The environmental impacts on an economy is studied over time using endogenous growth theory. Externalities from the environment on production are central in the analysis, and we examine whether an optimal path realizes more rapid economic growth. The paper is mainly focusing on developing...

This paper studies soil depletion incentives in a dynamic economic model under two different sources of revenue uncertainty (production- and output price risk). The focus is on the long-term effects of risk averse preferences. The land manager is assumed to posses three classes of instruments to...

The relationship between the concept of option value in the literature on environmental preservation and the financial theory of option value is discussed by Fisher (2000), suggesting an equivalence between the two concepts. In a recent paper, Mensink and Requate (2004) argue that Fisher’s...

How much is a wildflower worth? Inspired by “The worth of a songbird” by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1994) we use the value of a wildflower as symbol of the complexity of evaluating environmental qualities and risks. We critically discuss the application of cost-benefit analysis in evaluating...

The environmental risk associated with genetically modified organisms (GMO) implies that new approaches to risk assessment, risk management and risk communication are needed. In this paper we discuss the role of the precautionary principle in policy responses to GMO risk. We first discuss...

This paper studies the implications of climatic uncertainty and poverty for resource degradation. In doing so, two partial models are considered. The first model focuses on productive inputs only, while the second model describes the role of soil conservation inputs. Both models are first...

Investment in pollution prevention technologies are often made under significant uncertainty about the future pay-off from the investments. However, as time passes some of the uncertainties may be resolved by new information, implying that the timing of investments becomes an important issue for...

Cost-effective environmental policy generally requires that all emission sources are faced with the same tax. In this paper I discuss how the existence of induced technological change may alter this result, if at least some of the effect is external to the firm. Focusing on learning by doing...

We analyze two mechanism designs for refunding emission payments to polluting firms; Output Based (OB) and Expenditure Based (EB) refunding. In both instruments, emissions fees are returned to the polluting industry, possibly making the policy more easily accepted by policymakers than a standard...

Environmental policy analyses often draw on stated preferences, with most humans having strong preferences with respect to how we view ourselves and how we would like others to perceive us. This may create systematic differences between reported and real behavior, making policy analysis based on...