Environmental Management Policy under
International Carbon Leakage

Kazuharu Kiyono
Jota Ishikawa

September 2011

Abstract

This paper studies environmental management policy when two fossil-fuel-consuming countries non-cooperatively regulate greenhouse-gas emissions through emission taxes or quotas. The presence of carbon leakage caused by fuel-price changes affects the tax-quota equivalence. We explore each country's incentive to choose an environment regulation instrument within a framework of a two-stage policy choice game and find subgame-perfect Nash equilibria. This sheds a new light on the question of why adopted policy instruments could be different among countries. We also analyze the welfare effect of creating an international market for emission permits. International trade in emission permits may not benefit the fuel-consuming countries.

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