@article{FlachslandJoas, author = {Flachsland, Christian and Joas, F.}, title = {The (Ir)relevance of Transaction Costs in Climate Policy Instrument Choice: An analysis of the EU and the US}, series = {Climate Policy}, volume = {16}, journal = {Climate Policy}, number = {1}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1752-7457}, doi = {10.1080/14693062.2014.968762}, pages = {26 -- 49}, abstract = {This article assesses the relevance of ex post transaction costs in the choice of climate policy instruments in the EU (focusing mainly on the example of Germany) and the US. It reviews all publicly available empirical ex post transaction cost studies of climate policy instruments broken down by the main private and public sector cost factors and offers hypotheses on how these factors may scale depending on instrument design and other contextual factors. The key finding from the evaluated schemes is that it is possible to reject the hypothesis that asymmetries in ex post transaction costs across instruments are large and, thus, play a pivotal role in climate policy instrument choice. Both total and relative ex post transaction costs can be considered low. This conjecture differs from the experience in other areas of environmental policy instruments where high total transaction costs are considered to be important factors in the overall assessment of optimal environmental policy choice. Against this background, the main claim of this article is that in climate policy instrument choice, ex post transaction cost considerations play a minor role in large countries that feature similar institutional characteristics as the EU and the US. Rather, the focus should be on the efficiency properties of instruments for incentivizing abatement, as well as equity and political economy considerations (and other societally relevant objectives). In order to inform transaction cost considerations in climate policy instrument choice in countries that adopt new climate policies, more data would be desirable in order to enable more robust estimates of design- and context-specific transaction-cost scaling factors.}, language = {en} } @article{DorschFlachslandKornek, author = {Dorsch, Marcel J. and Flachsland, Christian and Kornek, Ulrike}, title = {Building and enhancing climate policy ambition with transfers: allowance allocation and revenue spending in the EU ETS}, series = {Environmental Politics}, volume = {29}, journal = {Environmental Politics}, number = {5}, issn = {1743-8934}, doi = {10.1080/09644016.2019.1659576}, pages = {781 -- 803}, abstract = {Sustaining and increasing climate policy ambition in the presence of heterogeneous interests and potential veto players is a key challenge for climate governance. We examine the conceptual and empirical significance of transfers to balance heterogeneous interests and build support for raising climate policy ambition in the development of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). We provide insights into how to strategically sequence 'brown cushioning' and 'green push' policy incentives within the EU ETS to deliberately incentivize transformative change among actor constituencies towards decarbonization endogenously. The analysis demonstrates the significance of preventive and compensatory buy-in, via allowance allocation and revenue spending design, for the introduction and each major reform of the scheme. Given the potential for a substantially increasing value distributed within the EU ETS, future policy options should aim to strengthen the scheme's inherent incentives towards decarbonization and to prevent an increasing structural divide among EU member states.}, language = {en} }