"At its best in explaining both the complexities of emission trading program design and the intricacies of the economic theory underlying the Tradable Discharge Permits system and its variations."
-Journal of Policy Analysis and Management

Cloth  : $80.00
ISBN 1-933115-30-0

First published in 1985, Emissions Trading was a comprehensive review of the first large-scale attempt to use economic incentives in environmental policy in the U.S. and of the empirical and theoretical research on which this approach is based. Since its publication it has consistently been one of the most widely cited works in the tradable permits literature. The second edition of this classic study of pollution reform considers how the use of transferable permits to control pollution has evolved, looks at how these programs have been implemented in the U.S. and internationally, and offers an objective evaluation of the resulting successes, failures, and lessons learned over the last twenty-five years.

Initially little more than an academic curiosity, the use of tradable permits eventually became the centerpiece of many pollution reduction strategies worldwide. Beginning with the earliest implementation efforts in the U.S., Tietenberg demonstrates how emissions trading became an attractive alternative to command-and-control policies that would have required the EPA to disallow the opening of new plants in the middle of the recession-burdened 1970s. His examination of the evolution of this system includes, among other applications, the largest multinational trading system ever conceived, the European Union's Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme (EUETG), and the use of emissions trading in the Kyoto Protocol.

The second edition of Emissions Trading skillfully weaves together a vast amount of theoretical and empirical information, offering a thorough survey of what we have learned about this important environmental policy instrument after twenty-five years of theory, practice, and research.

Author Bio

T. H. TIETENBERG is the Mitchell Family Professor of Economics at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and the author or editor of eleven books, including Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, one of the best-selling textbooks in the field. He has consulted on environmental policy with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as several state and foreign governments.