IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-09-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

U.S. Emissions Trading Markets for SO2 and NOx

Author

Listed:
  • Burtraw, Dallas

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Szambelan, Sarah Jo

Abstract

The U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 initiated the first large experiment in the use of market-based regulation to control environmental problems with the introduction of an emissions trading program for sulfur dioxide emissions. Later that decade the second large trading program began for control of nitrogen oxide emissions. Although these programs are widely viewed as successful, their development and the emergence of associated environmental markets took various turns that provide lessons for the development of new markets, including markets for greenhouse gas emissions. This paper reviews the history of these programs and provides a glimpse of their future given the introduction of new regulations affecting multiple pollutants and given the expected implementation of climate policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Burtraw, Dallas & Szambelan, Sarah Jo, 2009. "U.S. Emissions Trading Markets for SO2 and NOx," RFF Working Paper Series dp-09-40, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-09-40
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-09-40.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bohi, Douglas R. & Burtraw, Dallas, 1997. "SO2 Allowance Trading: How Experience and Expectations Measure Up," Discussion Papers 10878, Resources for the Future.
    2. Popp, David, 2004. "ENTICE: endogenous technological change in the DICE model of global warming," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 742-768, July.
    3. Dallas Burtraw & Alan Krupnick & Erin Mansur & David Austin & Deirdre Farrell, 1998. "Costs And Benefits Of Reducing Air Pollutants Related To Acid Rain," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(4), pages 379-400, October.
    4. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen & Kahn, Danny, 2010. "A symmetric safety valve," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(9), pages 4921-4932, September.
    5. Milliman, Scott R. & Prince, Raymond, 1992. "Firm incentives to promote technological change in pollution control: Reply," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 292-296, May.
    6. Nelson, Randy A & Tietenberg, Tom & Donihue, Michael R, 1993. "Differential Environmental Regulation: Effects on Electric Utility Capital Turnover and Emissions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(2), pages 368-373, May.
    7. Winebrake, James J. & Bernstein, Mark A. & Farrell, Alex E., 1995. "Estimating the impacts of restrictions on utility participation in the SO2 allowance market," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 50-54, May.
    8. David Popp, 2003. "ENTICE: Endogenous Technological Change in the DICE Model of Global Warming," NBER Working Papers 9762, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dallas Burtraw, 1996. "The So2 Emissions Trading Program: Cost Savings Without Allowance Trades," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 14(2), pages 79-94, April.
    10. Coggins, Jay S. & Swinton, John R., 1996. "The Price of Pollution: A Dual Approach to Valuing SO2Allowances," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 58-72, January.
    11. Palmer, Karen L. & Burtraw, Dallas, 2005. "The Environmental Impacts of Electricity Restructuring: Looking Back and Looking Forward," Discussion Papers 10656, Resources for the Future.
    12. Bohi, Douglas R., 1994. "Utilities and state regulators are failing to take advantage of emission allowance trading," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 20-27, March.
    13. Farrell, Alex & Carter, Robert & Raufer, Roger, 1999. "The NOx Budget: market-based control of tropospheric ozone in the northeastern United States," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 103-124, May.
    14. Ellerman, A. Denny & Montero, Juan-Pablo, 1998. "The Declining Trend in Sulfur Dioxide Emissions: Implications for Allowance Prices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 26-45, July.
    15. Stavins, Robert, 2007. "A U.S. Cap-and-Trade System to Address Global Climate Change," Working Paper Series rwp07-052, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Fischer, Carolyn & Parry, Ian W. H. & Pizer, William A., 2003. "Instrument choice for environmental protection when technological innovation is endogenous," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 523-545, May.
    17. 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.
    18. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen & Krupnick, Alan & Evans, David & Toth, Russell, 2005. "Economics of Pollution Trading for SO2 and NOx," RFF Working Paper Series dp-05-05, Resources for the Future.
    19. Richard Schmalensee & Paul L. Joskow & A. Denny Ellerman & Juan Pablo Montero & Elizabeth M. Bailey, 1998. "An Interim Evaluation of Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Trading," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 53-68, Summer.
    20. Farrell, Alex, 2001. "Multi-lateral emission trading: lessons from inter-state NOx control in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(13), pages 1061-1072, November.
    21. 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.
