IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nuf/econwp/0812.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Emissions Trading with Profit-Neutral Permit Allocations

Author

Listed:
  • Cameron Hepburn

    (School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University)

  • John K.-H. Quah

    (Department of Economics, Oxford University)

  • Robert A. Ritz

    (Department of Economics, Oxford University)

Abstract

This paper examines the operation of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in a Cournot oligopoly. We study the impact of the ETS on industry output, price, costs, emissions, and profits. In particular, we develop formulae for the number of emissions permits that have to be freely allocated to firms in order to neutralize any adverse impact the ETS may have on profits. These formulae tell us that the profit impact of the ETS is usually limited. Indeed, under quite general conditions, industry profits are preserved so long as firms are freely allocated a fraction of their total demand for permits, with this fraction being lower than the industry's Herfindahl index.

Suggested Citation

  • Cameron Hepburn & John K.-H. Quah & Robert A. Ritz, 2008. "Emissions Trading with Profit-Neutral Permit Allocations," Economics Papers 2008-W12, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:nuf:econwp:0812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/economics/papers/2008/w12/HQR2-8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert W. Hahn, 1984. "Market Power and Transferable Property Rights," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(4), pages 753-765.
    2. Cramton, Peter & Kerr, Suzi, 2002. "Tradeable carbon permit auctions: How and why to auction not grandfather," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 333-345, March.
    3. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    4. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    5. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    6. Perloff,Jeffrey M. & Karp,Larry S. & Golan,Amos, 2007. "Estimating Market Power and Strategies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521011143.
    7. Shameek Konar & Mark A. Cohen, 2001. "Does The Market Value Environmental Performance?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 281-289, May.
    8. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    9. Bruce A. Blonigen & Benjamin H. Liebman & Wesley W. Wilson, 2007. "Trade Policy and Market Power: The Case of the US Steel Industry," NBER Working Papers 13671, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Nicholas Bloom & Christos Genakos & Ralf Martin & Raffaella Sadun, 2010. "Modern Management: Good for the Environment or Just Hot Air?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 551-572, May.
    11. Adam B. Jaffe et al., 1995. "Environmental Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 132-163, March.
    12. Seade, Jesus K, 1980. "On the Effects of Entry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(2), pages 479-489, March.
    13. Bulow, Jeremy I & Geanakoplos, John D & Klemperer, Paul D, 1985. "Multimarket Oligopoly: Strategic Substitutes and Complements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(3), pages 488-511, June.
    14. Lars-Hendrik Röller & Frode Steen, 2006. "On the Workings of a Cartel: Evidence from the Norwegian Cement Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 321-338, March.
    15. Stavins Robert N., 1995. "Transaction Costs and Tradeable Permits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 133-148, September.
    16. Don Fullerton & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2002. "Environmental Controls, Scarcity Rents, and Pre-existing Distortions," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 26, pages 504-522, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Matti Liski & Juan-Pablo Montero, 2006. "On Pollution Permit Banking and Market Power," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 283-302, May.
    18. Baumol,William J. & Oates,Wallace E., 1988. "The Theory of Environmental Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521322249, January.
    19. Alberto Salvo, 2010. "Inferring market power under the threat of entry: the case of the Brazilian cement industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(2), pages 326-350, June.
    20. A. Lans Bovenberg & Lawrence H. Goulder & Derek J. Gurney, 2005. "Efficiency Costs of Meeting Industry-Distributional Constraints Under Environmental Permits and Taxes," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 950-970, Winter.
    21. Helfand, Gloria E, 1991. "Standards versus Standards: The Effects of Different Pollution Restrictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 622-634, June.
    22. David Genesove & Wallace P. Mullin, 1998. "Testing Static Oligopoly Models: Conduct and Cost in the Sugar Industry, 1890-1914," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(2), pages 355-377, Summer.
    23. Joskow, Paul L & Schmalensee, Richard & Bailey, Elizabeth M, 1998. "The Market for Sulfur Dioxide Emissions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 669-685, September.
    24. Steven L. Puller, 2007. "Pricing and Firm Conduct in California's Deregulated Electricity Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 75-87, February.
    25. Jans, Ivette & Rosenbaum, David I., 1997. "Multimarket contact and pricing: Evidence from the U.S. cement industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 391-412, May.
    26. Kimmel, Sheldon, 1992. "Effects of Cost Changes on Oligopolists' Profits," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 441-449, December.
    27. Levin, Dan, 1985. "Taxation within Cournot oligopoly," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 281-290, August.
    28. A. Lans Bovenberg & Lawrence H. Goulder, 2001. "Neutralizing the Adverse Industry Impacts of CO2 Abatement Policies: What Does It Cost?," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral and Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy, pages 45-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Pizer, William A., 2002. "Combining price and quantity controls to mitigate global climate change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 409-434, September.
    30. Juan-Pablo Montero, 1999. "Voluntary Compliance with Market-Based Environmental Policy: Evidence from the U.S. Acid Rain Program," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(5), pages 998-1033, October.
    31. Stephen P. Ryan, 2012. "The Costs of Environmental Regulation in a Concentrated Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 1019-1061, May.
    32. Shapiro, Carl, 1989. "Theories of oligopoly behavior," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 329-414, Elsevier.
    33. Nick Bloom & Christos Genakos & Ralf Martin & Raffaella Sadun, 2010. "In brief: Modern Management: Good for the environment or just hot air?," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 303, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    34. R. Simpson, 1995. "Optimal pollution taxation in a Cournot duopoly," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 6(4), pages 359-369, December.
