IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v125y2015icp16-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal trading ratios for pollution permit markets

Author

Listed:
  • Holland, Stephen P.
  • Yates, Andrew J.

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel method for improving the efficiency of pollution permit markets by optimizing the exchange of emissions through trade. Under full-information, it is optimal for emissions to exchange according to the ratio of marginal damages. Under asymmetric information, we derive necessary conditions for the marginal damage trading ratios to be optimal, illustrate that the marginal damage trading ratios are generally not optimal, and show how to improve efficiency using optimal trading ratios. We calculate the optimal trading ratios for a global carbon market. The gains from using optimal trading ratios rather than marginal damage trading ratios range from substantial to trivial, which suggests the need for careful consideration of asymmetric information when designing permit markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Holland, Stephen P. & Yates, Andrew J., 2015. "Optimal trading ratios for pollution permit markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 16-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:125:y:2015:i:c:p:16-27
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2015.03.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272715000377
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2015.03.005?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stocking, Andrew, 2012. "Unintended consequences of price controls: An application to allowance markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 120-136.
    2. Tracy R. Lewis, 1996. "Protecting the Environment When Costs and Benefits Are Privately Known," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(4), pages 819-847, Winter.
    3. Montgomery, W. David, 1972. "Markets in licenses and efficient pollution control programs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 395-418, December.
    4. 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.
    5. Montero, Juan-Pablo, 2002. "Prices versus quantities with incomplete enforcement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 435-454, September.
    6. Meredith Fowlie & Nicholas Muller, 2019. "Market-Based Emissions Regulation When Damages Vary across Sources: What Are the Gains from Differentiation?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 593-632.
    7. Mendelsohn, Robert, 1986. "Regulating heterogeneous emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 301-312, December.
    8. Feng, Hongli & Zhao, Jinhua, 2006. "Alternative intertemporal permit trading regimes with stochastic abatement costs," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 24-40, January.
    9. Yates, Andrew J. & Cronshaw, Mark B., 2001. "Pollution Permit Markets with Intertemporal Trading and Asymmetric Information," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 104-118, July.
    10. Harrison Fell & Richard Morgenstern, 2010. "Alternative Approaches to Cost Containment in a Cap-and-Trade System," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 47(2), pages 275-297, October.
    11. Baron, David P & Myerson, Roger B, 1982. "Regulating a Monopolist with Unknown Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 911-930, July.
    12. Curtis Carlson & Dallas Burtraw & Maureen Cropper & Karen L. Palmer, 2000. "Sulfur Dioxide Control by Electric Utilities: What Are the Gains from Trade?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1292-1326, December.
    13. Meredith Fowlie & Stephen P. Holland & Erin T. Mansur, 2012. "What Do Emissions Markets Deliver and to Whom? Evidence from Southern California's NOx Trading Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 965-993, April.
    14. Grüll, Georg & Taschini, Luca, 2011. "Cap-and-trade properties under different hybrid scheme designs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 107-118, January.
    15. Unold, Wolfram & Requate, Till, 2001. "Pollution control by options trading," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 353-358, December.
    16. Hasegawa, Makoto & Salant, Stephen, 2012. "Cap-and-Trade Programs under Delayed Compliance," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-32, Resources for the Future.
    17. Ellerman,A. Denny & Joskow,Paul L. & Schmalensee,Richard & Montero,Juan-Pablo & Bailey,Elizabeth M., 2005. "Markets for Clean Air," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521023894.
      • Ellerman,A. Denny & Joskow,Paul L. & Schmalensee,Richard & Montero,Juan-Pablo & Bailey,Elizabeth M., 2000. "Markets for Clean Air," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521660839.
    18. Andrew Yates, 2002. "Decentralization in Pollution Permit Markets," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(4), pages 641-660, October.
    19. Roberts, Marc J. & Spence, Michael, 1976. "Effluent charges and licenses under uncertainty," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3-4), pages 193-208.
    20. David D. Henry III & Nicholas Z. Muller & Robert O. Mendelsohn, 2011. "The social cost of trading: Measuring the increased damages from sulfur dioxide trading in the United States," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 598-612, June.
    21. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    22. Roberton Williams, 2002. "Prices vs. Quantities vs. Tradable Quantities," NBER Working Papers 9283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. R. Scott Farrow & Martin T. Schultz & Pinar Celikkol & George L. Van Houtven, 2005. "Pollution Trading in Water Quality Limited Areas: Use of Benefits Assessment and Cost-Effective Trading Ratios," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(2).
    24. 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.
    25. 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.
    26. Evan Kwerel, 1977. "To Tell the Truth: Imperfect Information and Optimal Pollution Control," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 595-601.
    27. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, December.
    28. Hasegawa, Makoto & Salant, Stephen, 2014. "Cap-and-trade programs under delayed compliance: Consequences of interim injections of permits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 24-34.
    29. Rabotyagov, Sergey S. & Feng, Hongli, 2010. "Does permit trading minimize cost under an average pollution target?," ISU General Staff Papers 201011050700001809, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    30. Moledina, Amyaz A. & Coggins, Jay S. & Polasky, Stephen & Costello, Christopher, 2003. "Dynamic environmental policy with strategic firms: prices versus quantities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2, Supple), pages 356-376, March.
    31. Nicholas Z. Muller & Robert Mendelsohn, 2009. "Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1714-1739, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Abito, Jose Miguel & Knittel, Christopher R. & Metaxoglou, Konstantinos & Trindade, André, 2022. "The role of output reallocation and investment in coordinating environmental markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Doda, Baran & Quemin, Simon & Taschini, Luca, 2019. "Linking permit markets multilaterally," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Heijmans, Roweno J.R.K. & Engström, Max, 2024. "Time Horizons and Emissions Trading," Discussion Papers 2024/2, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    4. Jin, Peizhen & Wang, Siyu & Yin, Desheng & Zhang, Hang, 2023. "Environmental institutional supply that shapes a green economy: Evidence from Chinese cities," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    5. Ping Lin & Yu Pang, 2020. "Command-and-control regulation, incentive for pollution abatement, and market structure," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 159-180, April.
    6. Zeng, Shihong & Jiang, Xue & Su, Bin & Nan, Xin, 2018. "China's SO2 shadow prices and environmental technical efficiency at the province level," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 86-102.
    7. Woerman, Matt, 2023. "Linking carbon markets with different initial conditions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    8. Wu, JunJie & Segerson, Kathleen & Wang, Chunhua, 2023. "Is environmental regulation the answer to pollution problems in urbanizing economies?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    9. Baran Doda & Luca Taschini, 2017. "Carbon Dating: When Is It Beneficial to Link ETSs?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 701-730.
    10. Daniel Leppert, 2023. "“No fences make bad neighbors” but markets make better ones: cap-and-trade reduces cross-border SO2 in a natural experiment," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 25(3), pages 407-433, July.
    11. Simon Quemin & Christian Perthuis, 2019. "Transitional Restricted Linkage Between Emissions Trading Schemes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 1-32, September.
    12. Wang, Zhiyu, 2018. "Permit trading with flow pollution and stock pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 118-132.
    13. Jay S. Coggins & Andrew L. Goodkind & Jason Nguyen & Zhiyu Wang, 2019. "Price Effects, Inefficient Environmental Policy, and Windfall Profits," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(3), pages 637-656, March.
    14. Zhang, Da & Peng, Hantang & Zhang, Lin, 2023. "Share of polluting input as a sufficient statistic for burden sharing," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    15. Maogang Tang & Ruihan Zhang & Zhen Li & Baijun Wu, 2021. "Assessing the impact of tradable discharge permit on pollution reduction and innovation: micro-evidence from Chinese industrial enterprises," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 16911-16933, November.
    16. Xiaoyan Wang & Minggao Xue & Lu Xing, 2018. "Market-based pollution regulations with damages Varying across space: When the adoption of clean Technology is socially optimal," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 8(1), pages 1-5.
    17. Hagen, Martin, 2022. "Tradable immigration quotas revisited," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    18. Chan, H. Ron & Chupp, B. Andrew & Cropper, Maureen L. & Muller, Nicholas Z., 2018. "The impact of trading on the costs and benefits of the Acid Rain Program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 180-209.
    19. Werner Antweiler, 2017. "Emission trading for air pollution hot spots: getting the permit market right," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(1), pages 35-58, January.
    20. Isla Globus‐Harris, 2020. "An Impossible Goal: When Trade Ratios Cannot Achieve No‐Net‐Loss," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(4), pages 1372-1392, April.
    21. Xiaoyan Wang & Weiwei Zhang, 2022. "Taxes Versus Tradable Permits Considering Public Environmental Awareness," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 293-315, July.

