IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fae/wpaper/2021.10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technological Progress and Carbon Price Formation: an Analysis of EU-ETS Plants

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Baudry

    (EconomiX (Université Paris Nanterre))

  • Anouk Faure

    (EconomiX (Université Paris Nanterre) & Chaire Economie du Climat (PSL))

Abstract

This study investigates the nature of technological progress in six manufacturing industries covered under the EU-ETS, plus the power sector, and its effect on carbon price formation using marginal abatement cost curves. We adopt a technological frontier framework that we calibrate to input and output data at the plant level from 2013 to 2017, with a directional distance function approach. Our results reveal that most of the time, technological progress resulted in inflating baseline emissions, despite decreasing the carbon intensity of production. In our sample industries, technological progress therefore leads to increase abatement efforts, raising the equilibrium price of carbon.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Baudry & Anouk Faure, 2021. "Technological Progress and Carbon Price Formation: an Analysis of EU-ETS Plants," Working Papers 2021.10, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:fae:wpaper:2021.10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://faere.fr/pub/WorkingPapers/Baudry_Faure_FAERE_WP2021.10.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2021
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. de Perthuis, Christian & Trotignon, Raphael, 2014. "Governance of CO2 markets: Lessons from the EU ETS," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 100-106.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Leonardo Bursztyn & David Hemous, 2012. "The Environment and Directed Technical Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 131-166, February.
    3. Salant, Stephen W., 2016. "What ails the European Union׳s emissions trading system?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 6-19.
    4. Raphael Calel, 2020. "Adopt or Innovate: Understanding Technological Responses to Cap-and-Trade," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 170-201, August.
    5. Julien Chevallier, 2012. "Banking And Borrowing In The Eu Ets: A Review Of Economic Modelling, Current Provisions And Prospects For Future Design," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 157-176, February.
    6. Chaton, Corinne & Creti, Anna & Sanin, María-Eugenia, 2018. "Assessing the implementation of the Market Stability Reserve," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 642-654.
    7. Hintermann, Beat, 2010. "Allowance price drivers in the first phase of the EU ETS," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 43-56, January.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4222 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Löschel, Andreas & Lutz, Benjamin Johannes & Managi, Shunsuke, 2019. "The impacts of the EU ETS on efficiency and economic performance – An empirical analyses for German manufacturing firms," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 71-95.
    10. Daron Acemoglu, 1998. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1055-1089.
    11. Chaton, Corinne & Creti, Anna & Peluchon, Benoît, 2015. "Banking and back-loading emission permits," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 332-341.
    12. Denny Ellerman & Vanessa Valero & Aleksandar Zaklan, 2015. "An Analysis of Allowance Banking in the EU ETS," RSCAS Working Papers 2015/29, European University Institute.
    13. Creti, Anna & Jouvet, Pierre-André & Mignon, Valérie, 2012. "Carbon price drivers: Phase I versus Phase II equilibrium?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 327-334.
    14. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Directed Technical Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 781-809.
    15. Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hémous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency, and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 1-51.
    16. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Noh, Dong-Woon & Weber, William, 2005. "Characteristics of a polluting technology: theory and practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 469-492, June.
    17. Vera Zipperer & Misato Sato & Karsten Neuhoff, 2017. "Benchmarks for Emissions Trading – General Principles for Emissions Scope," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1712, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Alberola, Emilie & Chevallier, Julien & Cheze, Benoi^t, 2008. "Price drivers and structural breaks in European carbon prices 2005-2007," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 787-797, February.
    19. Baudry, Marc & Faure, Anouk & Quemin, Simon, 2021. "Emissions trading with transaction costs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    20. Hitzemann, Steffen & Uhrig-Homburg, Marliese & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin, 2015. "Emission permits and the announcement of realized emissions: Price impact, trading volume, and volatilities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 560-569.
    21. Raphael Calel & Antoine Dechezleprêtre, 2016. "Environmental Policy and Directed Technological Change: Evidence from the European Carbon Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 173-191, March.
    22. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Weber, William L., 2006. "Shadow prices and pollution costs in U.S. agriculture," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 89-103, January.
