| Abstract [eng] |
The main purpose of this master thesis is to analyze and quantify the economic impact of the European Union Emission Trading System in Lithuania. The paper consists of four main parts: the analysis of relevant literature, the cost-benefit analysis for Lithuania, the research of cost pass-through rate to customers and the net benefit of the EU ETS for our region. Literature analysis revealed that previous researches mainly concentrated on economic impacts to specific companies or sectors but not on the country level. Also it can be concluded that there were only few cases where significant economic impact exists because of the EU ETS activity. Most of the resear concluded that no impact was observed but almost all of them had a lack of sufficient data which may impact the results. Even though implemented literature analysis suggested that not a lot of research was done on the country level, it was decided to proceed with the one to quantify the economic impact of the EU ETS in Lithuania. To reach the goal of the final thesis the cost and benefit analysis was implemented. Results show that each of the target groups (government, society, private sector) is affected in some way – government and private sector get the benefit when selling additional EUAs, private sector together may suffer from additional costs when in need to buy additional EUAs. No negative impact to society was introduced – companies do not pass their costs to customers. Also, during the last year Lithuania experienced net benefit from EU ETS as the government‘s profit outgrown the private sector‘s costs. The conclusion of this paper indicates that EU ETS activity in Lithuania does no economic harm for the country. Opposite, during the last year positive economical impact was observed. However, in the long run this tangible positive economic effect may disappear as the number of EUAs should become smaller but there is plenty of space to create not direct positive economic effects as the EU ETS is moving in the right direction. |
