RFF Working Paper Series

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Changes in Analytical Perspectives across Administrations

Art Fraas and Richard Morgenstern

Assessing the Design of Three Pilot Programs for Carbon Trading in China

Clayton Munnings, Richard Morgenstern, Zhongmin Wang and Xu Liu

Pricing Flood Insurance: How and Why the NFIP Differs from a Private Insurance Company

Carolyn Kousky and Leonard Shabman

Canada–Renewable Energy: Implications for WTO Law on Green and Not-So-Green Subsidies

Steve Charnovitz and Carolyn Fischer

A Microsimulation Model of the Distributional Impacts of Climate Policies

Hal Gordon, Dallas Burtraw and Roberton Williams

Understanding Flood Risk Decisionmaking: Implications for Flood Risk Communication Program Design

Carolyn Kousky and Leonard Shabman

Environmental and Economic Impacts of Growing Certified Organic Coffee in Colombia

Marcela Ibanez and Allen Blackman

EPA’s New Source Review Program: Evidence on Processing Time, 2002–2014

Art Fraas, Mike Neuner and Peter Vail

Refunding Emissions Payments

Cathrine Hagem, Michael Hoel, Bjart Holtsmark and Thomas Sterner

Egregiousness and Boycott Intensity: Evidence from the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Zhongmin Wang, Alvin Lee and Michael Polonsky

Can Benchmarking and Disclosure Laws Provide Incentives for Energy Efficiency Improvements in Buildings?

Karen Palmer and Margaret Walls

Energy Benchmarking and Disclosure: Summary of a Workshop on City Experiences, Market Impacts, and Program Evaluation

Lucy O'Keeffe, Karen Palmer, Margaret Walls and Kristin Hayes

Does Information Provision Shrink the Energy Efficiency Gap? A Cross-City Comparison of Commercial Building Benchmarking and Disclosure Laws

Karen Palmer and Margaret Walls

Putting a Carbon Charge on Federal Coal: Legal and Economic Issues

Alan Krupnick, Joel Darmstadter, Nathan Richardson and Katrina McLaughlin

The Bioeconomics of Spatial-Dynamic Systems in Natural Resource Management

Kailin Kroetz and James Sanchirico

A Primer on Comprehensive Policy Options for States to Comply with the Clean Power Plan

Karen Palmer and Anthony Paul

New Markets for Pollution and Energy Efficiency: Credit Trading under Automobile Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Economy StandardsAbstract: Recent changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards have created new opportunities for lowering the cost of meeting strict new standards through provisions for credit banking and trading. In this paper, we explore these new markets for reductions in both fuel consumption (fuel economy) and greenhouse gases (GHGs). We examine the two separate credits markets for fuel economy as regulated by NHTSA and for GHG gases under EPA and find that there are some important differences between them. For example, the market for NHTSA fuel economy credits has an effective credit price ceiling while the market for EPA GHG credits does not. We then evaluate the functionality of these markets using publicly available data on credit holdings and trades through 2013. Finally, we assess the potential for the following to interfere with well-functioning markets: overlapping regulations, lack of additionality, thin markets, and use of monopoly power. We find that features of robust trading markets are missing in these early years, and suggest reasons why. We also explore the implications of the fact that the two regulations are almost fully overlapping

Benjamin Leard and Virginia McConnell

Comparing Policies to Confront Permit Over-allocation

Harrison Fell

Benefits of Invasion Prevention are Constrained by Lags and Timing of Invasion Impacts

Rebecca Epanchin-Niell and Andrew M. Liebhold

Weather, Traffic Accidents, and Climate Change

Benjamin Leard and Kevin Roth

The Dynamics of Pollution Permits

Makoto Hasegawa and Stephen Salant

A Contingent Valuation Approach to Estimating Regulatory Costs: Mexico’s Day Without Driving Program

Allen Blackman, Francisco Alpizar Rodriguez, Fredrik Carlsson and Marisol Rivera Planter

Ex Post Costs and Renewable Identification Number (RIN) Prices under the Renewable Fuel Standard

Gabriel Lade, C.-Y. Cynthia Lin Lawell and Aaron Smith

A Retrospective Study of EPA’s Air Toxics Program under the Revised Section 112 Requirements of the Clean Air Act

Art Fraas and Alex Egorenkov

How Effective Are Federal Food Safety Regulations? The Case of Eggs and Salmonella Enteritidis

Randall Lutter

The Net Benefits of the Acid Rain Program: What Can We Learn from the Grand Policy Experiment?

