IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/glopol/v15y2024is7p21-33.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A policy and quantitative analysis of U.S. climate policy from a global perspective

Author

Listed:
  • David Suárez‐Cuesta
  • Maria C. Latorre
  • Hidemichi Yonezawa

Abstract

We analyze a recent significant shift in United States (US) climate policy focusing on a landmark law: the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). To put the IRA in context, we adopt a three‐pronged approach. First, we describe the portfolio of economic policies available to address climate change, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages in an intuitive manner. Second, we reflect on US climate policies prior to the IRA and compare them to those of other major players, such as the European Union and China. Third, we offer a quantitative estimation of the IRA's impact on the US economy. We compare the IRA's green subsidies with the effects of a potential carbon pricing policy that achieves the same reduction in CO2 emissions. Our Computable General Equilibrium simulations account for various channels affecting the efficiency of climate policies, indicating that carbon pricing would be a more efficient approach. There are good reasons why both the EU and China and have opted for this mechanism. We highlight the challenges faced by the US and other countries, including those stemming from political feasibility, which hinder quicker advances in the green transition.

Suggested Citation

  • David Suárez‐Cuesta & Maria C. Latorre & Hidemichi Yonezawa, 2024. "A policy and quantitative analysis of U.S. climate policy from a global perspective," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 15(S7), pages 21-33, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:15:y:2024:i:s7:p:21-33
    DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.13450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13450
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1758-5899.13450?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. Rausch, Sebastian & Yonezawa, Hidemichi, 2023. "Green technology policies versus carbon pricing: An intergenerational perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    2. Angel Aguiar & Badri Narayanan & Robert McDougall, 2016. "An Overview of the GTAP 9 Data Base," Journal of Global Economic Analysis, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, vol. 1(1), pages 181-208, June.
    3. Kimberly A. Clausing & Catherine Wolfram, 2023. "Carbon Border Adjustments, Climate Clubs, and Subsidy Races When Climate Policies Vary," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 37(3), pages 137-162, Summer.
    4. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2023. "The Political Economics of Green Transitions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(3), pages 1863-1906.
    5. Fæhn, Taran & Yonezawa, Hidemichi, 2021. "Emission targets and coalition options for a small, ambitious country: An analysis of welfare costs and distributional impacts for Norway," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Lawrence H. Goulder & Marc A. C. Hafstead & Roberton C. Williams III, 2016. "General Equilibrium Impacts of a Federal Clean Energy Standard," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 186-218, May.
    7. Bown, Chad P., 2022. "Trump Ended WTO Dispute Settlement. Trade Remedies are Needed to Fix it," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 312-329, July.
    8. Olivier Blanchard & Christian Gollier & Jean Tirole, 2023. "The Portfolio of Economic Policies Needed to Fight Climate Change," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 689-722, September.
    9. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W. H. Parry, 2008. "Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(2), pages 152-174, Summer.
    10. Robert Z. Lawrence, 2024. "Climate action: Implications for factor market reallocation," Working Paper Series WP24-1, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    11. David Kleimann & Niclas Poitiers & André Sapir & Simone Tagliapietra & Nicolas Véron & Reinhilde Veugelers & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2023. "How Europe should answer the US Inflation Reduction Act," Bruegel Policy Brief node_8764, Bruegel.
    12. Christoph Böhringer & Carolyn Fischer & Knut Einar Rosendahl & Thomas Fox Rutherford, 2022. "Author Correction: Potential impacts and challenges of border carbon adjustments," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(4), pages 408-408, April.
    13. Kevin Rennert & Frank Errickson & Brian C. Prest & Lisa Rennels & Richard G. Newell & William Pizer & Cora Kingdon & Jordan Wingenroth & Roger Cooke & Bryan Parthum & David Smith & Kevin Cromar & Dela, 2022. "Comprehensive evidence implies a higher social cost of CO2," Nature, Nature, vol. 610(7933), pages 687-692, October.
