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Heterogeneous firms and the environment: a cap-and-trade program

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  • Anouliès, Lisa

Abstract

Currently, cap-and-trade programs are a cornerstone of many countries' climate change policies and proposals. This paper investigates the economic and environmental effects of different climate change policy designs in a general equilibrium setting with heterogeneous firms and monopolistic competition. The analysis predicts that the cap on emissions perfectly defines the environmental quality but has no effect on firms' profits, or decisions to enter or exit the market. In contrast, increasing the share of free allocations of emission allowances, as opposed to auctions, has no effect on environmental quality but reallocates resources among firms toward the most productive ones which has an impact on firms' entry and exit decisions, the mass of firms, and the composition of the market. Firm heterogeneity magnifies these economic effects of changes in the initial allocation of allowances. The paper provides a decomposition of the change in aggregate emissions which takes account of the changes at sector level, across the firms within a sector, and at the firm level.

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  • Anouliès, Lisa, 2017. "Heterogeneous firms and the environment: a cap-and-trade program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 84-101.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:84:y:2017:i:c:p:84-101
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2017.02.004
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    2. Sun, YongPing & Xue, JinJun & Shi, XunPeng & Wang, KeYing & Qi, ShaoZhou & Wang, Lei & Wang, Cheng, 2019. "A dynamic and continuous allowances allocation methodology for the prevention of carbon leakage: Emission control coefficients," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 220-230.
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    5. María A. Ramón-Jerónimo & Inés Herrero, 2017. "Capturing Firms’ Heterogeneity through Marketing and IT Capabilities in SMEs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-25, November.
    6. Andersen, Dana C., 2018. "Accounting for loss of variety and factor reallocations in the welfare cost of regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 69-94.
    7. Forslid, Rikard & Okubo, Toshihiro & Ulltveit-Moe, Karen Helene, 2018. "Why are firms that export cleaner? International trade, abatement and environmental emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 166-183.
    8. Li, Qian & Zhou, Ruodan & Xiong, Jie & Wang, Yanxi, 2023. "Rushing through the clouds, or waiting to die? The effect of the green credit policy on heavily polluting firms," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. Yu, Song-min & Fan, Ying & Zhu, Lei & Eichhammer, Wolfgang, 2020. "Modeling the emission trading scheme from an agent-based perspective: System dynamics emerging from firms’ coordination among abatement options," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(3), pages 1113-1128.
    10. Chen, Zhongfei & Zhang, Xiao & Chen, Fanglin, 2021. "Do carbon emission trading schemes stimulate green innovation in enterprises? Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    11. Gregor Zoettl, 2021. "Emission trading systems and the optimal technology mix," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 281-327, June.
    12. Wu, Libo & Zhou, Ying & Qian, Haoqi, 2022. "Global actions under the Paris agreement: Tracing the carbon leakage flow and pursuing countermeasures," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    13. Hamaguchi, Yoshihiro, 2023. "Environmental tax evasion as a determinant of the Porter and pollution haven hypotheses in a corrupt political system," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 610-633.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emissions trading; Heterogeneous firms; Monopolistic competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

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