EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Carbon markets and technological innovation

Thomas Weber and Karsten Neuhoff ()

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2010, vol. 60, issue 2, 115-132

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of firm-level innovation in carbon-abatement technologies on optimal cap-and-trade schemes with and without price controls. We characterize optimal cap-and-trade regulation with a price cap and a price floor, and compare it to the special cases of pure taxation and a simple emissions cap. Innovation shifts the tradeoff between price- and quantity-based instruments towards quantity-based emissions trading schemes. More specifically, an increase in innovation effectiveness lowers the optimal emissions cap, and leads to relaxed price controls unless the slope of the marginal environmental damage curve is small. Because of the decrease in the emissions cap, innovation in abatement technologies can lead to a higher expected carbon price, so as to provide sufficient incentives for private R&D investments. The expected carbon price decreases once innovative technologies are widely used.

Keywords: Carbon; emissions; Carbon; taxes; Cap-and-trade; Environmental; regulation; Induced; technological; innovation; Price; caps; Price; floors; Prices; vs.; quantities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095-0696(10)00060-4
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Carbon Markets and Technological Innovation (2009) Downloads
Working Paper: Carbon Markets and Technological Innovation (2009) Downloads
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:eee:jeeman:v:60:y:2010:i:2:p:115-132

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates

More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-24
Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:60:y:2010:i:2:p:115-132