Nordic Economic Policy Review 2019 : Climate Policies in the Nordics

The articles in the 2019 Nordic Economic Policy Review analyse how the Nordic countries best can contribute to international climate policy. The articles cover topics such as: How can the Nordics help raise the ambitions in the Paris Agreement? What is the effect of national policy on emissions regulated by the EU Emissions Trading System? Would it be cost-effective for the Nordic countries to pay for emission reductions elsewhere to a larger extent? What role should be played by subsidies to green technology? Should Norway put more emphasis on supply-side policies, that is, on limiting future extraction of oil and gas? The volume contains five papers with associated comments which were originally presented at a conference in Stockholm on 24 October 2018

Nordic Economic Policy Review 2023 : EU versus National Climate Policies in the Nordics

This issue of Nordic Economic Policy Review explores the implications of new EU-wide climate policy in the Nordic countries. All of them have introduced more ambitious targets for abatement than the EU, but are the national targets and measures consistent with the EU’s new Fit for 55 package? If not, how should national policies be made consistent with EU policy? EU directives set targets for national climate policy, but member states are free to choose the means of achieving them. Are national measures to meet targets set by EU directives efficient? If not, how can they be made so? What are the costs and benefits of national climate policy aiming for more stringent targets than those under Fit for 55? We have put these questions to experts on the economics of climate policy in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Cartels and Leniency: Taking Stock of What We Learnt

Cartels remain widespread and constitute a major problem for society. Leniency policies reduce or cancel the sanctions for the first firm(s) that self-report being part of a cartel and have become the main enforcement instrument used by competition authorities around the world in their fight against cartels. Such policies have shown to be a powerful tool in inducing firms to self-report or cooperate with a cartel investigation in exchange for a reduction in sanctions. Since they reduce sanctions for successful leniency applicants, these programs may also be abused to generate many successful convictions for the competition authority at the expense of reduced cartel deterrence and social welfare. Hence, it is vital for competition authorities and society to understand how leniency programs affect firms' incentives, in order to optimize their design and administration. A rich theoretical, empirical and experimental economic literature developed in the last two decades to meet the challenge. In this chapter, we review some of the key studies which have been undertaken to date, with emphasis on more recent contributions and without claiming to be exhaustive (we apologize in advance to the authors of papers we could not discuss), highlighting and comparing the main results, and setting out their limitations. We conclude with a general assessment and an agenda for future research on this topic at the core of competition policy