A Distributional Argument for Supply-Side Climate Policies

This paper presents a distributional argument for the use of supply-side climate policies whereby carbon emissions are controlled through (i) depletion quotas or (ii) permanent confiscation of a fraction of the in situ carbon stocks. The modeling considers intertemporal competitive equilibria in the Cobb-Douglas version of the Dasgupta-Heal-Solow-Stiglitz model of capital accumulation and costless resource extraction. It is shown how policies (i) and (ii) preserve the functional distribution of income between capital owners and resource owners, compared to the case where no climate policy is needed, while suggested demand-side policies do not. Such observations are of interest as avoiding functional redistribution may facilitate climate change negotiations. The paper discusses policy implications of the analysis outside the simplified setting of the stylized model.