Economics of Pollution Trading for SO2 and NOx

Dallas Burtraw, Karen Palmer, Alan Krupnick (), David Evans and Russell Toth

RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: For years economists have urged policymakers to use market-based approaches such as cap-and-trade programs or emission taxes to control pollution. The SO2 allowance market created by Title IV of the 1990 U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments represents the first real test of the wisdom of economists’ advice. Subsequent urban and regional applications of NOx emission allowance trading took shape in the 1990s in the United States, culminating in a second large experiment in emission trading in the eastern United States that began in 2003. This paper provides an overview of the economic rationale for emission trading and a description of the major U.S. programs for sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). We evaluate these programs along measures of performance including cost savings, environmental integrity, and incentives for technological innovation. We offer lessons for the design of future programs including, most importantly, those reducing carbon dioxide.

Keywords: sulfur dioxide; nitrogen oxides; emission trading; power plants; air pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 H23 Q25 Q28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-03-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-05-05.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-05-05.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-05-05.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Economics of Pollution Trading for SO2 and NOx (2005)
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:rff:dpaper:dp-05-05

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Resources for the Future ().