This paper makes some steps toward a formal political economy of environmental policy. Economists' quasi-unanimous preferences for sophisticated incentive regulation is reconsidered. First, we recast the question of instrument choice in the general mechanism literature and provide an incomplete...

We analyze 17 studies of the use of sustainable development indicators (SDI) in an urban setting. The analysis reveals a lack of consensus not only on the conceptual framework and the approach favored, but also on the selection and optimal number of indicators. First, by performing different...

The present paper deals with some legal issues surrounding environmental protection, namely those issues concerning the liability of the different firms and individuals directly or indirectly involved in the generation of environment damaging accidents. We consider in particular the potential...

This paper explores the effects of effluent regulatory activity on firm behavior in the pulp and paper industry in Ontario. The model uses instrumental variables to attempt to distinguish between that correlation between emission limits and emissions coming from regulatory capture and that...

We characterize the distortions in environmental liability sharing between firms and banks that the imperfect implementation of government policies implies. These distortions stem from three factors: the presence of moral hazard, the use of objective functions by firms and banks that differs...

In this article, we highlight the factors which influence governments in their decision to implement environmental policies of varying degrees of severity. We substantiate our arguments with analytical evidence from public interest theory and the economic theory of regulation (interest group...

Economists have greatly criticized regulations that impose uniform environmental standards on plants which may differ in terms both of their marginal abatement cost and marginal damage functions. Such a critic ignores however that the implementation of the standards may vary significantly across...