Lawrence Goulder
· Shuzo Nishihara Professor in Environmental and Resource EconomicsStanford University · Korean Studies
Active 1982–2026
About
Lawrence Goulder is the Shuzo Nishihara Professor in Environmental and Resource Economics at Stanford University and the Director of the Stanford Center for Environmental and Energy Policy Analysis. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and at Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a University Fellow of Resources for the Future. Goulder's research examines the environmental and economic impacts of environmental policies in the U.S. and China, with a focus on policies to address climate change and air pollution. His work has also explored the sustainability of natural resources and well-being in several countries. He has conducted analyses for government agencies, business groups, and environmental organizations, and has served on advisory committees to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board. His research often employs a general equilibrium analytical framework that integrates the economy and the environment, considering the activities of government, industry, and households, and analyzing both the benefits and costs of policies as well as their distributional impacts. Goulder holds an A.B. in philosophy from Harvard College, a master's degree in musical composition from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.
Research topics
- Business
- Economics
- Political Science
- Natural resource economics
- Computer Science
- Geology
- Psychology
- Operations management
- Microeconomics
- Geography
- Environmental science
- Environmental economics
- Algorithm
- Macroeconomics
- Oceanography
Selected publications
Data and Code for: China’s Nationwide CO2 Emissions Trading System: A General Equilibrium Assessment
ICPSR Data Holdings · 2026-03-26
datasetOpen access1st authorCorrespondingChina’s CO2 emissions trading system, the world's largest, aims to significantly reduce CO2 emissions. The system is a tradable performance standard (TPS), differing from cap and trade (C&T). We provide a dynamic general equilibrium assessment that uniquely considers institutional and fiscal features of China that affect policy costs and distributional impacts. Key findings: the TPS's environmental benefits exceed its costs by a factor of five or more. Interactions with the fiscal system reduce or eliminate the TPS's cost disadvantage relative to C&T. Introducing auctioning as a complementary source of allowance supply can reduce costs by 30%.<br> <br>The accompanying data and code include resources for generating input data for the dynamic general equilibrium model and conducting simulations in this study.
Data and Code for: China’s Nationwide CO2 Emissions Trading System: A General Equilibrium Assessment
ICPSR Data Holdings · 2026-03-26
datasetOpen access1st authorCorrespondingChina’s CO2 emissions trading system, the world's largest, aims to significantly reduce CO2 emissions. The system is a tradable performance standard (TPS), differing from cap and trade (C&T). We provide a dynamic general equilibrium assessment that uniquely considers institutional and fiscal features of China that affect policy costs and distributional impacts. Key findings: the TPS's environmental benefits exceed its costs by a factor of five or more. Interactions with the fiscal system reduce or eliminate the TPS's cost disadvantage relative to C&T. Introducing auctioning as a complementary source of allowance supply can reduce costs by 30%.<br> <br>The accompanying data and code include resources for generating input data for the dynamic general equilibrium model and conducting simulations in this study.
WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01
book-chapterSSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01
articleOpen accessSenior authorWashington, DC: World Bank eBooks · 2024-08-27 · 2 citations
bookOpen accessSenior authorJurisdictions that rely on emissions trading to control emissions often utilize other environmental or energy policies as well, including policies to support renewable energy and reduce energy consumption. Overlapping policies produce economic interactions that can lead to quite different outcomes from what might be predicted after examining individual policies separately. Prior literature on policy interactions has primarily focused on cap-and-trade systems, where aggregate emissions are fixed by regulation but emissions prices respond. However, jurisdictions are increasingly turning to alternative forms of emissions markets, including a range of rate-based emissions trading systems, in which both emissions quantities and prices are flexible and the significance of policy interactions is less understood. This paper extends the literature by considering the outcomes under a range of emissions trading systems—not only cap-and-trade, but also several forms of tradable performance standards—and under a variety of overlapping policies, including subsidies to renewables and taxes on electricity. An analytical model stylized on the electricity sector demonstrates that an overlapping subsidy to renewable energy drives down emission prices and expands output under all types of emissions trading systems, but emissions quantities differ with tradable performance standards—emissions increase with renewable subsidies under a uniform, sectorwide tradable performance standard but decrease when the performance standard only covers emitters, excluding clean sources from receiving tradable credits. Taxing electricity consumption reduces emission prices and total output under all types of emissions trading systems and reduces emissions under all tradable performance standards. With cap-and-trade, the presence of an overlapping renewables subsidy or electricity consumption tax implies higher efficiency costs. Under certain tradable performance standards, however, these measures can reduce distortions and enhance cost-effectiveness. A numerical general equilibrium model offers quantitative assessments of the impacts of overlaps on emissions, production, prices, and costs, under China’s planned emissions trading system and alternative designs. The overlaps in China’s current stated policy for 2020 to 2035 reduce the cost per ton of abatement of its system of differentiated emitter performance standards by 20–30 percent; optimizing renewable portfolio standards could further reduce costs by 10 percent, and transitioning to uniform benchmarks for emitting power generators could save another 10–15 percent. Still, cap-and-trade without overlapping policies would be most cost-effective. The findings highlight the need to consider the choice of emissions trading systems and overlapping policies together when undertaking reforms.
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingNational Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-09-01
reportOpen access1st authorCorrespondingSSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01
preprintOpen access1st authorCorrespondingNational Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-11-01 · 2 citations
reportOpen accessSenior authorJurisdictions employing emissions trading systems (ETSs) to control emissions often utilize other environmental or energy policies as well, including policies to support renewable energy and reduce energy consumption.Interactions with these other policies lead to different outcomes from what might be predicted by examining the policies separately.The prior literature considering policy interactions has focused mainly on the case where the ETS is cap and trade.This paper extends the literature by examining the outcomes under a wide range of ETSs (including several forms of tradable performance standards) and overlapping policies (including various renewable subsidies and electricity consumption taxes).An analytical model demonstrates that the impacts of overlapping policies on allowance prices, emissions, and electricity output depend critically on the nature of the ETS.A numerical general equilibrium model tailored to China's economy explores the implications for the cost-effectiveness of emissions reductions.Results indicate that overlapping policies that reduce cost-effectiveness under cap and trade can significantly enhance cost-effectiveness under tradable performance standards.The model predicts that under the current and planned designs for China's ETS, which sets differentiated tradable performance standards for emitters, implementing renewable portfolio standards and accounting for indirect emissions from electricity consumption are both beneficial.Together they can reduce the cost of achieving the national emissions target by 20-30 percent over the interval 2020-2035.Transitioning to uniform benchmarks for emitting power generators could save another 10-15 percent.The findings highlight the importance of coordinating the designs of emissions trading systems with the overlapping policies.
China Economic Journal · 2023 · 7 citations
Senior authorCorresponding- Political Science
- Computer Science
- Economics
Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeKEYWORDS: Emission Trading SystemTradable Performance StandardCap and TradeCarbon PricingJEL CLASSIFICATION: H23Q54Q58 AcknowledgementWe acknowledge financial support from the Energy Foundation China (G-2109-33272) and the Ministry of Education (Economic Policies for Carbon Neutrality, 22JJD790002).Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Recent grants
Effects of Environmental Taxes in the Presence of Other Taxes
NSF · $136k · 1993–1998
Frequent coauthors
- 76 shared
A.L. Bovenberg
- 59 shared
Roberton C. Williams
- 39 shared
Marc Hafstead
- 26 shared
Ian Parry
- 26 shared
Barry Eichengreen
University of California, Berkeley
- 20 shared
Robert N. Stavins
Harvard University Press
- 18 shared
Mark R. Jacobsen
- 17 shared
Kenneth J. Arrow
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