This paper develops and tests a model in which 1) purpose-driven firms emerge as an optimal organizational form even for profit-maximizing entrepreneurs; and 2) CSR arises endogenously as a response to imperfect regulatory oversight. Purpose-driven organizations allow entrepreneurs to create...

We discuss global climate mitigation that builds on existing unilateral measures to cut emissions. We document and discuss the rationale for such unilateral measures argue that such measures have the potential to generate positive spillover effects both within and across countries. In a simple...

An estimate of the social cost of carbon (SCC) is key to climate policy. But how should we estimate the SCC? A common approach is to use an integrated assessment model (IAM) to simulate time paths for the atmospheric CO2 concentration, its impact on global mean temperature, and the resulting...

This chapter applies recent research on environmental enforcement to a potential U.S. program to control greenhouse gases, especially through emission trading. Climate policies present the novel problem of integrating emissions reductions that are relatively easy to monitor (such as carbon...

This paper shows that greater global spatial correlation of productivities can increase cross-country welfare dispersion by increasing the correlation between a country's productivity and its gains from trade. We causally validate this prediction using a global climatic phenomenon as a natural...

In a world economy that is highly integrated, most policies produce effects across the border. This is often believed to be an argument for greater global governance, but the logic requires scrutiny. There remains strong revealed demand for policy and institutional diversity among nations,...

There is a lot we know about climate change, but there is also a lot we don't know. Even if we knew how much CO2 will be emitted over the coming decades, we wouldn't know how much temperatures will rise as a result. And even if we could predict the extent of warming that will occur, we can say...

There is no country in the world that does not have at least one law or policy dealing with climate change. The most prolific countries have well over 20, and globally there are 1,800 such laws. Some of them are executive orders or policies issued by governments, others are legislative acts...

I show that commonly proposed emission taxes are not optimal for controlling climate change: they can achieve zero emissions but cannot induce negative emissions. The first-best policy charges firms period by period for leaving a stock of carbon in the atmosphere, not just for injecting carbon...