Designing efficient markets for carbon offsets with distributional constraints

This paper presents an assessment of the relative efficacy of three key instruments – baselines, trade ratios and limits - which are under policy discussion in the design of carbon offset programs. We rank the instruments by their implications for total emissions, economic efficiency, and efficiency gain relative to a distributional transfer from capped to uncapped sectors. We find that the baseline is the best instrument for maximizing welfare as it directly reduces the share of offsets that are non-additional and that second-best policies do not sacrifice much welfare relative to the standard first-best policy prescription.