IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v15y2023i2p526-58.html

Coase and Cap-and-Trade: Evidence on the Independence Property from the European Carbon Market

Author

Listed:
  • Aleksandar Zaklan

Abstract

I examine the Coasean independence property in a large multinational cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions, the EU Emissions Trading System. I analyze whether emissions of power producers are independent from allowance allocations by leveraging a change in allocation policy for a difference-in-difference strategy. The evidence suggests that the independence property holds overall and for larger emitters and that firms respond to the loss in allocation by increasing allowance purchases. Suggestive evidence for small emitters indicates that trading costs or behavioral bias distorts their emission decisions. However, their small emission share leaves the independence property intact at the sector level.

Suggested Citation

  • Aleksandar Zaklan, 2023. "Coase and Cap-and-Trade: Evidence on the Independence Property from the European Carbon Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 526-558, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:526-58
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20210028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20210028
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E152861V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20210028.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20210028.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20210028?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Nicola Borri & Yukun Liu & Aleh Tsyvinski & Xi Wu, 2024. "Inefficiencies of Carbon Trading Markets," Papers 2408.06497, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    2. Flori, Andrea & Scotti, Francesco, 2025. "When the intensity of trading meets compliance requirements: An assessment for firms operating within the EU ETS," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Estelle Cantillon & Aurélie Slechten, 2024. "Market Design for the Environment," NBER Chapters, in: New Directions in Market Design, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Hagendorn, Jan Eric & Hattemer, Benjamin & Kalantzis, Fotios, 2024. "A positive trade-off: Emissions reduction and costs under Phase IV of the Emissions Trading System," EIB Working Papers 2024/05, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    5. Döttling, Robin & Rola-Janicka, Magdalena, 2025. "Too Levered for Pigou: Carbon pricing, financial constraints, and leverage regulation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    6. Baudry, Marc & Faure, Anouk & Quemin, Simon, 2021. "Emissions trading with transaction costs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    7. Till Köveker & Robin Sogalla, 2025. "Mitigation versus Competitiveness? Industry Compensation in the European Union Emissions Trading System," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2133, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Olga Chiappinelli & Ambrogio Dalò & Leonardo M. Giuffrida, 2024. "The greener, the better? Evidence from government contractors," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2024/474, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    9. Yoon, Beomseok & Filipski, Mateusz & Landry, Craig E. & Yoo, Seung Jick, 2024. "Endowment effects, expectations, and trading behavior in carbon cap and trade," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    10. Pahle, Michael & Quemin, Simon & Osorio, Sebastian & Günther, Claudia & Pietzcker, Robert, 2025. "The emerging endgame: The EU ETS on the road towards climate neutrality," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Wen-Hsien Tsai & Wei-Hong Lin, 2024. "Production Decision Model for the Cement Industry in Pursuit of Carbon Neutrality: Analysis of the Impact of Carbon Tax and Carbon Credit Costs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-22, March.
    12. Olga Chiappinelli & Ambrogio Dalò & Leonardo M. Giuffrida & Vitezslav Titl, 2025. "The Greener, the Better? Evidence from Government Contractors," CESifo Working Paper Series 11696, CESifo.
    13. repec:osf:osfxxx:ds7bx_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Adrien Coiffard & Rose Deperrois & Alexandre Sauquet & Julie Subervie, 2024. "Replication Study of "Coase and cap-and-trade" (Zaklan 2023)," Working Papers hal-04675772, HAL.
    15. Flori, Andrea & Borghesi, Simone & Marin, Giovanni, 2024. "The environmental-financial performance nexus of EU ETS firms: A quantile regression approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    16. Zhou, Xiaoxiao & Zhao, Yongan & Chen, Dengsheng, 2025. "Emissions trading scheme's effect on enterprises' sustainable development in China: A differential game and a quasi-natural experiment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:aea:aejpol:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:526-58. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.