes this instrument effective for welfare-maximizing purposes. The socially optimal policy, in fact, requires the tax burden per unit of output to equal the marginal rate of substitution between the growth rate of consumption and abatement. Moreover, a tax/subsidy on entry is needed, depending on whether the contribution of product variety to pollution dominates consumers’ love of variety.