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...

In the United States child adoption costs vary considerably, ranging from no out-of-pocket expense to $50,000 or more. What are the underlying causes for the variability in child adoption expenses? While cost variability is widely acknowledged, the sources of the differentials have not been...

This paper shows that dynamic inefficiency can occur in dynamic general equilibrium models with fully optimizing, infinitely-lived households even in a situation with underinvestment. We identify necessary conditions for such a possibility and illustrate it in a standard R&D-based growth model....

We present results for two contingent valuation surveys conducted in Hamilton, Canada and the US to elicit WTP for mortality risk reductions. We find similar Value of Statistical Life estimates across the two studies, ranging from USD 930,000 to USD 4.8 million (2000 US dollars). WTP increases...

We examine two factors that help explain the prevalence of conflict in low-income countries: that adversaries cannot enforce long-term contracts in arms, and that open conflict alters the future strategic positions of the adversaries differently than does peace. Using an infinite horizon model,...

We analyze how trade openness matters for interstate conflict over productive resources. Our analysis features a terms-of-trade channel that makes security policies trade-regime dependent. Specifically, trade between two adversaries reduces each one's incentive to arm given the opponent's...

Defense spending accounts for a large share of the budget in many countries, but the value of the resulting public good - national defense - has so far escaped assessment. Much of the literature has instead considered indirect benefits of defense spending in terms of greater economic growth or...

We consider a dynamic setting where two countries with competing claims to a resource/asset first arm and then choose whether to resolve their dispute through war or peacefully through settlement. War precludes international trade and can be destructive, but also locks gains and eliminates...

The appraisal of public investments is subject to formal guidelines which often require input prices, such as forecasted energy prices. Using Danish guidelines as a case study, we explore the discounting assumptions in these input prices and find rates ranging from 2.97% to 17.5%, markedly...