    22. David Popp, 2003. "Pollution control innovations and the Clean Air Act of 1990," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 641-660.
    23. Arimura, Toshi H., 2002. "An Empirical Study of the SO2 Allowance Market: Effects of PUC Regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 271-289, September.
    24. Downing, Paul B. & White, Lawrence J., 1986. "Innovation in pollution control," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 18-29, March.
    25. 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.
    26. H. Spencer Banzhaf & Dallas Burtraw & David Evans & Alan Krupnick, 2006. "Valuation of Natural Resource Improvements in the Adirondacks," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 82(3), pages 445-464.
    27. Thomas H. Klier & Richard H. Mattoon & Michael Ari Prager, 1996. "A mixed bag: assessment of market performance and firm trading behavior in the NOx RECLAIM program," Working Paper Series, Regional Economic Issues WP-96-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    28. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    29. John R. Swinton, 2002. "The Potential for Cost Savings in the Sulfur Dioxide Allowance Market: Empirical Evidence from Florida," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 78(3), pages 390-404.
    30. Fullerton, Don & McDermott, Shaun P. & Caulkins, Jonathan P., 1997. "Sulfur Dioxide Compliance of a Regulated Utility," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 32-53, September.
    31. 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.
    32. Stephen P. Holland & Michael R. Moore, 2012. "When to Pollute, When to Abate? Intertemporal Permit Use in the Los Angeles NOx Market," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(2), pages 275-299.
    33. 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, September.
      • 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.
    34. Bohi, Douglas R. & Burtraw, Dallas, 1997. "SO2 allowance trading: How do expectations and experience measure up?," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 10(7), pages 67-75.
    35. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen L. & Bharvirkar, Ranjit & Paul, Anthony, 2001. "Cost-Effective Reduction of NOx Emissions from Electricity Generation," Discussion Papers 10677, Resources for the Future.
    36. Scott Lee Johnson & David M. Pekelney, 1996. "Economic Assessment of the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market: A New Emissions Trading Program for Los Angeles," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 72(3), pages 277-297.
    37. Joshua Linn, 2008. "Technological Modifications in the Nitrogen Oxides Tradable Permit Program," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 153-176.
    38. Nathaniel O. Keohane, 2003. "What Did the Market Buy? Cost Savings Under the U. S. Tradeable Permits Program for Sulfur Dioxide," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm437, Yale School of Management.
    39. Milliman, Scott R. & Prince, Raymond, 1989. "Firm incentives to promote technological change in pollution control," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 247-265, November.
    40. 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. Corjan Brink & Herman R.J. Vollebergh, 2020. "What Can We Learn from EU ETS?," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 18(01), pages 23-29, April.
    2. Jonathan M. Lee, 2015. "The Impact of Heterogeneous NOx Regulations on Distributed Electricity Generation in U.S. Manufacturing," Working Papers 15-12, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Jungho Lee & Shang-Jin Wei & Jianhuan Xu, 2020. "The Welfare Cost of a Current Account Imbalance: A "Clean" Effect," NBER Working Papers 27276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Stowe, Robert C & Stavins, Robert Norman & Chan, Gabriel Angelo & Sweeney, Richard Leonard, 2012. "The SO2 Allowance Trading System and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990: Reflections on Twenty Years of Policy Innovation," Scholarly Articles 8160721, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Boucher, Vincent, 2015. "Polluting politics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 176-181.
    6. Raphael Calel & Antoine Dechezleprêtre, 2016. "Environmental Policy and Directed Technological Change: Evidence from the European Carbon Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 173-191, March.
    7. Richard Schmalensee & Robert N. Stavins, 2013. "The SO 2 Allowance Trading System: The Ironic History of a Grand Policy Experiment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 103-122, Winter.
    8. Endre Tvinnereim, 2014. "The bears are right: Why cap-and-trade yields greater emission reductions than expected, and what that means for climate policy," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 447-461, December.
    9. Helen Tammela Naughton, 2010. "Globalization and Emissions in Europe," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 7(2), pages 503-519, December.
    10. Asian Development Bank Institute, 2017. "Asian Development Outlook 2016 Update: Meeting the Low-Carbon Growth Challenge," Working Papers id:11747, eSocialSciences.
    11. Malleson, Tom, 2014. "After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199330102.
    12. Shrimali, Gireesh & Tirumalachetty, Sumala, 2013. "Renewable energy certificate markets in India—A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 702-716.

