Suchergebnisse

This paper presents a political-economy analysis of allowance allocation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). A common-agency model suggests that a politicalsupport maximizing government considers the preferences of sectoral interest groups besides public interest when allocating emissions permits. In the stylized model, industries represented by more powerful lobby groups face a lower regulatory burden, which for sufficiently high lobbying power leads to an inefficient emissions regulation. An empirical analysis of the first trading phase of the EU ETS corroborates our theoretical prediction for a cross-section of German firms, but also shows that the political-economy determinants of permit allocation depend on firm characteristics. We find that large carbon emitters that were heavily exposed to emissions regulation and simultaneously represented by powerful interest groups received higher levels of emissions allowances. In contrast, industrial lobbying power stand-alone or threats of potential worker layoffs did not exert a significant influence on the EU ETS allocation process.

In making key decisions for the future phases of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), policy makers need to fully understand the competitiveness implications of these decisions on industrial sectors. In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis of cost pass-through ability of producers of selected products within the sectors refineries, glass, chemicals and ceramics of the UK economy. Our results provide new insights into the debate on the ability of pass-through of costs generated by the EU ETS. They suggest that some of the sectors analysed have the ability to pass-through a portion of their carbon costs to the consumers: The UK sectors are not capable to completely pass-through their costs into output prices, with the exception of UK ceramic goods.

Die Untersuchung der deutschen Förderpolitik umfasst direkte Förderprogramme sowie verschiedene indirekt auf Innovationen wirkende Instrumente der Umweltpolitik, wie Abgaben oder das Ordnungsrecht. Sie wird durch eine Analyse ausländischer Best-Practice-Beispiele, unter anderem die kalifornische Klimapolitik und das japanische Top-Runner-Programm, ergänzt.