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Optimal CO2 abatement and technological change. Should emission taxes start high in order to spur R&D?

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Abstract
Many European politicians argue that since technological development is needed to solve the climate problem, the EU should take the lead and set tougher emission targets than what is required by the Kyoto protocol. Moreover, emission trading with other countries outside EU should be limited so as to keep emission quota prices high. However, the policy of spurring R&D by setting high emission taxes today is not suggested by the literature on climate change and R&D. In this paper we investigate this result further by modeling innovation activity explicitly. In our model both the amount of R&D and the amount of CO2 abatement are decided in a decentralized way by the market as a response to an emission tax. Moreover, we introduce three distinct failures in the market for new innovations; monopolistic pricing behavior, insufficient patent protection and dynamic knowledge spillovers. Our findings suggest that governments should under some circumstances set a higher carbon tax today if we have technological change driven by R&D than if we have pure exogenous technological change. Based on numerical simulations these circumstances are i) "a standing on shoulders" type of externality in R&D or ii) weak patent protection.

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  • Mads Greaker & Lise-Lotte Pade, 2008. "Optimal CO2 abatement and technological change. Should emission taxes start high in order to spur R&D?," Discussion Papers 548, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:548
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    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Jones & Michael Keen & Jon Strand, 2013. "Fiscal implications of climate change," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(1), pages 29-70, February.
    2. Gerlagh, Reyer & Kverndokk, Snorre & Rosendahl, Knut Einar, 2008. "Linking Environmental and Innovation Policy," Economic Theory and Applications Working Papers 37847, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    3. 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.
    4. Golombek, Rolf & Greaker, Mads & Hoel, Michael, 2010. "Climate Policy without Commitment," Memorandum 02/2010, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    5. Strand, Jon, 2010. "Optimal fossil-fuel taxation with backstop technologies and tenure risk," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 418-422, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate policy; technological change; emission tax;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • C68 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computable General Equilibrium Models

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