Optimal climate policies in a dynamic multi-country equilibrium model

Elmar Hillebrand and Marten Hillebrand

Journal of Economic Theory, 2019, vol. 179, issue C, 200-239

Abstract: This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model with an arbitrary number of different regions to study the economic consequences of climate change under alternative climate policies. Regions differ with respect to their state of economic development, factor endowments, and climate damages and trade on global markets for capital, output, and exhaustible resources. Our main result derives an optimal climate policy consisting of an emissions tax and a transfer policy. The optimal tax can be determined explicitly in our framework and is independent of any weights attached to the interests of different countries. Such weights only determine optimal transfers which distribute tax revenues across countries. We infer that the real political issue is not the tax policy required to reduce global warming but rather how the burden of climate change should be shared via transfer payments between different countries. We propose a simple transfer policy which induces a Pareto improvement relative to the Laissez faire solution. A calibrated example quantifies Pareto-improving transfers between rich and poor countries.

Keywords: Multi-region dynamic general equilibrium model; Climate change; Optimal climate tax; Optimal transfer policy; Pareto improvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E61 H21 H23 Q43 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Optimal Climate Policies in a Dynamic Multi-Country Equilibrium Model (2017)
Working Paper: Optimal Climate Policies in a Dynamic Multi-Country Equilibrium Model (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:179:y:2019:i:c:p:200-239

DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2018.11.001

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