Life After Kyoto: Alternative Approaches to Global Warming

William Nordhaus

No 11889, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This study reviews different approaches to the political and economic control of global public goods like global warming. It compares quantity-oriented control mechanisms like the Kyoto Protocol with price-type control mechanisms such as internationally harmonized carbon taxes. The pros and cons of the two approaches are compared, focusing on such issues as performance under conditions of uncertainty, volatility of the induced carbon prices, the excess burden of taxation and regulation, potential for corruption and accounting finagling, and ease of implementation. It concludes that, although virtually all discussions about economic global public goods have analyzed quantitative approaches, price-type approaches are likely to be more effective and more efficient.

JEL-codes: H2 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-pbe
Note: EFG PR PE EEE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Published as Nordhaus, William D. "After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms To Control Global Warming," American Economic Review, 2005, v96(2), 31-34.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11889.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11889

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11889

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().