This paper presents the first empirical test of the green paradox hypothesis, according to which well-intended but imperfectly implemented policies may lead to detrimental environmental outcomes due to supply side responses. We use the introduction of the Acid Rain Program in the U.S. as a case...

The US refining industry is a leading producer of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. As a result of the Clean Air Act, it has been subject to a host of environmental regulations that prescribe the production processes firms can employ and limits their emissions based on the permits they...

Why do for-profit firms take voluntary steps to improve the environment? Brand appeal to green consumers or investors, the ability to influence or avoid regulation, or the experience gained for future regulation, have all been suggested as possible reasons. The empirical evidence is decidedly...

We study the impact of short-term exposure to ambient air pollution on the spread and severity of COVID-19 in Germany. We combine data on county-by-day level on confirmed cases and deaths with information on local air quality and weather conditions and exploit short-term variation in the...

We examine the relationship between contemporaneous fine particulate matter exposure and COVID-19 morbidity and mortality using an instrumental variable approach based on wind direction. Harnessing daily changes in county-level wind direction, we show that arguably exogenous fluctuations in...

There are many reasons to suspect that benefit-cost analysis applied to environmental policies will result in policy decisions that will reject those environmental policies. The important question, of course, is whether those rejections are based on proper science. The present paper explores...

This paper studies whether private adaptation to flood risk is economically efficient. We estimate the return to elevating houses, one of the most significant private defensive investments against flooding, using two decades of microdata on the universe of houses and flood damages in high-risk...

Linkage of cap-and-trade systems is typically advocated by economists on a general analogy with the beneficial linking of free-trade areas and on the specific grounds that linkage will ensure cost effectiveness among the linked jurisdictions. An appropriate and widely accepted specification for...

Many jurisdictions use net metering to record the power exchange between solar photovoltaic panels and the grid, thus valuing home production at the electricity retail rate. However, if over the billing period, production exceeds consumption, the surplus remains freely available for consumption....

Limiting global warming to no more than 2°C requires global large-scale deployment of low-carbon and negative emissions technologies. This requires the development of new eco-innovations and the diffusion of new and existing ones. Existing portfolios of environmental and technology policy...