We investigate how politico-economic factors shaped government responses to the spread of COVID-19. Our simple framework uses epidemiological, economic and politico-economic arguments. Confronting the theory with US state level data we find strong evidence for partisanship even when we control...

We develop a flexible single-state model to represent tradeoffs between infections and activity during the early phase of an epidemic. We prove that optimal policy is continuous in the state but discontinuous in the deterministic arrival date of a cure; optimal lockdowns are followed by stimulus...

The recognition that environmental hazards can affect children differently and more severely than adults has provoked growing concern in industrialized nations about the impact of environmental pollution on children’s health. In this paper, commissioned by the OECD, we are charged with...

We conducted a choice experiment presenting respondents with risk reductions for three types of illnesses related to air pollution—pollen allergy, chronic bronchitis, and lung cancer—splitting the sample to test the effects of private-good and public-good contexts on the value of a...

Mercury contamination of the Chesapeake Bay is a concern to health authorities in the region. We evaluate the economic and health effects of postulated recreational and commercial fishing advisories for striped bass on the Maryland portion of the bay. Awareness of and response to the advisory is...

This paper considers how moderate actions to slow atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use also could reduce conventional air pollutants in the United States. The benefits that result would be “ancillary” to greenhouse gas abatement. Moreover, the benefits would tend...