Carbon leakage revisited: Unilateral climate policy with directed technical change

Di Maria, Corrado ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3048-0506 and van der Werf, Edwin (2008) Carbon leakage revisited: Unilateral climate policy with directed technical change. Environmental and Resource Economics, 39 (2). pp. 55-74. ISSN 0924-6460

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Abstract

Using a stylized theoretical model, we argue that current economic analyses of climate policy tend to over-estimate the degree of carbon leakage, as they abstract from the effects of induced technological change. We analyse carbon leakage in a two-country model with directed technical change, where only one of the countries enforces an exogenous cap on emissions. Climate policy induces changes in relative prices, that cause carbon leakage through a terms-of-trade effect. However, these changes in relative prices also affect the incentives to innovate in different sectors. This leads to a counterbalancing induced-technology effect, which always reduces carbon leakage. We therefore conclude that the leakage rates reported in the literature may be too high, as these estimates neglect the effect of price changes on the incentives to innovate.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: climate policy,carbon leakage,directed technical change,international trade,f18,o33,q54,q55,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Economic Theory
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE)
University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
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Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 22 Nov 2013 14:18
Last Modified: 24 Sep 2024 10:45
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/44407
DOI: 10.1007/s10640-007-9091-x

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