An Evidence and Gap Map of the ex-post literature on carbon pricing

After more than 30 years of experience with implemented climate policies and a rapid growth in the scientific literature on these policies, there is little overview about what policies have been empirically assessed for which policy outcomes. This may lead to duplicated research efforts and hinder rigorous syntheses of available evidence. To identify crucial research gaps and to lead the way towards ecosystems of reviews, we compile an evidence and gap map focussing on ex-post policy assessments of carbon taxes and emission trading schemes. Preliminary results show that the scientific attention is heavily focussed on emission trading schemes in China and the EU, while for many of the other 60 carbon pricing schemes the evidence is limited to no or very few scientific publications. We identify large bodies of evidence (>200 publications) which have not yet been synthesised in rigorous systematic reviews for the outcome categories competitiveness of firms and economies, firm behaviour, innovation and investment, as well as price transmission to goods and services. We will provide the evidence and gap map as an interactive tool and accessible database to inform future research and to be used as a source for evidence syntheses on carbon pricing policies.