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We examine the impact of recent tax reforms in Ireland on private car transport and its greenhouse gas emissions. A carbon tax was introduced on fuels, and purchase (vehicle registration) and ownership (motor) taxes were switched from engine size to potential emissions. We use a demographic model of the car stock (by age, size, and fuel) and a car purchase model that reflects the heterogeneous distribution of mileage and usage costs across various engine sizes. The model shows a dramatic shift from petrol to diesel cars, particularly for large engines. The same pattern is observed in the latest data on car sales. This has a substantial impact on tax revenue as car owners shift to the lower tax rates. The tax burden has shifted from car ownership to car use, and that the overall tax burden on private car transport falls. As diesel engines are more fuel efficient than petrol engines, carbon dioxide emissions fall modestly or, if we consider the rebound effect of travel costs on mileage, minimally. From the perspective of the revenue, the costs per tonne of carbon dioxide avoided are (very) high.

We use a model of international and domestic tourist numbers and flows to investigate the effect of various climate policy instruments implemented in Europe on arrivals and emissions for the countries concerned. We find that these schemes do not fulfil their desired effects. The introduction of aviation into the European Trading system results in a fall in the number of tourists travelling into the EU in favour of other destinations. It also causes a significant welfare loss with only a small reduction in emissions. The flight taxes in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom result in different substitution effects across destinations (depending on the zones being taxed) but both policies do have the same consequence of inducing welfare losses and also reducing visitor numbers to the countries. We find that when these policies are combined their effects are additive. Welfare impacts are robust to variations in the underlying assumptions and changes in the scope of the taxes examined have the expected effects.

We examine the impacts of the EU-US Open Skies agreement on the environment, in particular looking at the effect of the agreement on emissions from the aviation sector. We use the Hamburg Tourism Model, a model of domestic and international tourist numbers and flows, to estimate these impacts. The Open Aviation Area will result in increased competition between carriers and consequently falls in the cost of transatlantic flights. This will not only have implications for the size and structure of the industry but also for climate policy. The objectives of this paper are (1) to assess what effects the expected increases in passenger numbers will have on CO2 emissions and (2) to test whether this increase in travel will result in a corresponding rise in emissions. Model simulations show that passenger numbers arriving from the US to the EU will increase by between 1% and 14% depending on the magnitude of the price reductions. We find that because of substitution between destinations, the percentage increase in global emissions is much smaller (max. 1%) than the increase in cross-Atlantic traffic. In the current context of greenhouse gas control policies, any increase in emissions will make climate policy objectives more difficult to achieve and will attract more attention to aviation's contribution to climate change.

This paper sets out a methodology for updating an economic appraisal model to ensure that it takes appropriate account of costs arising from greenhouse gas emissions. While the analysis is based on the appraisal model used in Ireland, it should be broadly applicable to circumstances in any EU Member State; indeed, many features will be relevant in any jurisdiction subject to a carbon tax or participating in a carbon permit trading system.

The measurement of academic output in Ireland is of growing interest in the context of the government's strategy to identify and support centres of research excellence and to encourage inter-institutional collaboration in both research and fourth- level education. This paper looks at research output within the economics profession in these various centres, building on an earlier literature (Barrett and Lucey, 2003: Coupe and Walsh, 2003) which looked at the research output of Irish economists in peer-reviewed journals. Using a relatively new data-base, Scopus, we find that research output in the Republic of Ireland is heavily skewed by researcher and by institution and that the more productive and most cited Irish research economists are heavily concentrated in the Greater Dublin area.

