Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/171556 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Working Paper Series No. 09/113
Publisher: 
ETH Zurich, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research, Zurich
Abstract: 
As carbon sinks, forests play a critical role in helping to mitigate the growing threat from anthropogenic climate change. Forest carbon offsets transacted between GHG emitters in industrialised countries and sellers in developing countries have emerged as a useful climate policy tool. A model is developed that investigates the role of incentives in forestry carbon sequestration contracts. It considers the optimal design of contracts to ensure landowner participation and hence, permanence in forest carbon sinks in a context of uncertain opportunity costs and incomplete contract enforcement. The optimal contract is driven by the quality of the institutional framework in which the contract is executed, in particular, as it relates to contract enforcement. Stronger institutional frameworks tend to distort the seller’s effort upwards away from the full enforcement outcome. This also leads to greater amounts of carbon sequestered and higher conditional payments made to the seller. Further, where institutions are strong, there is a case for indexing the payment to the carbon market price if permanence is to be ensured. That is, as the carbon price increases, the payment could be raised and vice versa.
Subjects: 
forest carbon offsets
permanence
contract design
incomplete enforcement
JEL: 
K12
Q15
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
731.09 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.