Fischer sobre instrumentos de política ambiental

No es que diga nada nuevo, pero lo dice muy bien. El resumen: los subsidios a las renovables son muy caros como política ambiental.

Overall, policies that create incentives for fossil-fueled energy generators to reduce emissions intensity and for consumers to conserve energy perform better than those that rely solely on incentives for renewable energy producers. For the modest emissions targets we examined, a renewable energy R&D subsidy turns out to be a particularly inefficient means of emissions reduction.

Pero, y este pero es grande, no estamos hablando de una única externalidad: también hay otras, como el spillover del I+D. Así que al final:

The optimal policy combines an emissions price with policies to capture spillovers in the market for knowledge—namely, a proportional R&D subsidy and a small subsidy for renewable production associated with learning-by-doing. These corrective policies provide positive benefits and allow the emissions price to fall by one-third to meet the same target. Together, they can achieve emissions reductions at significantly lower cost than any single policy alone.