IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/22255.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Using a Free Permit Rule to Forecast the Marginal Abatement Cost of Proposed Climate Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Kyle C. Meng

Abstract

This paper develops a method for forecasting the marginal abatement cost (MAC) of climate policy using three features of the failed Waxman-Markey bill. First, the MAC is revealed by the price of traded permits. Second, the permit price is estimated using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) comparing stock returns of firms on either side of the policy’s free permit cutoff rule. Third, because Waxman-Markey was never implemented, I extend the RDD approach to incorporate prediction market prices which normalize estimates by policy realization probabilities. A final bounding analysis recovers a MAC range of $5 to $19 per ton CO2e.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyle C. Meng, 2016. "Using a Free Permit Rule to Forecast the Marginal Abatement Cost of Proposed Climate Policy," NBER Working Papers 22255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22255
    Note: EEE PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22255.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin F. Camerer, 1998. "Can Asset Markets Be Manipulated? A Field Experiment with Racetrack Betting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 457-482, June.
    2. Soren T. Anderson & James M. Sallee, 2011. "Using Loopholes to Reveal the Marginal Cost of Regulation: The Case of Fuel-Economy Standards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1375-1409, June.
    3. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone, 2011. "Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the US," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 152-185, October.
    4. Ian Lange & Joshua Linn, 2008. "Bush v. Gore and the Effect of New Source Review on Power Plant Emissions," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 40(4), pages 571-591, August.
    5. Bovenberg, A Lans & Goulder, Lawrence H, 1996. "Optimal Environmental Taxation in the Presence of Other Taxes: General-Equilibrium Analyses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 985-1000, September.
    6. Linn, Joshua, 2010. "The effect of cap-and-trade programs on firms' profits: Evidence from the Nitrogen Oxides Budget Trading Program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-14, January.
    7. Snowberg, Erik & Wolfers, Justin & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2013. "Prediction Markets for Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 657-687, Elsevier.
    8. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2007. "Partisan Impacts on the Economy: Evidence from Prediction Markets and Close Elections," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 807-829.
    9. Robert W. Hahn & Robert N. Stavins, 2011. "The Effect of Allowance Allocations on Cap-and-Trade System Performance," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(S4), pages 267-294.
    10. James B. Bushnell & Howard Chong & Erin T. Mansur, 2013. "Profiting from Regulation: Evidence from the European Carbon Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 78-106, November.
    11. Matthew Ranson & Robert N. Stavins, 2016. "Linkage of greenhouse gas emissions trading systems: learning from experience," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 284-300, April.
    12. Derek Lemoine, 2017. "Green Expectations: Current Effects of Anticipated Carbon Pricing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 499-513, July.
    13. Bovenberg, A.L. & Goulder, L.H., 1996. "Optimal environmental taxation in the presence of other taxes : General equilibrium analyses," Other publications TiSEM 5d4b7517-c5c8-4ef6-ab76-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    15. Kyle C. Meng, 2017. "Using a Free Permit Rule to Forecast the Marginal Abatement Cost of Proposed Climate Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 748-784, March.
    16. Meredith Fowlie & Jeffrey M. Perloff, 2013. "Distributing Pollution Rights in Cap-and-Trade Programs: Are Outcomes Independent of Allocation?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1640-1652, December.
    17. Wolfram Schlenker & W. Michael Hanemann & Anthony C. Fisher, 2005. "Will U.S. Agriculture Really Benefit from Global Warming? Accounting for Irrigation in the Hedonic Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 395-406, March.
    18. Schennach, Susanne M., 2000. "The Economics of Pollution Permit Banking in the Context of Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 189-210, November.
    19. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone, 2007. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 354-385, March.
    20. 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.
    21. RYan Oprea & David Porter & Chris Hibbert & Robin Hanson & Dorina Tila, 2008. "Can Manipulators Mislead Prediction Market Observers?," Working Papers 08-01, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    22. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    23. 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, January.
    24. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    25. Joseph A. Cullen & Erin T. Mansur, 2017. "Inferring Carbon Abatement Costs in Electricity Markets: A Revealed Preference Approach Using the Shale Revolution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 106-133, August.
    26. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2012. "Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 66-95, July.
    27. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    28. Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2009. "Using Markets to Inform Policy: The Case of the Iraq War," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(302), pages 225-250, April.
    29. Robert N. Stavins, 1998. "What Can We Learn from the Grand Policy Experiment? Lessons from SO2 Allowance Trading," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 69-88, Summer.
    30. Solomon M. Hsiang & Kyle C. Meng & Mark A. Cane, 2011. "Civil conflicts are associated with the global climate," Nature, Nature, vol. 476(7361), pages 438-441, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Environmental and Natural Resource Economics > Climate economics > Abatement costs

