Physically, pollution occurs because it is virtually impossible to have a productive process that involves no waste; economically, pollution occurs because polluting is less expensive than operating cleanly. This chapter explores the sources and consequences of, and remedies for, pollution and...

Decisions concerning environmental protection hinge on estimates of economic burden. Over the past 30 years, economists have developed and applied various tools to measure this burden. In this chapter, we present a taxonomy of costs along with methods for measuring those costs. At the broadest...

This chapter provides a review and assessment of the extensive literature on the political determination of environmental regulation. A promising theoretical literature has emerged relatively recently that provides models of the political interaction of government with various interest groups in...

This chapter examines government policy alternatives for protecting the environment. We compare environmentally motivated taxes and various non-tax environmental policy instruments in terms of their efficiency and distributional impacts. Much of the analysis is performed in a second-best setting...

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...