    23. David Popp & Jacquelyn Pless & Ivan Haščič & Nick Johnstone, 2020. "Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Energy Sector," NBER Chapters, in: The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, pages 175-248, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. M. Murty & Surender Kumar & Kishore Dhavala, 2007. "Measuring environmental efficiency of industry: a case study of thermal power generation in India," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 38(1), pages 31-50, September.
    25. Quemin, Simon & Trotignon, Raphaël, 2021. "Emissions trading with rolling horizons," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    26. G. M.P. Swann, 2009. "The Economics of Innovation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13211.
    27. Oliver Sartor & Clement Palli�re & Stephen Lecourt, 2014. "Benchmark-based allocations in EU ETS Phase 3: an early assessment," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 507-524, July.
    28. Timothy J. Coelli & D.S. Prasada Rao & Christopher J. O’Donnell & George E. Battese, 2005. "An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-0-387-25895-9, October.
    29. George van Leeuwen & Pierre Mohnen, 2017. "Revisiting the Porter hypothesis: an empirical analysis of Green innovation for the Netherlands," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1-2), pages 63-77, February.
    30. Friedrich, Marina & Mauer, Eva-Maria & Pahle, Michael & Tietjen, Oliver, 2020. "From fundamentals to financial assets: the evolution of understanding price formation in the EU ETS," EconStor Preprints 196150, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, revised 2020.
    31. Zhou, X. & Fan, L.W. & Zhou, P., 2015. "Marginal CO2 abatement costs: Findings from alternative shadow price estimates for Shanghai industrial sectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 109-117.
    32. Koch, Nicolas & Fuss, Sabine & Grosjean, Godefroy & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2014. "Causes of the EU ETS price drop: Recession, CDM, renewable policies or a bit of everything?—New evidence," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 676-685.
    33. Wilfried Rickels & Dennis Görlich & Sonja Peterson, 2015. "Explaining European Emission Allowance Price Dynamics: Evidence from Phase II," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(2), pages 181-202, May.
    34. Zhou, P. & Zhou, X. & Fan, L.W., 2014. "On estimating shadow prices of undesirable outputs with efficiency models: A literature review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 799-806.
    35. Cialani, Catia & Mortazavi, Reza, 2018. "Household and industrial electricity demand in Europe," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 592-600.
    36. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Mathai, Koshy, 2000. "Optimal CO2 Abatement in the Presence of Induced Technological Change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-38, January.
    37. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13539 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Landis, Florian, 2015. "Final report on marginal abatement cost curves for the evaluation of the market stability reserve," ZEW Dokumentationen 15-01, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    39. Daron Acemoglu, 2007. "Equilibrium Bias of Technology," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(5), pages 1371-1409, September.
    40. Oh, Dong-hyun & Heshmati, Almas, 2010. "A sequential Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index: Environmentally sensitive productivity growth considering the progressive nature of technology," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1345-1355, November.
    41. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4611 is not listed on IDEAS
    42. Koch, Nicolas & Grosjean, Godefroy & Fuss, Sabine & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2016. "Politics matters: Regulatory events as catalysts for price formation under cap-and-trade," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 121-139.
    43. Wei, Chu & Löschel, Andreas & Liu, Bing, 2013. "An empirical analysis of the CO2 shadow price in Chinese thermal power enterprises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 22-31.
    44. Perino, Grischa & Willner, Maximilian, 2016. "Procrastinating reform: The impact of the market stability reserve on the EU ETS," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 37-52.
    45. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Schneider, Stephen H., 1999. "Induced technological change and the attractiveness of CO2 abatement policies," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 211-253, August.
    46. Reyer Gerlagh & Snorre Kverndokk & Knut Rosendahl, 2009. "Optimal Timing of Climate Change Policy: Interaction Between Carbon Taxes and Innovation Externalities," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 43(3), pages 369-390, July.
    47. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    48. Beat Hintermann & Sonja Peterson & Wilfried Rickels, 2016. "Price and Market Behavior in Phase II of the EU ETS: A Review of the Literature," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(1), pages 108-128.
    49. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14770 is not listed on IDEAS
    50. R. G. Chambers & Y. Chung & R. Färe, 1998. "Profit, Directional Distance Functions, and Nerlovian Efficiency," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 98(2), pages 351-364, August.
    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. Aliénor Cameron & Marc Baudry, 2022. "The case for a Carbon Border Adjustment: Where do economists stand?," Policy Papers 2022.01, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    2. Aliénor Cameron & Marc Baudry, 2023. "The case for carbon leakage and border adjustments: where do economists stand?," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 25(3), pages 435-469, July.