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ma, Chunbo & Hailu, Atakelty & You, Chaoying, 2019. "A critical review of distance function based economic research on China’s marginal abatement cost of carbon dioxide emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    2. Fried, Stephie & Novan, Kevin & Peterman, William B., 2022. "Climate policy transition risk and the macroeconomy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Legge, Stefan & Schmid, Lukas, 2016. "Media attention and betting markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 304-333.
    4. Kyle C. Meng, 2017. "Using a Free Permit Rule to Forecast the Marginal Abatement Cost of Proposed Climate Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 748-784, March.
    5. He, Mengxi & Zhang, Yaojie, 2022. "Climate policy uncertainty and the stock return predictability of the oil industry," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    6. Severen, Christopher & Costello, Christopher & Deschênes, Olivier, 2018. "A Forward-Looking Ricardian Approach: Do land markets capitalize climate change forecasts?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 235-254.
    7. Lily Hsueh, 2019. "Voluntary climate action and credible regulatory threat: evidence from the carbon disclosure project," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 188-225, December.
    8. Schlenker, Wolfram & Taylor, Charles A., 2021. "Market expectations of a warming climate," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 627-640.
    9. Thomas Stoerk, 2017. "Compliance, Efficiency and Instrument Choice: Evidence from air pollution control in China," GRI Working Papers 273, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    10. Stephie Fried & Kevin Novan & William B. Peterman, 2021. "The Macro Effects of Climate Policy Uncertainty," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-018, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Adler, David & Severnini, Edson, 2023. "Timing matters: Intra-day shifts of economic activity and ambient ozone concentrations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    12. Wolfram Schlenker & Charles A Taylor, 2019. "Market Expectations About Climate Change," NBER Working Papers 25554, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Emediegwu, Lotanna E. & Wossink, Ada & Hall, Alastair, 2022. "The impacts of climate change on agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: A spatial panel data approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    2. Robert N. Stavins, 2011. "The Problem of the Commons: Still Unsettled after 100 Years," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 81-108, February.
    3. David Anthoff & Robert Hahn, 2010. "Government failure and market failure: on the inefficiency of environmental and energy policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(2), pages 197-224, Summer.
    4. James Alm & H. Spencer Banzhaf, 2012. "Designing Economic Instruments For The Environment In A Decentralized Fiscal System," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 177-202, April.
    5. Legge, Stefan & Schmid, Lukas, 2016. "Media attention and betting markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 304-333.
    6. Revesz, Richard & Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Law and Policy," Working Paper Series rwp04-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Antonio M. Bento & Noah Miller & Mehreen Mookerjee & Edson Severnini, 2023. "Incidental Adaptation: The Role of Non-climate Regulations," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(3), pages 305-343, November.
    8. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    9. Severen, Christopher & Costello, Christopher & Deschênes, Olivier, 2018. "A Forward-Looking Ricardian Approach: Do land markets capitalize climate change forecasts?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 235-254.
    10. Baltagi, Badi H. & Bresson, Georges & Chaturvedi, Anoop & Lacroix, Guy, 2022. "Robust Dynamic Space-Time Panel Data Models Using ?-Contamination: An Application to Crop Yields and Climate Change," IZA Discussion Papers 15815, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Doda, Baran & Quemin, Simon & Taschini, Luca, 2019. "Linking permit markets multilaterally," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    12. David Castells-Quintana & Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe & Tom McDermott, 2015. "Climate change and the geographical and institutional drivers of economic development," GRI Working Papers 198, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    13. Robert W. Hahn & Robert N. Stavins, 2011. "The Effect of Allowance Allocations on Cap-and-Trade System Performance," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(S4), pages 267-294.
    14. Roger Fouquet, 2012. "Economics of Energy and Climate Change: Origins, Developments and Growth," Working Papers 2012-08, BC3.
    15. Zhang, Peng & Deschenes, Olivier & Meng, Kyle & Zhang, Junjie, 2018. "Temperature effects on productivity and factor reallocation: Evidence from a half million chinese manufacturing plants," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-17.
    16. Sheila M. Olmstead & Robert N. Stavins, 2012. "Three Key Elements of a Post-2012 International Climate Policy Architecture," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 6(1), pages 65-85.
    17. 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.
    18. Xinming Du, 2023. "Symptom or Culprit? Social Media, Air Pollution, and Violence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10296, CESifo.
    19. Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar & Castells-Quintana, David & McDermott, Thomas K. J., 2017. "Geography, institutions and development: a review ofthe long-run impacts of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Snowberg, Erik & Wolfers, Justin & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2013. "Prediction Markets for Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 657-687, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:nbr:nberwo:22255. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.