An edition of Carbon tariffs (2011)

Carbon tariffs

impacts on technology choice, regional competitiveness, and global emissions

Carbon tariffs
David F. Drake, David F. Drake
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Last edited by MARC Bot
December 13, 2022 | History
An edition of Carbon tariffs (2011)

Carbon tariffs

impacts on technology choice, regional competitiveness, and global emissions

Carbon regulation is intended to reduce global emissions, but there is growing concern that such regulation may simply shift production to unregulated regions, potentially increasing overall carbon emissions in the process. Carbon tariffs have emerged as a possible mechanism to address this concern by imposing carbon costs on imports at the regulated region's border. Advocates claim that such a mechanism would level the playing field whereas opponents argue that such a tariff is anti-competitive. This paper analyzes how carbon tariffs affect technology choice, regional competitiveness, and global emissions through a model of imperfect competition between "domestic" (i.e., carbon-regulated) firms and "foreign" (i.e., unregulated) firms, where domestic firms have the option to offshore production and the number of foreign entrants is endogenous. Under a carbon tariff, results indicate that foreign firms would adopt clean technology at a lower emissions price than domestic producers, with the number of foreign entrants increasing in emissions price only over intervals where offshore foreign firms hold this technology advantage. Further, domestic firms would only offshore production under a carbon tariff to adopt technology strictly cleaner than technology utilized domestically. As a consequence, under a carbon tariff, foreign market share is non-monotonic in emissions price, and global emissions conditionally decrease. Without a carbon tariff, foreign share monotonically increases in emissions price, and a shift to offshore production results in a strict increase in global emissions.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
42

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Book Details


Edition Notes

"October 2011" -- Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references.

Published in
Boston]
Series
Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 12-029, Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 12-029

The Physical Object

Pagination
42 p.
Number of pages
42

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL53536616M
OCLC/WorldCat
760466431

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL32229437W

Source records

Work Description

Carbon regulation is intended to reduce global emissions, but there is growing concern that such regulation may simply shift production to unregulated regions and increase global emissions in the process. Carbon tariffs have emerged as a possible mechanism to address these concerns by imposing carbon costs on imports at the regulated region's border. I show that, when firms choose from discrete production technologies and offshore producers hold a comparative cost advantage, carbon leakage can result despite the implementation of a carbon tariff. In such a setting, foreign firms adopt clean technology at a lower emissions price than firms operating in the regulated region, with foreign entry increasing only over emissions price intervals within which foreign firms hold this technology advantage. Further, domestic firms are shown to conditionally offshore production despite the implementation of a carbon tariff, adopting cleaner technology when they do so. As a consequence, when carbon leakage does occur under a carbon tariff, it conditionally decreases global emissions. Three sources of potential welfare improvement realized through carbon tariffs require both foreign comparative advantage and endogenous technology choice, underscoring the importance of considering both in value assessments of such a policy.

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