Environmental regulations raise production costs at regulated firms, though in most cases the costs are only a small fraction of a firm's total costs. Productivity tends to fall, and firms may shift new investment and production to locations with less stringent regulation. However, environmental...

This report proposes a taxonomy of policy design features for agri-environmental payment schemes, with a focus on those features that are conducive to policy cost-effectiveness. An application of the taxonomy to all agri-environmental payment schemes in six countries (Argentina, Australia,...

This paper assesses quantitative estimates based on economic modelling studies of the economic and environmental benefits from different forms of international co-ordination on carbon pricing. Forms of international co-ordination include: harmonising carbon prices (e.g. through linking carbon...

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness calls upon donor and partner countries to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of country systems in a way that guarantees ownership and sustainable results. Within this context, the current paper provides a synthesis of major elements and...

Based on an in-depth literature review and responses to a survey among OECD member countries, this paper discusses the use of flexibility mechanisms in environmental regulations. Such mechanisms can provide flexibility as to how a given environmental improvement is achieved, regarding where...

We study how international agreements can take advantage of domestic time-inconsistency problems in the context of environmental policies. For example, policymakers will prefer future policies to be sustainable, but find it tempting to raise consumption when being in office. We find the...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the short and long-term sectoral effect of environmental policy stringency on CO2 emissions, exploiting longitudinal data covering 30 OECD countries and more than 50 sectors. The analysis relies on the OECD Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS) index, a...