Chichilnisky Graciela author Columbia University. Economics Heal Geoffrey M. author Columbia University. Business Columbia University. Earth Institute Columbia University. International and Public Affairs Columbia University. Economics contributor originator text Working papers New York Department of Economics, Columbia University 1993 We review the optimal pattern of carbon emission abatements across countries in a simple multi-country world. We model explicitly (with the model in Chichilnisky [4]) the fact that the atmosphere is a public good. Within this framework we establish conditions for it to be necessary for optimality that the marginal cost of abatement be the same in all countries. These condition are quite restrictive, and amount to either ignoring distributional issues between countries or operating within a framework within which lump-sum transfers can be made between countries. These results have implications for the use of tradeable emission permits, which as normally advocated will lead to the equalization of marginal abatement costs across countries. The observation that the atmosphere is a public good implies that we may need to look at a Lindahl equilibrium in tradeable permits. Economics 683 http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:15575 English NNC NNC 2011-02-25 09:43:47 -0500 2011-08-04 14:08:45 -0400 2768 eng