Environmental Management Policy under International Carbon Leakage

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 a.ects the tax-quota equivalence. We explore each country.s incentive to choose an environment regula- tion instrument within a framework of a two-stage policy choice game and .nd subgame-perfect Nash equilibria. This sheds a new light on the question of why adopted policy instruments could be di.erent among countries. We also analyze the welfare e.ect of creating an interna- tional market for emission permits. International trade in emission permits may not bene.t the fuel-consuming countries.30 p