    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. Burtraw, Dallas & Evans, David A. & Krupnick, Alan J. & Palmer, Karen L. & Toth, Russell, 2005. "Economics of Pollution Trading for SO2 and NOx," Discussion Papers 10488, Resources for the Future.
    2. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen L., 2003. "The Paparazzi Take a Look at a Living Legend: The SO2 Cap-and-Trade Program for Power Plants in the United States," Discussion Papers 10665, Resources for the Future.
    3. Revesz, Richard & Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Law and Policy," Working Paper Series rwp04-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. 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.
    5. Stavins, Robert, 2003. "Market-Based Environmental Policies: What Can We Learn from U.S. Experience and Related Research?," Working Paper Series rwp03-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    6. Stavins, Robert N., 2003. "Experience with market-based environmental policy instruments," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 355-435, Elsevier.
    7. Holland, Stephen P. & Moore, Michael R., 2013. "Market design in cap and trade programs: Permit validity and compliance timing," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 671-687.
    8. Stavins, Robert, 2001. "Lessons From the American Experiment With Market-Based Environmental Policies," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-53, Resources for the Future.
    9. Richard Schmalensee & Robert N. Stavins, 2013. "The SO 2 Allowance Trading System: The Ironic History of a Grand Policy Experiment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 103-122, Winter.
    10. Stowe, Robert C & Stavins, Robert Norman & Chan, Gabriel Angelo & Sweeney, Richard Leonard, 2012. "The SO2 Allowance Trading System and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990: Reflections on Twenty Years of Policy Innovation," Scholarly Articles 8160721, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    11. Burtraw, Dallas, 2000. "Innovation Under the Tradable Sulfur Dioxide Emission Permits Program in the U.S. Electricity Sector," RFF Working Paper Series dp-00-38, Resources for the Future.
    12. Richard Schmalensee & Robert N. Stavins, 2019. "Policy Evolution under the Clean Air Act," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 27-50, Fall.
    13. Olivier Rousse & Benoît Sévi, 2005. "Behavioral Heterogeneity in the US Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Allowance Trading Program," ERSA conference papers ersa05p550, European Regional Science Association.
    14. 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.
    15. Boutabba, Mohamed Amine & Beaumais, Olivier & Lardic, Sandrine, 2012. "Permit price dynamics in the U.S. SO2 trading program: A cointegration approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 714-722.
    16. Zhang, Hui & Cao, Libin & Zhang, Bing, 2017. "Emissions trading and technology adoption: An adaptive agent-based analysis of thermal power plants in China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 23-32.
    17. Margaret Insley, 2003. "On the option to invest in pollution control under a regime of tradable emissions allowances," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 36(4), pages 860-883, November.
    18. Popp, David & Newell, Richard G. & Jaffe, Adam B., 2010. "Energy, the Environment, and Technological Change," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 873-937, Elsevier.
    19. Raphael Calel, 2020. "Adopt or Innovate: Understanding Technological Responses to Cap-and-Trade," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 170-201, August.
    20. Brookshire, David S & Burness, H Stuart, 2001. "The Informational Role of the EPA SO2 Permit Auction," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 43-60, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    market-based regulation; Clean Air Act; electricity generation; air pollution; sulfur dioxide; nitrogen oxides;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

    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:rff:dpaper:dp-09-40. 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: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.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.