{"title":"Tradable Permits versus Tradable Credits: A Survey and Analysis","authors":"A. Nentjes, E. Woerdman","doi":"10.1561/101.00000047","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article compares tradable permits with tradable credits, two distinct economic instruments of environmental policy. It is demonstrated that under credit trading, which is an addition to (relative) emission standards, residual emissions are free of cost. Under permit trading (cap-and-trade), residual emissions always have a cost. The economic consequences of this difference are surveyed and analyzed with regard to various issues, including economic efficiency, political acceptance, incentives for adopting clean technologies, and incentives for legal compliance. The review concludes that permit trading is less costly to society than credit trading, but imperfect markets for output may change this ranking. The article reveals several gaps in the literature and formulates some new hypotheses for future research.","PeriodicalId":45355,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics","volume":"78 1","pages":"1-78"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1561/101.00000047","citationCount":"16","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1561/101.00000047","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 16
Abstract
This article compares tradable permits with tradable credits, two distinct economic instruments of environmental policy. It is demonstrated that under credit trading, which is an addition to (relative) emission standards, residual emissions are free of cost. Under permit trading (cap-and-trade), residual emissions always have a cost. The economic consequences of this difference are surveyed and analyzed with regard to various issues, including economic efficiency, political acceptance, incentives for adopting clean technologies, and incentives for legal compliance. The review concludes that permit trading is less costly to society than credit trading, but imperfect markets for output may change this ranking. The article reveals several gaps in the literature and formulates some new hypotheses for future research.
期刊介绍:
Environmental and resource economics has become a broad topic making connections with many other subdisciplines in economics as well as the natural and physical sciences. It has also experience a significant growth in research such that the literature is exploding in terms of the number of topics addressed, the number of methodological approaches being applied and the sheer number of articles being written. Coupled with the high degree of specialization that characterizes modern academic research, this proliferation of topics and methodologies makes it impossible for anyone, even those who specialize in the subject, to keep up with developments in the field.