This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2011
  5. Challenges from State-Federal Interactions in US Climate Change Policy

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Challenges from State-Federal Interactions in US Climate Change Policy

  • Lawrence H. Goulder
  • Robert N. Stavins
American Economic Review
vol. 101, no. 3, May 2011
(pp. 253–57)
Download Full Text PDF

Abstract

With a focus on two sorts of regulation—renewable electricity and clean energy standards, and automobile fuel-economy standards—we analyze problematic interactions that arise when state policies are nested within the domain of Federal policy. Here state efforts may fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions nationally, and may compromise cost-effectiveness. Difficulties from overlapping regulations are avoidable through price- (as opposed to quantity-) based Federal policy. We identify some potentially positive interactions between state and Federal policies, and identify rationales for state action when Federal and state policies do not overlap.

Citation

Goulder, Lawrence H., and Robert N. Stavins. 2011. "Challenges from State-Federal Interactions in US Climate Change Policy." American Economic Review 101 (3): 253–57. DOI: 10.1257/aer.101.3.253

JEL Classification

  • L94 Electric Utilities
  • L98 Industry Studies: Utilities and Transportation: Government Policy
  • P28 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Natural Resources; Energy; Environment
  • Q54 Climate; Natural Disasters; Global Warming
  • Q58 Environmental Economics: Government Policy