IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cir/cirwor/2018s-43.html

Tradable Climate Liabilities: A Thought Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Étienne Billette de Villemeur
  • Justin Leroux

Abstract

We envision the creation of a climate liability market to address climate change. Each period, countries are issued liability commensurate to their emissions of the period. Liability bearers are required to pay over time, as climate harm materializes. Revenues are used to compensate participating countries in proportion of climate harm. Because liabilities are traded like financial debt among participants, the mechanism achieves a unique carbon price through decentralization of the choice of a discount rate as well as beliefs about the severity of the climate problem. We discuss properties of such a mechanism along the dimensions of efficiency, fairness, exposure to risk, commitment, participation, as well as implementation challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Étienne Billette de Villemeur & Justin Leroux, 2018. "Tradable Climate Liabilities: A Thought Experiment," CIRANO Working Papers 2018s-43, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2018s-43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2018s-43.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hiriart, Yolande & Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jerome, 2010. "The public management of risk: Separating ex ante and ex post monitors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1008-1019, December.
    2. Robert Gampfer, 2014. "Do individuals care about fairness in burden sharing for climate change mitigation? Evidence from a lab experiment," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 65-77, May.
    3. Bloise, Gaetano & Polemarchakis, Herakles & Vailakis, Yiannis, 2017. "Sovereign debt and incentives to default with uninsurable risks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(3), September.
    4. Cairns, Robert D. & Lasserre, Pierre, 2006. "Implementing carbon credits for forests based on green accounting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 610-621, April.
    5. Gersbach, Hans & Winkler, Ralph, 2011. "International emission permit markets with refunding," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 759-773, August.
    6. Eric M. Engen & R. Glenn Hubbard, 2005. "Federal Government Debt and Interest Rates," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, Volume 19, pages 83-160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Wolfgang Buchholz & Jan Schumacher, 2008. "Discounting the Long-Distant Future: A Simple Explanation for the Weitzman-Gollier-Puzzle," CESifo Working Paper Series 2357, CESifo.
    8. Catherine Bobtcheff & Thomas Chaney & Christian Gollier, 2016. "Analysis of Systemic Risk in the Insurance Industry," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 41(1), pages 73-106, March.
    9. Hiriart, Yolande & Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jerome, 2004. "On the optimal use of ex ante regulation and ex post liability," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 231-235, August.
    10. Chichilnisky, Graciela & Heal, Geoffrey, 1994. "Who should abate carbon emissions? : An international viewpoint," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 443-449, April.
    11. Thomas Laubach, 2009. "New Evidence on the Interest Rate Effects of Budget Deficits and Debt," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 858-885, June.
    12. Gollier, Christian & Weitzman, Martin L., 2010. "How should the distant future be discounted when discount rates are uncertain?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 350-353, June.
    13. William D. Nordhaus, 2007. "A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 686-702, September.
    14. Etienne Billette de Villemeur & Justin Leroux, 2011. "Sharing the Cost of Global Warming," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 113(4), pages 758-783, December.
    15. Gersbach, Hans & Winkler, Ralph, 2012. "Global refunding and climate change," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 1775-1795.
    16. R. Glenn Hubbard & Eric M. Engen, 2004. "Federal Government Debt and Interest Rates," AEI Economics Working Papers 50018, American Enterprise Institute.
    17. Francis A. Longstaff & Jun Pan & Lasse H. Pedersen & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2011. "How Sovereign Is Sovereign Credit Risk?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 75-103, April.
    18. Millner, Antony & Healey, Andrew, 2018. "Discounting by committee," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 90246, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Christian Gollier & Richard Zeckhauser, 2005. "Aggregation of Heterogeneous Time Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 878-896, August.
    20. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2012. "Collective Moral Hazard, Maturity Mismatch, and Systemic Bailouts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 60-93, February.
    21. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.
    22. Shleifer, Andrei, 2012. "The Failure of Judges and the Rise of Regulators," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262016958, December.
    23. Katharine Ricke & Laurent Drouet & Ken Caldeira & Massimo Tavoni, 2019. "Author Correction: Country-level social cost of carbon," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(7), pages 567-567, July.
    24. Shavell, Steven, 1992. "Liability and the Incentive to Obtain Information about Risk," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 259-270, June.
    25. Kolstad, Charles D & Ulen, Thomas S & Johnson, Gary V, 1990. "Ex Post Liability for Harm vs. Ex Ante Safety Regulation: Substitutes or Complements?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 888-901, September.
    26. Gerlagh, Reyer & Keyzer, Michiel A., 2001. "Sustainability and the intergenerational distribution of natural resource entitlements," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 315-341, February.
    27. Moulin, Herve, 2002. "Axiomatic cost and surplus sharing," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 289-357, Elsevier.
    28. William Nordhaus, 2015. "Climate Clubs: Overcoming Free-Riding in International Climate Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1339-1370, April.
    29. Antimiani, Alessandro & Costantini, Valeria & Markandya, Anil & Paglialunga, Elena & Sforna, Giorgia, 2017. "The Green Climate Fund as an effective compensatory mechanism in global climate negotiations," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 49-68.
    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. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Yufeng Chen & Zhitao Zhu, 2022. "Liability Structure and Carbon Emissions Abatement: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 83(2), pages 481-507, October.
    3. Tovar Reaños, Miguel A., 2021. "Floods, flood policies and changes in welfare and inequality: Evidence from Germany," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    4. Jagu Schippers, Emma & Lowing, David, 2026. "Fair effort-sharing for climate change mitigation: A normative approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).