We use a model of domestic and international tourist numbers and flows to estimate the impact of the EU-US Open Skies agreement that is to take effect in March 2008. The Open Aviation Area will result in increased competition between transatlantic carriers and consequently falls in the cost of flights, therefore we look at the change in visitor numbers from the US into the EU and corresponding CO2 emissions. We find that passenger numbers arriving from the US to the EU will increase by approximately 1% and 14% depending on the magnitude of the price reductions. This increase in passenger numbers does not however result in a corresponding rise in emissions as arrivals into other countries from the US fall by a comparable amount. The number of tourist arrivals from the US to countries outside of the EU will fall and overall emissions would then increase by a maximum of 0.7%. If we assume that domestic holidays and foreign holidays are close substitutes these effects are strengthened and US passengers switch from domestic trips to foreign destinations as airfares converge.

This paper applies the theory of social situations to study whether international environmental agreements (IEAs), mainly those on greenhouse gas emission reductions, can be attained. A game theoretic model is generally a black box for decision makers, where the mechanisms, which lead to solution(s) of the game, are not explicitly pointed out. This paper opens this black box by making the (institutional) move rules explicit. The usual pessimistic outcome with an ineffective & small size of stable coalitions among world regions is countered. Our model challenges conventional wisdom in the sense that large coalitions are possible outcomes of the cartel game, namely by incorporating: (1) farsightedness, & (2) coalitional moves with commitment as an alternative to myopic & individual moves which characterize the cartel game. We show that even if the international negotiations on climate change mitigation are modeled as an n-person prisoner's dilemma, one cannot rule out cooperation among world regions as a solution of the game. Indeed, in most analyzed situations the grand coalition is among the solutions of the game. This shows that predictions based on cartel stability may be too pessimistic if it comes to analyzing incentives to cooperate in implementing international environmental policy. Moreover, in an empirically calibrated model, we find three out of six instances where Russia (with or without the US) has an incentive to sign the Kyoto protocol. 4 Tables, 3 Figures, 30 References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper considers the question under what conditions domestic markets of emission permits would and should merge to become an international market. Emission permits are licenses, and so governments would need to recognize other countries' permits. In a two-county model, we find that it is in both countries' interests to form an international market, and it may even be beneficial to the environment. Three different policy instruments of the importing country are examined, namely a price instrument (tariff) and two quantity instruments (discount and import quota). All instruments restrict trade. The importing country (and regulator) prefers an import tariff and an import quota to a carbon discount. If the exporting country releases additional permits, the importing country should not try to keep total emissions constant, as that would be ineffective if not counterproductive. Instead, the importing country should aim to keep the total import constant; this would impose costs on the exporting country that are independent of the policy instrument; an import quota would be the cheapest option for the importing country. Compliance and liability issues constrain the market further. However, both the importing and the exporting country would prefer that the permit seller is liable in case of non-compliance, as sellers' liability would less constrain the market.

Climate change is an important problem. It would be desirable to have legislation that would put Ireland on a low-cost and equitable trajectory to a zero-carbon economy. The draft Climate Change Response Bill 2010 will not achieve that. The exact emission reduction targets for 2020 are ambiguous, but considerably more ambitious than Ireland's obligations under EU legislation. EU legislation severely constrains the options for domestic climate policy so that the extra emission reduction would fall almost exclusively on agriculture, households, small and medium enterprises, and transport. The target in the draft bill for 2020 would require draconian policies. It would be better to keep the EU targets for 2020. The targets for 2030 and 2050 would require a further sharpening of climate policy. It would be better to base climate policy on predictably rising carbon prices. The draft bill fails to create a framework that would ensure that policy interventions are effective, as cheap as possible, and fair. Current policy meets none of these criteria. The Regulatory Impact Analysis is a collection of qualitative assertions that shed little light on the impact of the draft bill. The proposed National Climate Change Expert Advisory Body would need to acquire the appropriate expertise and be truly independent to fulfil its envisaged role.

Past climatic changes were caused by a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation. We use results from experiments with three climate models to show that the expected cooling due to a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is less in magnitude than the expected warming due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The integrated assessment model FUND and a meta-analysis of climate impacts are used to evaluate the change in human welfare. We find modest but by and large positive effects on human welfare since a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation implies decelerated warming.