    14. Christoph Böhringer & Carolyn Fischer & Knut Einar Rosendahl & Thomas Fox Rutherford, 2022. "Potential impacts and challenges of border carbon adjustments," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 22-29, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ambec, Stefan & Esposito, Federico & Pacelli, Antonia, 2024. "The economics of carbon leakage mitigation policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    2. Rausch, Sebastian & Yonezawa, Hidemichi, 2023. "Green technology policies versus carbon pricing: An intergenerational perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    3. Elisabeth Christen, 2024. "EU-Grenzausgleich. Ambitionierte Klimaziele und Wettbewerbsfähigkeit in Einklang bringen?," WIFO Research Briefs 2, WIFO.
    4. Campolmi, Alessia & Fadinger, Harald & Forlati, Chiara & Stillger, Sabine & Wagner, Ulrich, 2023. "Designing Effective Carbon Border Adjustment with Minimal Information Requirements. Theory and Empirics," CEPR Discussion Papers 18645, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Javier Flórez Mendoza & Oliver Reiter & Robert Stehrer, 2024. "EU carbon border tax: General equilibrium effects on income and emissions," wiiw Working Papers 254, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    6. Larch, Mario & Wanner, Joschka, 2024. "The consequences of non-participation in the Paris Agreement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    7. repec:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2024_495 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Mbéa Bell & Sylvain Dessy, 2017. "Market Power and Instrument Choice in Climate Policy," Cahiers de recherche 1704, Centre de recherche sur les risques, les enjeux économiques, et les politiques publiques.
    9. Yang, Yuting, 2022. "Electricity interconnection with intermittent renewables," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    10. Timothé Beaufils & Joschka Wanner & Leonie Wenz, 2024. "The Potential of Carbon Border Adjustments to Foster Climate Cooperation," CESifo Working Paper Series 11429, CESifo.
    11. Nabernegg, Stefan & Bednar-Friedl, Birgit & Muñoz, Pablo & Titz, Michaela & Vogel, Johanna, 2019. "National Policies for Global Emission Reductions: Effectiveness of Carbon Emission Reductions in International Supply Chains," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 146-157.
    12. Hua, Jiawen & Wang, Kai & Lin, Jun & Qian, Yanjun, 2024. "Carbon Tax vs. Carbon Cap-and-Trade: Implementation of carbon border tax in cross-regional production," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    13. Bellora, Cecilia & Fontagné, Lionel, 2023. "EU in search of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    14. Abrell, Jan & Kosch, Mirjam & Rausch, Sebastian, 2022. "How effective is carbon pricing?—A machine learning approach to policy evaluation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    15. Alisa Spiegel & Claudia Heidecke & Julio G. Fournier Gabela & Davit Stepanyan & Mareike Söder & Florian Freund & Alexander Gocht & Martin Banse & Bernhard Osterburg, 2024. "Climate Change Mitigation in Agriculture beyond 2030: Options for Carbon Pricing and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms," EuroChoices, The Agricultural Economics Society, vol. 23(1), pages 19-27, April.
    16. Landis, Florian & Rausch, Sebastian, 2019. "Policy Instrument Choice with Co-Benefits: The Case of Decarbonizing Transport," Conference papers 333103, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    17. Y.-H. Henry Chen & Hossein Hosseini Jebeli & Craig Johnston & Sergey Paltsev & Marie-Christine Tremblay, 2023. "An Investigation into the Effects of Border Carbon Adjustments on the Canadian Economy," Staff Working Papers 23-27, Bank of Canada.
    18. Landis, Florian & Fredriksson, Gustav & Rausch, Sebastian, 2021. "Between- and within-country distributional impacts from harmonizing carbon prices in the EU," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    19. Kalsbach, Oliver & Rausch, Sebastian, 2024. "Pricing carbon in a multi-sector economy with social discounting," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    20. Frikk Nesje & Robert C. Schmidt & Moritz A. Drupp & Robert Christian Schmidt, 2024. "Designing Carbon Pricing Policies Across the Globe," CESifo Working Paper Series 11424, CESifo.
    21. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Long, Xianling & Lu, Jieyi & Morgenstern, Richard D., 2022. "China's unconventional nationwide CO2 emissions trading system: Cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).

    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:glopol:v:15:y:2024:i:s7:p:21-33. 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/lsepsuk.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.