Pollution Permits in Oligopolies: The role of abatement technologies

This paper examines, under imperfect competition, the effect of a cap-and-trade system on industry profits and the interaction between cap-and-trade system and the evolution of the market structure, both depending on the type of abatement technologies used by firms. Two extreme types are considered: end-of-pipe abatement technology-meaning, filtration and other mechanisms that are largely independent of production decisionsand process-integrated technology, which entails integrating cleaner or more energy-efficient methods into production. This paper prescribes that the distribution of free allocation should depend on the kind of abatement technologies. Finally, a reserve of pollution permits for new entrants is justified when the industry uses a process-integrated abatement technology, while a system with a preemption right may be justified in the case of end-of-pipe abatement technology.