The paper analyzes resource policies in an economy in which renewable and fossil resources are realistically assumed to be essential inputs to production. Also realistically, the two types of resources are imperfect substitutes whose degree of substitutability can, however, increase over time....

Most analyses of the recent financial crisis in the US focus on the consequences of the dramatic slump in housing prices that started in the mid-2000s, which led to rising mortgage defaults, shrinking home equity credit and liquidity in the banking system. Yet these accounts do not explain what...

Compared to other European countries rental apartments dominate the German housing market. Policymakers and a large part of the population alike worry about the amount of affordable living space. Especially in metropolitan areas a high demand for living space exists and has been leading to a...

We study environmental pollution in an economic geography framework with two cities, where pollution arises from commuting within cities, goods transport between cities, production of manufacturing and agricultural goods, and residential energy use. We find that city size has an ambiguous effect...

In this paper we analyze how rati cation uncertainty impacts the optimal terms of international environmental agreements (IEAs). We relax the frequent assumption of countries as unitary actors by modeling the rati cation stage through uncertain preferences of a ratifying agent (e.g. the pivotal...

This study explores the reduction potential of greenhouse gases for major pollution emitting countries of the world using nonparametric productivity measurement methods and directional distance functions. In contrast to the existing literature we apply optimization methods to endogenously...

The strategy of adaptation to climate change has become a central topic within the UNFCCC negotiations in recent years. On the national level, adaptation plans are elaborated, and on the international level, the need for funding adaptation in developing countries is discussed. This tendency...

We examine the distributional and e ciency impacts of climate policy in the context of fiscal consolidation in a dynamic general-equilibrium overlapping generations model of the US economy. The model includes a disaggregated production structure, including energy sector detail and advanced low-...

Economic thought on climate policy as an instance of environmental regulation is strongly influenced by the principle of a uniform carbon price. Economists acknowledge that this principle breaks down in a second-best world with other distortions, such as taxes and market power in domestic and...

The future international climate policy architecture will most likely consist of partial climate policy initiatives like the EU's Emission Trading System. Trade integration threatens to undermine these systems' environmental effectiveness by shifting emissions to other countries. We estimate a...