This paper analyses how hybrid systems of carbon taxes and tradeable permits optimize some conflicting dimensions of political acceptability related to the design of these instruments. Pure systems like taxes without exemptions or auctioned tradeable permits cause problems for political acceptability in open economies due to high overall costs (abatement cost plus payments on the tax or auctions) for current polluters. Unfortunately, pure systems based on grandfathering of emission rights across the board do not provide a feasible alternative because of monitoring and enforcement problems. In contrast, consciously designed hybrid systems employ grandfathering of emission rights together with either carbon taxes or auctioned carbon permits in order to overcome acceptability problems of pure systems, while leaving incentives to reduce emissions at the margin untouched. Moreover, monitoring and enforcement costs of the hybrid systems are less due to the lower number of participating agents compared with the pure systems, while opportunities for costor burden-sharing exist as well. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997carbon pollution credits, carbon taxes, environmental policy, externalities, hybrid instruments, tradeable carbon permits,

Summary The 1990s policy trend of intervening at the specification level over a broad range of products has ended. Today's environmental product policies focus, rather, on a few arbitrary product groups. Selectiveness should serve absolute environmental impact reduction, which asks for a rational product‐selection and target framework. The authors propose “life‐cycle impact per consumer expenditure” as a key criterion. This criterion helps to connect macro environmental impact reduction aims with product innovation targets, even under continuous economic growth, consumption pattern shifts, and rebound threats. The authors analyze the Dutch economy as an exercise. This results in 44 product groups, labeled “Hyenas” by the authors, that need to improve their ratio score drastically between now and 2040. Some magnitudes of desired change are given. Finally, intervention processes at the Hyena group level along the lines of sustainable transition management are proposed. Joint visioning, experimental portfolios, interaction between micro, meso, and macro change levels, and gradual pressure building are crucial elements in this concept of complex change management.

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