Hei Sing Chan, Benjamin Chupp, Maureen Cropper and Nicholas Muller

Multimedia Pollution Regulation and Environmental Performance: EPA’s Cluster Rule

Wayne Gray and Ron Shadbegian

Identifying the Impacts of Critical Habitat Designation on Land Cover Change

Erik Nelson, John C. Withey, Derric Pennington and Joshua J. Lawler

Sectoral Offsets in the Mexican Oil and Gas Industry: Developing a Credible Baseline via Econometric Methods

Richard Morgenstern, Alexander Egorenkov and Daniel Velez-Lopez

Price and Quantity “Collars” for Stabilizing Emissions Allowance Prices: An Experimental Analysis of the EU ETS Market Stability Reserve

Charles Holt and William Shobe

What Ails the European Union's Emissions Trading System? Two Diagnoses Calling for Different Treatments

Stephen Salant

State and Regional Comprehensive Carbon Pricing and Greenhouse Gas Regulation in the Power Sector under EPA’s Clean Power Plan: Workshop Summary

Dallas Burtraw, James Bushnell and Clayton Munnings

A natural outcome of the emerging pledge and review approach to international climate change policy is the interest in comparing mitigation efforts among countries. Domestic publics and stakeholders will have an interest in knowing if peer countries are undertaking (or planning to undertake) comparable efforts in mitigating their greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, if the aggregate efforts are considered inadequate in addressing the risks posed by climate change, then this will likely prompt a broader interest in identifying those countries where greater efforts are arguably warranted based on comparison with their peers. Both assessments require metrics of efforts and comparisons among countries. We propose a framework for such an exercise, drawing from a set of principles for designing and implementing informative metrics. We present a template for organizing metrics on mitigation efforts, for both ex ante and ex post review. We also provide preliminary assessments of efforts along emissions, price, and cost metrics for post-2020 climate policy contributions by China, the European Union, Russia, and the United States. We close with a discussion of the role of academics and civil society in promoting transparency and facilitating the evaluation and comparison of efforts

Joseph Aldy, William Pizer and Keigo Akimoto

Nutrient Assimilation Services for Water Quality Credit Trading Programs

Kurt Stephenson and Leonard Shabman

Putting Information into Action: What Explains Follow-up on Home Energy Audits?

Karen Palmer, Margaret Walls and Lucy O'Keeffe

Information Provision and Consumer Behavior: A Natural Experiment in Billing Frequency

Casey Wichman

Information Provision and Consumer Behavior: A Natural Experiment in Billing Frequency

Casey Wichman

Does Eco-certification Stem Tropical Deforestation? Forest Stewardship Council Certification in Mexico

Allen Blackman, Leonard Goff and Marisol Rivera Planter

The Effects of a Federal Tax Reform on the US Timber Sector

Roger Sedjo and Brent Sohngen

Best Available Science and Imperiled Species Conservation: Challenges, Opportunities, and Partnerships

James Boyd and Rebecca Epanchin-Niell

Ecosystem Services Indicators: Improving the Linkage between Biophysical and Economic Analyses

James Boyd, Paul Ringold, Alan Krupnick, Robert Johnston, Matthew A. Weber and Kim Hall

The Environmental Effects of Clean Energy Innovations under Rate-Based Regulation

Joshua Linn and John Horowitz

The Net Emissions Impact of HFC-23 Offset Projects from the Clean Development Mechanism

Clayton Munnings, Benjamin Leard and Antonio Bento

Household Location Decisions and the Value of Climate Amenities

Paramita Sinha and Maureen Cropper

WTO Law Constraints on Border Tax Adjustment and Tax Credit Mechanisms to Reduce the Competitive Effects of Carbon Taxes

Joel P. Trachtman

Fuel Prices, New Vehicle Fuel Economy, and Implications for Attribute-Based Standards

Benjamin Leard, Joshua Linn and Virginia McConnell

The Clean Power Plan and the “Future-Ready” Utility

Joseph Kruger

Frameworks for Evaluating Policy Approaches to Address the Competitiveness Concerns of Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Joseph Aldy

Harmonizing the Electricity Sectors across North America: Recommendations and Action Items from Two RFF/US Department of Energy Workshops

Alan Krupnick, Daniel Shawhan and Kristin Heyes

Incentives, Green Preferences, and Private Provision of Impure Public Goods

Casey Wichman