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The cost-efficiency carbon pricing puzzle

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  • Gollier, Christian

Abstract

Any global temperature target must be translated into an intertemporal carbon budget and its associated cost-efficient carbon price schedule. Under the Hotelling’s rule without uncertainty, the growth rate of this price should be equal to the interest rate. It is therefore a puzzle that many cost-efficiency IAM models yield carbon prices that increase at an average real growth rate above 7% per year, a very large return for traders of carbon assets. I explore whether uncertainties surrounding the development of green technologies could solve this puzzle. I show that future marginal abatement costs and aggregate consumption are positively correlated. This justifies doing less for climate change than in the safe case, implying a smaller initial carbon price, and an expected growth rate of carbon price that is larger than the interest rate. In the benchmark calibration of my model, I obtain an equilibrium interest rate around 1% and an expected growth rate of carbon price around 3.5%, yielding an optimal carbon price above 200 USD/tCO2 within the next few years. I also show that the rigid carbon budget approach to cost-efficiency carbon pricing implies a large uncertainty surrounding the future carbon prices that support this constraint. I show that green investors should be compensated for this risk by a large risk premium embedded in the growth rate of expected carbon prices, rather than by a collar on carbon prices as often recommended.

Suggested Citation

  • Gollier, Christian, 2024. "The cost-efficiency carbon pricing puzzle," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:128:y:2024:i:c:s0095069624001360
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2024.103062
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    1. Ren'e Aid & Maria Arduca & Sara Biagini & Luca Taschini, 2025. "Emission impossible: Balancing Environmental Concerns and Inflation," Papers 2501.16953, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carbon budget; Risk-adjusted Hotelling’s rule; Climate finance; Climate beta;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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