With a large nationwide retailer, we run a natural field experiment to measure the effects of energy use information disclosure, customer rebates, and sales agent incentives on demand for energy efficient durable goods. While a combination of large rebates plus sales incentives substantially...

We measure the impact of municipal policies requiring governments to construct green buildings on private-sector adoption of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard. Using matching methods, panel data, and instrumental variables, we find...

We analyze the effectiveness of consumer financial regulation by considering the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act in the United States. Using a difference-in- differences research design and a unique panel data set covering over 160 million credit card...

As it becomes cheaper to copy and share digital content, vendors are turning to technical protections such as encryption. We argue that if protection is nevertheless imperfect, this transition will generally lower the prices of content relative to perfect legal enforcement. However, the effect...

Two forces have reshaped global securities markets in the last decade: Exchanges operate at much faster speeds and the trading landscape has become more fragmented. In order to analyze the positive and normative implications of these evolutions, we study a framework that captures (i) exchanges'...

The effectiveness of investment subsidies depends on the existing array of regulatory and information mandates, especially in the energy efficiency space. Some consumers respond to information disclosure by purchasing energy-efficient durables (and thus may increase the inframarginal take-up of...

A basic tenet of economics posits that when consumers or firms don't face the true social cost of their actions, market outcomes are inefficient. In the case of negative externalities, Pigouvian taxes are one way to correct this market failure, where the optimal tax leads agents to internalize...

Nonlinear pricing and taxation complicate economic decisions by creating multiple marginal prices for the same good. This paper provides a framework to uncover consumers' perceived price of nonlinear price schedules. I exploit price variation at spatial discontinuities in electricity service...

The outcome of the December 2011 United Nations climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, provides an important new opportunity to move toward an international climate policy architecture that is capable of delivering broad international participation and significant global CO2 emissions...

Emissions of greenhouse gases linked with global climate change are affected by diverse aspects of economic activity, including individual consumption, business investment, and government spending. An effective climate policy will have to modify the decision calculus for these activities in the...