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Taxesversus tradable discharge permits: A review in the light of the U.S. and European experience

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  • Charles Howe

Abstract

The U.S. and West European environmental protection programs have incorporated different economic instruments for controlling pollution. The U.S. has made extensive use of tradable permits of several forms but has never used direct pollution taxes. The countries of the European Community have long used an array of pollution taxes but have never used tradable permits. A review and critique of these experiences and an analysis of the attributes of taxes and tradable permits seeks identify the strengths and weaknesses of each instrument and to provide guidelines for the successful implementation of each system. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1994

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  • Charles Howe, 1994. "Taxesversus tradable discharge permits: A review in the light of the U.S. and European experience," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(2), pages 151-169, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:4:y:1994:i:2:p:151-169
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00692201
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    Cited by:

    1. Fabio Antoniou & Panos Hatzipanayotou & Phoebe Koundouri, 2012. "Second Best Environmental Policies under Uncertainty," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(3), pages 1019-1040, January.
    2. Henrik Christoffersen & Gert Tinggaard Svendsen, 2002. "Bureaucratic Tax-Seeking: The Danish Waste Tax," Energy & Environment, , vol. 13(3), pages 355-366, July.
    3. Peter Heindl & Sebastian Voigt, 2012. "Supply and demand structure for international offset permits under the Copenhagen Pledges," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 343-360, November.
    4. Boemare, Catherine & Quirion, Philippe, 2002. "Implementing greenhouse gas trading in Europe: lessons from economic literature and international experiences," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2-3), pages 213-230, December.
    5. Heindl, Peter & Voigt, Sebastian, 2011. "A practical approach to offset permits in post Kyoto climate policy," ZEW Discussion Papers 11-043, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Liu, Beibei & He, Pan & Zhang, Bing & Bi, Jun, 2012. "Impacts of alternative allowance allocation methods under a cap-and-trade program in power sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 405-415.
    7. Olivier Godard & Christine Cros, 1998. "The economic design of a potential tradable permit system for SO2 emissions in the European Union," Post-Print hal-00622840, HAL.
    8. Wooders, Myrna & Zissimos, Ben, 2001. "The efficiency, equity and politics of emissions permit trading," Economic Research Papers 269357, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    9. Peter J. Wood & Peter Heindl & Frank Jotzo & Andreas Loeschel, 2013. "Linking Price and Quantity Pollution Controls under Uncertainty," CCEP Working Papers 1302, Centre for Climate & Energy Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    10. Farrow, Scott, 1995. "The dual political economy of taxes and tradable permits," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 217-220, August.
    11. Requate, Till, 2005. "Environmental Policy under Imperfect Competition: A Survey," Economics Working Papers 2005-12, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    12. G T Svendsen, 1998. "The US Acid Rain Program: Design, Performance, and Assessment," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 16(6), pages 723-734, December.
    13. Daugbjerg, Carsten & Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard, 2001. "Designing green taxes in a political context: From optimal to feasible environmental regulation," Working Papers 01-17, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    14. 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.
    15. Heindl, Peter & Löschel, Andreas, 2012. "Designing emissions trading in practice general considerations and experiences from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS)," ZEW Discussion Papers 12-009, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. B Hansjürgens, 1998. "The Sulfur Dioxide Allowance-Trading Program in the USA: Recent Developments and Lessons to be Learned," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 16(3), pages 341-361, June.
    17. Lin, Boqiang & Jiang, Zhujun & Zhang, Peng, 2011. "Allocation of sulphur dioxide allowance – An analysis based on a survey of power plants in Fujian province in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 3120-3129.
    18. Coria, Jessica, 2011. "Environmental crises' regulations, tradable permits and the adoption of new technologies," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 455-476, September.

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