IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssb/dispap/436.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cap-and-Trade or Carbon Taxes? The Feasibility of Enforcement and the Effects of Non-Compliance

Author

Listed:

Abstract

One of the proposed alternatives to Kyoto's cap-and-trade approach is a regime based on an internationally harmonized carbon tax. In this paper, we consider and compare the enforcement problems associated with a tax regime and a cap-and-trade regime, respectively. The paper tries to convey two main points. First, both types of regime require an effective enforcement mechanism. However, such a mechanism is unlikely to be adopted as part of a regime with full participation, because the political process leading up to its adoption tends to water down the enforcement mechanism to a point where it no longer has much bite. And even if this is somehow avoided, countries expecting compliance to be difficult or costly will almost certainly decline to sign - not to mention ratify - the resulting agreement. Second, the implications of non-compliance in a tax regime differ in important ways from the corresponding implications in a cap-and-trade regime. In a cap-and-trade regime emissions trading can make inaction legitimate for buyers of emission permits. In particular, overselling of permits by one (or a few) permit exporting countries might completely undermine the regime's environmental effect. In a tax regime, by contrast, one country's non-compliance can not make inaction by other countries legitimate. It follows that an agreement based on a harmonized carbon tax will always have some effect, provided that at least one country complies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jon Hovi & Bjart Holtsmark, 2005. "Cap-and-Trade or Carbon Taxes? The Feasibility of Enforcement and the Effects of Non-Compliance," Discussion Papers 436, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
  • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ssb.no/a/publikasjoner/pdf/DP/dp436.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoel, Michael & Karp, Larry, 2001. "Taxes and quotas for a stock pollutant with multiplicative uncertainty," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 91-114, October.
    2. Fanny Missfeldt & Erik Haites, 2002. "Analysis of a commitment period reserve at national and global levels," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 51-70, March.
    3. Hoel, Michael & Karp, Larry, 2002. "Taxes versus quotas for a stock pollutant," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 367-384, November.
    4. Haites, Erik & Missfeldt, Fanny, 2004. "Liquidity implications of a commitment period reserve at national and global levels," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 845-868, September.
    5. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    6. Joseph E. Aldy & Scott Barrett & Robert N. Stavins, 2003. "Thirteen plus one: a comparison of global climate policy architectures," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(4), pages 373-397, December.
    7. Newell, Richard G. & Pizer, William A., 2003. "Regulating stock externalities under uncertainty," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2, Supple), pages 416-432, March.
    8. Christoph Bohringer, 2002. "Climate Politics from Kyoto to Bonn: From Little to Nothing?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 51-71.
    9. Downs, George W. & Rocke, David M. & Barsoom, Peter N., 1996. "Is the good news about compliance good news about cooperation?," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 379-406, July.
    10. Pizer, William, 1997. "Prices vs. Quantities Revisited: The Case of Climate Change," RFF Working Paper Series dp-98-02, Resources for the Future.
    11. Michael Grubb, 2003. "The Economics of the Kyoto Protocol," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 4(3), pages 143-189, July.
    12. Jon Hovi & Tora Skodvin & Steinar Andresen, 2003. "The Persistence of the Kyoto Protocol: Why Other Annex I Countries Move on Without the United States," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 3(4), pages 1-23, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Book Review: The Case for a Carbon Tax, by Shi-Ling Hsu
      by James Handley in Carbon Tax Center on 2012-07-07 05:11:05