    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. Quemin, Simon & Trotignon, Raphaël, 2021. "Emissions trading with rolling horizons," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    2. Friedrich, Marina & Mauer, Eva-Maria & Pahle, Michael & Tietjen, Oliver, 2020. "From fundamentals to financial assets: the evolution of understanding price formation in the EU ETS," EconStor Preprints 196150, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, revised 2020.
    3. Simon Quemin & Raphael Trotignon, 2018. "Competitive Permit Storage and Market Design: An Application to the EU-ETS," Working Papers 2018.19, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    4. Gregory Casey, 2024. "Energy Efficiency and Directed Technical Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(1), pages 192-228.
    5. Marina Friedrich & S'ebastien Fries & Michael Pahle & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2019. "Understanding the explosive trend in EU ETS prices -- fundamentals or speculation?," Papers 1906.10572, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2020.
    6. Cretí, Anna & Joëts, Marc, 2017. "Multiple bubbles in the European Union Emission Trading Scheme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 119-130.
    7. Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hémous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency, and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 1-51.
    8. Du, Limin & Hanley, Aoife & Wei, Chu, 2015. "Estimating the Marginal Abatement Cost Curve of CO2 Emissions in China: Provincial Panel Data Analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 217-229.
    9. Rakesh Kumar Jain & Surender Kumar, 2018. "Shadow price of CO2 emissions in Indian thermal power sector," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(4), pages 879-902, October.
    10. van den Bijgaart, Inge, 2017. "The unilateral implementation of a sustainable growth path with directed technical change," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 305-327.
    11. Shiell, Leslie & Lyssenko, Nikita, 2014. "Climate policy and induced R&D: How great is the effect?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 279-294.
    12. Zhang, Ning & Huang, Xuhui & Qi, Chao, 2022. "The effect of environmental regulation on the marginal abatement cost of industrial firms: Evidence from the 11th Five-Year Plan in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    13. Federico Galán-Valdivieso & Elena Villar-Rubio & María-Dolores Huete-Morales, 2018. "The erratic behaviour of the EU ETS on the path towards consolidation and price stability," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 689-706, October.
    14. Huang, Wenyang & Zhao, Jianyu & Wang, Xiaokang, 2024. "Model-driven multimodal LSTM-CNN for unbiased structural forecasting of European Union allowances open-high-low-close price," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    15. Aalbers, Rob & Shestalova, Victoria & Kocsis, Viktória, 2013. "Innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1240-1250.
    16. Quemin, Simon, 2022. "Raising climate ambition in emissions trading systems: The case of the EU ETS and the 2021 review," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/14g286e42n8bl9is6h16b18kes is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Jindal, Abhinav & Nilakantan, Rahul & Sinha, Avik, 2024. "CO2 emissions abatement costs and drivers for Indian thermal power industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    19. Huang, Wenyang & Wang, Huiwen & Qin, Haotong & Wei, Yigang & Chevallier, Julien, 2022. "Convolutional neural network forecasting of European Union allowances futures using a novel unconstrained transformation method," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    20. Zeng, Shihong & Jiang, Xue & Su, Bin & Nan, Xin, 2018. "China's SO2 shadow prices and environmental technical efficiency at the province level," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 86-102.
    21. Jiménez-Rodríguez, Rebeca, 2019. "What happens to the relationship between EU allowances prices and stock market indices in Europe?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 13-24.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    SEQE; Changement Technologique; Production; Analyse Empirique;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L6 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fae:wpaper:2021.10. 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: Dorothée Charlier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/faereea.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.