IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v8y1990i3p43-58.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uncertainty And The Cost Of Acid Rain Control

Author

Listed:
  • HADI DOWLATABADI
  • WINSTON HARRINGTON

Abstract

This paper uses a utility capacity planning and dispatch model to examine the robustness of acid rain mitigation policies. The model meets electricity demand at the lowest economic cost while it responds to price or quantity signals for controlling emissions. The model is unique since it is couched in a risk analysis framework that captures the uncertainty in other economic parameters determining the utility's strategic choices–e.g., demand level and fuel prices. This permits one to compare various institutional settings for pollution control for both a world with perfect foresight and one with imperfect foresight. This exercise provides quantitative results on the cost of pollution control with price and quantity controls. It also provides a measure of the response of these cost functions to the uncertainty in other key parameters. Exploring the performance of various pollution control mechanisms has led to three findings: (i) that the performance of a price control mechanism is dependent on the level of emission reductions that one seeks, (ii) that regionally traded emission permits and emission fees are equally efficient regardless of the level of foresight, and (Hi) that emission fees lead to more stable electricity generation prices. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of the results under imperfect foresight suggest that uncertainties in the level of demand and load management success play an important role in determining future pollution control costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Hadi Dowlatabadi & Winston Harrington, 1990. "Uncertainty And The Cost Of Acid Rain Control," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 8(3), pages 43-58, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:8:y:1990:i:3:p:43-58
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7287.1990.tb00643.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1990.tb00643.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1990.tb00643.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    2. Dowlatabadi, Hadi & Harrington, Winston, 1989. "Policies for the mitigation of acid rain : A critique of evaluation techniques," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 116-122, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. J. Peter Clinch & Eoin O'Neill, 2010. "Assessing the Relative Merits of Development Charges and Transferable Development Rights in an Uncertain World," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(4), pages 891-911, April.
    2. Darwin C. Hall, 1990. "Preliminary Estimates Of Cumulative Private And External Costs Of Energy," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 8(3), pages 283-307, July.
    3. Darwin Hall, 1992. "Social cost of CO 2 abatement from energy efficiency and solar power in the United States," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(5), pages 491-512, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fankhauser, Samuel & Hepburn, Cameron, 2010. "Designing carbon markets. Part I: Carbon markets in time," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4363-4370, August.
    2. Evan F. Koenig, 1985. "Indirect Methods for Regulating Externalities Under Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(2), pages 479-493.
    3. Wallace E. Oates, 1990. "Economics, Economists, and Environmental Policy," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 289-296, Oct-Dec.
    4. Inés Macho-Stadler, 2008. "Environmental regulation: choice of instruments under imperfect compliance," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, March.
    5. de la Croix, David & Gosseries, Axel, 2012. "The natalist bias of pollution control," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 271-287.
    6. Markus Reisinger & Ludwig Ressner, 2006. "The Choice of Prices vs. Quantities under Uncertainty," Working Papers 007, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    7. Hahn Robert, 2010. "Designing Smarter Regulation with Improved Benefit-Cost Analysis," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, July.
    8. Don Fullerton & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2002. "Environmental Controls, Scarcity Rents, and Pre-existing Distortions," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 26, pages 504-522, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Shrestha, Ratna K., 2017. "Menus of price-quantity contracts for inducing the truth in environmental regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1-7.
    10. Espínola-Arredondo, Ana & Muñoz-García, Félix, 2013. "When does environmental regulation facilitate entry-deterring practices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 133-152.
    11. Pizer, William A., 1999. "The optimal choice of climate change policy in the presence of uncertainty," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 255-287, August.
    12. Lawrence H. Goulder, 2013. "Markets for Pollution Allowances: What Are the (New) Lessons?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 87-102, Winter.
    13. Grüll, Georg & Taschini, Luca, 2011. "Cap-and-trade properties under different hybrid scheme designs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 107-118, January.
    14. Ritter, Hendrik & Zimmermann, Karl, 2019. "Cap-and-Trade Policy vs. Carbon Taxation: Of Leakage and Linkage," EconStor Preprints 197796, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    15. Nicole A. MATHYS & Jaime DE MELO, 2010. "Trade and Climate Change: The Challenges Ahead," Working Papers P14, FERDI.
    16. Sam Fankhauser & Cameron Hepburn, 2009. "Carbon markets in space and time," GRI Working Papers 3, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    17. Xiang-Yu Wang & Bao-Jun Tang, 2018. "Review of comparative studies on market mechanisms for carbon emission reduction: a bibliometric analysis," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 94(3), pages 1141-1162, December.
    18. Joseph E. Aldy & William A. Pizer, 2009. "Issues in Designing U.S. Climate Change Policy," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(3), pages 179-210, July.
    19. Newbery, David M. & Greve, Thomas, 2017. "The strategic robustness of oligopoly electricity market models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 124-132.
    20. Newbery, D., 2023. "Estimating the target-consistent carbon price for electricity," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2361, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:8:y:1990:i:3:p:43-58. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.