    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. Makoto Hasegawa & Stephen Salant, 2015. "The Dynamics of Pollution Permits," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 61-79, October.
    2. Yu, Jongmin & Mallory, Mindy L., 2015. "An optimal hybrid emission control system in a multiple compliance period model," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 16-28.
    3. Lintunen, Jussi & Kuusela, Olli-Pekka, 2018. "Business cycles and emission trading with banking," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 397-417.
    4. 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.
    5. Martin L. Weitzman, 2020. "Prices or Quantities Can Dominate Banking and Borrowing," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(2), pages 437-463, April.
    6. Tang, Bao-Jun & Wang, Xiang-Yu & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2019. "Quantities versus prices for best social welfare in carbon reduction: A literature review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 554-564.
    7. Simon Quemin & Christian Perthuis, 2019. "Transitional Restricted Linkage Between Emissions Trading Schemes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 1-32, September.
    8. Khezr, Peyman & MacKenzie, Ian A., 2018. "Permit market auctions with allowance reserves," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 283-306.
    9. Ian A. MacKenzie, 2017. "Rent creation and rent seeking in environmental policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 145-166, April.
    10. Richard Schmalensee & Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "Lessons Learned from Three Decades of Experience with Cap and Trade," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(1), pages 59-79.
    11. Meredith Fowlie & Nicholas Muller, 2019. "Market-Based Emissions Regulation When Damages Vary across Sources: What Are the Gains from Differentiation?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 593-632.
    12. Baran Doda & Luca Taschini, 2017. "Carbon Dating: When Is It Beneficial to Link ETSs?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 701-730.
    13. Reyer Gerlagh & Roweno J.R.K. Heijmans, 2018. "Regulating Stock Externalities," CESifo Working Paper Series 7383, CESifo.
    14. Stavins, Robert, 2001. "Lessons From the American Experiment With Market-Based Environmental Policies," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-53, Resources for the Future.
    15. Quemin, Simon & Trotignon, Raphaël, 2021. "Emissions trading with rolling horizons," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    16. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Economics," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-54, Resources for the Future.
    17. Stranlund, John K. & Moffitt, L. Joe, 2014. "Enforcement and price controls in emissions trading," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 20-38.
    18. Benjamin Leard, 2013. "The Welfare Effects of Allowance Banking in Emissions Trading Programs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(2), pages 175-197, June.
    19. Baran Doda & Simon Quemin & Luca Taschini, 2017. "A Theory of Gains from Trade in Multilaterally Linked ETSs," Working Papers 1706, Chaire Economie du climat.
    20. Simon Luechinger & Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2010. "Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed?: Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap Between the Public and the Private Sector," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(4), pages 998-1045.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pollution markets; Asymmetric information; Trading ratios;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    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:eee:pubeco:v:125:y:2015:i:c:p:16-27. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    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.