    35. Theodore C. Bergstrom & Hal R. Varian, 1985. "When Are Nash Equilibria Independent of the Distribution of Agents' Characteristics?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 715-718.
    36. Ashiq Ali & Sandy Klasa & Eric Yeung, 2009. "The Limitations of Industry Concentration Measures Constructed with Compustat Data: Implications for Finance Research," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 3839-3871, October.
    37. Ho, Mun S. & Morgenstern, Richard & Shih, Jhih-Shyang, 2008. "Impact of Carbon Price Policies on U.S. Industry," RFF Working Paper Series dp-08-37, Resources for the Future.
    38. Joskow, Paul L & Schmalensee, Richard, 1998. "The Political Economy of Market-Based Environmental Policy: The U.S. Acid Rain Program," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 37-83, April.
    39. James A. Brander & Anming Zhang, 1990. "Market Conduct in the Airline Industry: An Empirical Investigation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(4), pages 567-583, Winter.
    40. Nicholas Stern, 2008. "The Economics of Climate Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 1-37, May.
    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. Nowakowski, Adam & Oswald. Andrew J, 2020. "Do Europeans Care about Climate Change? An Illustration of the Importance of Data on Human Feelings," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1303, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Koch, Nicolas & Basse Mama, Houdou, 2019. "Does the EU Emissions Trading System induce investment leakage? Evidence from German multinational firms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 479-492.
    3. Bruno Lanz and Sebastian Rausch, 2016. "Emissions Trading in the Presence of Price-Regulated Polluting Firms: How Costly Are Free Allowances?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    4. Hintermann, Beat & Zarkovic, Maja & Di Maria, Corrado & Wagner, Ulrich J., 2020. "The effect of climate policy on productivity and cost pass-through in the German manufacturing sector," Working papers 2020/11, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    5. Samuel Fankhauser & Cameron Hepburn & Jisung Park, 2010. "Combining Multiple Climate Policy Instruments: How Not To Do It," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(03), pages 209-225.
    6. Genakos, C. & Grey, F. & Ritz, R., 2020. "Generalized linear competition: From pass-through to policy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2078, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    7. Cathrine Hagem & Michael Hoel & Thomas Sterner, 2020. "Refunding Emission Payments: Output-Based Versus Expenditure-Based Refunding," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 77(3), pages 641-667, November.
    8. Jean-Philippe Nicolaï, 2015. "Emission Reduction and Profit-Neutral Permit Allocations," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 15/224, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    9. Schmidt, Robert & Pollrich, Martin & Stiel, Caroline, 2013. "An optimal incentive contract to avert firm relocation under unilateral environmental regulation," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79741, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Dieter Helm & Cameron Hepburn & Giovanni Ruta, 2012. "Trade, climate change, and the political game theory of border carbon adjustments," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(2), pages 368-394, SUMMER.
    11. Aleksandar Zaklan, 2023. "Coase and Cap-and-Trade: Evidence on the Independence Property from the European Carbon Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 526-558, May.
    12. Grey, Felix, 2018. "Corporate lobbying for environmental protection," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 23-40.
    13. Jean-Philippe Nicolaï & Jorge Zamorano, 2018. "Windfall Profits Under Pollution Permits and Output-Based Allocation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 69(4), pages 661-691, April.
    14. Ritz, Robert A., 2022. "Global carbon price asymmetry," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    15. King, Maia & Tarbush, Bassel & Teytelboym, Alexander, 2019. "Targeted carbon tax reforms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 526-547.
    16. Clémence Christin & Jean-Philippe Nicolai & Jerome Pouyet, 2013. "Pollution Permits, Imperfect Competition and Abatement Technologies," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 13/186, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    17. Schmidt, Robert C. & Heitzig, Jobst, 2014. "Carbon leakage: Grandfathering as an incentive device to avert firm relocation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 209-223.
    18. Tang, Ling & Wang, Haohan & Li, Ling & Yang, Kaitong & Mi, Zhifu, 2020. "Quantitative models in emission trading system research: A literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    19. Nicolaï, Jean-Philippe, 2019. "Emission reduction and profit-neutral permit allocations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 239-253.
    20. Antoci, Angelo & Borghesi, Simone & Iannucci, Gianluca & Sodini, Mauro, 2021. "Should I stay or should I go? Carbon leakage and ETS in an evolutionary model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    21. Robert A. Ritz, 2009. "Carbon leakage under incomplete environmental regulation: An industry-level approach," Economics Series Working Papers 461, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    22. Nowakowski, Adam & Oswald, Andrew J, 2020. "Do Europeans Care about Climate Change? An Illustration of the Importance of Data on Human Feelings," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 510, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    23. Achim Voss & Mark Schopf, 2014. "Lobbying over Exhaustible-Resource Extraction," Working Papers CIE 80, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    24. Robert A. Ritz, 2022. "Carbon pricing and industrial competitiveness: border adjustment or free allocation?," Working Papers EPRG2211, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    25. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron, 2016. "Climate policy when preferences are endogenous – and sometimes they are," INET Oxford Working Papers 2016-04, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.

    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. Hepburn, Cameron J. & Quah, John K.-H. & Ritz, Robert A., 2013. "Emissions trading with profit-neutral permit allocations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 85-99.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emissions trading; permit allocation; profit-neutrality; cost pass-through; abatement; grandfathering;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:nuf:econwp:0812. 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: Maxine Collett (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/economics/ .

    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.