International efforts to provide global public goods often face the challenges of coordinating national contributions and distributing costs equitably in the face of uncertainty, inequality, and free-riding incentives. In an experimental setting, we distribute endowments unequally among a group...

This paper measures the response of bilateral trade flows to differences in industrial energy prices across countries. Using a panel for the period 1996-2011 including 42 countries, 62 sectors and covering 60% of global merchandise trade, we estimate the short-run effects of sector-level energy...

In order to value non-market goods, economists estimate individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for these goods using revealed or stated preference methods. We compare these conventional approaches with subjective well-being (SWB), which is based on individuals’ ratings of their happiness or...

Commodity taxes have three distinct roles: (1) revenue collection, (2) interpersonal redistribution, and (3) resource allocation. The paper presents an integrated treatment of these three concerns in a second-best general equilibrium framework, which leads to the 'generalised Ramsey rule' for...

The paper studies credible information transmission by governments. A group of heterogenous individuals have to make private investment and labour supply decisions while relying on the government for information about investment returns. The government consists of an elected citizen who chooses...

This paper considers how environmental policies should respond to macroeconomic downturns. It first explores the implications of the global economic downturn of 2008-09 for environmental policies, focusing in particular on the example of action against climate change. The arguments for and...

This paper analyzes optimal unemployment insurance over the business cycle in a search model in which unemployment stems from matching frictions (in booms) and job rationing (in recessions). Job rationing during recessions introduces two novel effects ignored in previous studies of optimal...

Current models of conservation auctions do not permit for the presence of environmental externalities and synergies between bidders. Yet, conservation auctions are usually set up for the very purpose of addressing problems associated with environmental externalities. Clearly, our models do not...

A levy on the Clean Development Mechanism and other carbon trading schemes is a potential source of finance for climate change adaptation. An adaptation levy of 2 percent is currently imposed on all CDM transactions which could raise around $500 million between now and 2012. This paper analyses...

We construct two simple examples that help to clarify the role of a key assumption in the analysis of price or quantity controls of greenhouse gases in the presence of uncertain costs. Traditionally much has been made of the fact that greenhouse gases are a stock pollutant, and that therefore...