Over the past several years, labeling schemes that focus on a wide range of environmental and social metrics have proliferated. Although little empirical evidence has been generated with respect to carbon footprint labels, much can be learned from our experience with similar product labels. We...

This paper develops analytical and numerical models to explain and estimate the welfare effects of raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for new passenger vehicles. The analysis encompasses a wide range of scenarios concerning consumers’ valuation of fuel economy and the full...

Many countries are tightening passenger vehicle fuel economy standards. The literature on passenger vehicle standards has used structural models to estimate their welfare effects. This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the effects of recently tightened fuel economy standards on...

Efforts to limit cumulative emissions over the next century may be partially thwarted by the responses of fossil fuel suppliers. Current price-cost margins for major reserves are ample, leaving scope for significant price reductions if climate policies reduce demand for fossil fuels through...

We investigate the effects of “Cash for Clunkers”, a $3 billion economic stimulus program, on new vehicle sales, employment, gasoline consumption, and the environment. Using Canada as the control group in a difference-in-differences framework, we find that the program increased new vehicle...

Many countries are tightening passenger vehicle fuel economy standards. In assessing the welfare effects of standards, the literature has not properly accounted either for their effects on the rate of technology adoption, or for improvements in vehicle characteristics in the absence of...

We value climate amenities by estimating a discrete location choice model for households that changed metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) between 1995 and 2000. The utility of each MSA depends on location-specific amenities, earnings opportunities, housing costs, and the cost of moving to the...

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) of the Department of Agriculture has proposed regulations to implement the new Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). Authorized in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, BCAP is designed to ensure that a sufficiently large base of new nonfood,...

Auctions are increasingly being used to allocate emissions allowances (“permits”) for cap and trade and common-pool resource management programs. These auctions create thick markets that can provide important information about changes in current market conditions. This paper reports a...

Some environmental policies focus on emissions intensity rather than total emissions, or they try to mitigate the regulatory impact on the final product market. To analyze the effects of these policies, or to evaluate the distributional effects of any regulation on consumers and producers,...