Addressing Climate Change through Price and Non-Price Interventions

Joseph Stiglitz

No 25939, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Recognizing the importance of the second-best nature of economies, the Stern-Stiglitz report on carbon pricing departed from the recommendation of a single carbon price for all uses at all places and times. This paper provides some of the analytics behind these recommendations. First, I analyze the circumstances in which distributional concerns make desirable a tax or regulation inducing significant reductions in carbon usage in a carbon-intensive sector for which consumers are disproportionately rich. Such policies allow lower carbon prices elsewhere without exceeding carbon emission targets. The cost of the resulting production inefficiency may, under the identified circumstances, be less than the distributional benefits. The paper considers the circumstances in which such differential policies may be best implemented through regulation vs. differential pricing, as well as differential effects on political economy and norm setting. Second, I consider the effect of carbon price trajectories on induced innovation, providing general conditions under which the optimal carbon path should, at least eventually, be falling over time. Finally, I revisit the price-versus-quantity debate and highlight important aspects of the dynamic nature of the problem.

JEL-codes: A1 H23 K32 Q52 Q54 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-law, nep-pke, nep-reg and nep-res
Note: EEE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (86)

Published as Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2019. "Addressing Climate Change through Price and Non-Price Interventions," European Economic Review, .

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25939.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Addressing climate change through price and non-price interventions (2019)
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:25939

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25939

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 ().