    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. Billette de Villemeur, Etienne & Leroux, Justin, 2016. "A liability approach to climate policy: A thought experiment," MPRA Paper 75497, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Justin Leroux, 2015. "Track-and-Trade: A liability approach to climate policy," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-18, CIRANO.
    3. Rieth, Malte, 2017. "Capital taxation and government debt policy with public discounting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Afonso, António, 2007. "An avenue for expansionary fiscal contractions," MPRA Paper 4593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. BOUNADER, Lahcen, 2016. "Is there a crowding-out effect in the Moroccan context ? Evidence from structural VAR Analysis," MPRA Paper 69275, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. L. Marattin & P. Paesani & S. Salotti, 2011. "Fiscal shocks, public debt, and long-term interest rate dynamics," Working Papers wp740, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    7. Kumhof, Michael, 2018. "On the theory of international currency portfolios," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 376-396.
    8. Huang, Tao & Wu, Fei & Yu, Jing & Zhang, Bohui, 2015. "International political risk and government bond pricing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 393-405.
    9. Gollier, Christian, 2016. "Gamma discounters are short-termist," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 83-90.
    10. Cevik, Serhan & Jalles, João Tovar, 2022. "This changes everything: Climate shocks and sovereign bonds⁎," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    11. Andrej Sokol & Michael Kumhof & Marco Pinchetti & Phurichai Rungcharoenkitkul, 2023. "CBDC policies in open economies," BIS Working Papers 1086, Bank for International Settlements.
    12. Adi Brender & Sigal Ribon, 2015. "The Effect of Fiscal and Monetary Policies and the Global Economy on Real Yields of Israel Government Bonds," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2015.02, Bank of Israel.
    13. Ant Afonso & Ricardo M. Sousa, 2012. "The macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(34), pages 4439-4454, December.
    14. Rieth, Malte, 2014. "Myopic governments and welfare-enhancing debt limits," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 250-265.
    15. Daniel Gros, 2020. "The Insurance Properties of Common Debt Issuance," EconPol Policy Reports 28, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    16. Ağca, Şenay & Celasun, Oya, 2012. "Sovereign debt and corporate borrowing costs in emerging markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 198-208.
    17. J. Scott Davis & Lillian Derr, 2026. "The Interest Rate Effects of Government Debt and Deficits: Does Domestic Borrowing Have a Different Impact Than Foreign Borrowing?," Working Papers 2614, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, revised 10 Jul 2026.
    18. Lixin Sun, 2023. "Debt and real interest rates: Evidence from G20 countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1528-1551, September.
    19. Nora Traum & Shu‐Chun S. Yang, 2015. "When Does Government Debt Crowd Out Investment?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 24-45, January.
    20. John Barrdear & Michael Kumhof, 2016. "The macroeconomics of central bank issued digital currencies," Bank of England Staff Working Paper series 605, Bank of England.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    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:cir:cirwor:2018s-43. 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: Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciranca.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.