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agni Kalfagianni & Oran R. Young, 2022. "The politics of multilateral environmental agreements lessons from 20 years of INEA," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 245-262, June.
    2. Rohling, Moritz & Ohndorf, Markus, 2012. "Prices vs. Quantities with fiscal cushioning," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 169-187.
    3. Bjart Holtsmark, 2013. "International cooperation on climate change: why is there so little progress?," Chapters, in: Roger Fouquet (ed.), Handbook on Energy and Climate Change, chapter 13, pages 327-343, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Stine Aakre & Jon Hovi, 2010. "Emission trading: Participation enforcement determines the need for compliance enforcement," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 427-445, September.
    5. Mathews, John, 2007. "Seven steps to curb global warming," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 4247-4259, August.
    6. van Vuuren, Detlef P. & den Elzen, Michel G.J. & van Vliet, Jasper & Kram, Tom & Lucas, Paul & Isaac, Morna, 2009. "Comparison of different climate regimes: the impact of broadening participation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5351-5362, December.
    7. Stine Aakre, 2016. "The political feasibility of potent enforcement in a post-Kyoto climate agreement," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 145-159, February.
    8. Ping He & Guowei Dou & Wei Zhang, 2017. "Optimal production planning and cap setting under cap-and-trade regulation," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(9), pages 1094-1105, September.
    9. Font Vivanco, David & Kemp, René & van der Voet, Ester, 2016. "How to deal with the rebound effect? A policy-oriented approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 114-125.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cameron Hepburn, 2006. "Regulation by Prices, Quantities, or Both: A Review of Instrument Choice," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 226-247, Summer.
    2. Halvor Briseid Storrøsten, 2012. "Prices vs. quantities: Technology choice, uncertainty and welfare," Discussion Papers 677, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    3. Richard Newell & William Pizer & Jiangfeng Zhang, 2005. "Managing Permit Markets to Stabilize Prices," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 31(2), pages 133-157, June.
    4. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Can an Effective Global Climate Treaty be Based on Sound Science, Rational Economics, and Pragmatic Politics?," Working Paper Series rwp04-020, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Botor, Benjamin & Böcker, Benjamin & Kallabis, Thomas & Weber, Christoph, 2021. "Information shocks and profitability risks for power plant investments – impacts of policy instruments," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    6. Pezzey, John C.V. & Jotzo, Frank, 2010. "Tax-Versus-Trading and Free Emission Shares as Issues for Climate Policy Design," Research Reports 95049, Australian National University, Environmental Economics Research Hub.
    7. Hansjürgens, Bernd, 2008. "Internationale Klimapolitik nach Kyoto: Architekturen und Institutionen," UFZ Discussion Papers 10/2008, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    8. Fell, Harrison & MacKenzie, Ian A. & Pizer, William A., 2012. "Prices versus quantities versus bankable quantities," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 607-623.
    9. Burtraw, Dallas & Holt, Charles & Palmer, Karen & Paul, Anthony & Shobe, William, 2018. "Quantities with Prices," RFF Working Paper Series 18-08, Resources for the Future.
    10. Carlos Chávez & John Stranlund, 2009. "A Note on Emissions Taxes and Incomplete Information," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 44(1), pages 137-144, September.
    11. John Parsons & Luca Taschini, 2013. "The Role of Stocks and Shocks Concepts in the Debate Over Price Versus Quantity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(1), pages 71-86, May.
    12. Newell, Richard G. & Pizer, William A., 2003. "Regulating stock externalities under uncertainty," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2, Supple), pages 416-432, March.
    13. Helfand, Gloria E. & Berck, Peter & Maull, Tim, 2003. "The theory of pollution policy," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 249-303, Elsevier.
    14. Rohling, Moritz & Ohndorf, Markus, 2012. "Prices vs. Quantities with fiscal cushioning," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 169-187.
    15. Heimvik, Arild & Amundsen, Eirik S., 2019. "Prices vs. percentages: Use of tradable green certificates as an instrument of greenhouse gas mitigation," Working Papers in Economics 1/19, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    16. Ian A. MacKenzie, 2017. "Rent creation and rent seeking in environmental policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 145-166, April.
    17. Barbara Annicchiarico & Marco Carli & Francesca Diluiso, 2022. "Climate Policies, Macroprudential Regulation, and the Welfare Cost of Business Cycles," CEIS Research Paper 543, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 31 Oct 2022.
    18. Halvor Storrøsten, 2014. "Prices Versus Quantities: Technology Choice, Uncertainty and Welfare," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(2), pages 275-293, October.
    19. Mason, Charles F. & Polasky, Stephen & Tarui, Nori, 2017. "Cooperation on climate-change mitigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 43-55.
    20. Toman, Michael A. & Withagen, Cees, 2000. "Accumulative pollution, "clean technology," and policy design," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 367-384, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate agreements; compliance; enforcement; emissions trading; carbon taxes.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q30 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:436. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: L Maasø (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ssbgvno.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.