Do strong oligopolies reverse Green Paradox effects?

Gerard van der Meijden, Hassan Benchekroun, Frederick van der Ploeg, Cees Withagen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In a competitive market renewable energy subsidies or postponement of carbon pricing tend to boost emissions and global warming in the short run. This so-called Green Paradox effect may be reversed if fossil-fuel firms operate under an oligopoly and the number of members is low enough. A reversal of the Green Paradox always occurs under a fossil fuel monopoly. If the extraction costs of fossil fuel depend on the aggregate remaining stock of reserves, Green Paradox effects vanish if the number of oligopolists becomes infinitely large. For an intermediate number of members, a Green Paradox occurs. The strength of the Green Paradox effect depends non-monotonically on the number of oligopolists. We also show that a Green Paradox is more likely for higher slopes of the demand curve, higher sensitivities of unit extraction costs with respect to remaining reserves, and lower interest rates.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102434
Pages (from-to)1-12
Number of pages12
JournalEuropean Journal of Political Economy
Volume79
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Hassan Benchekroun would like to thank the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) for financial support.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s)

Funding

Hassan Benchekroun would like to thank the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) for financial support.

Keywords

  • Limit pricing
  • Oligopoly
  • Reversal Green Paradox effects

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