This paper examines factors that may influence the estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life obtained from contingent valuation surveys that elicit the willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reductions. We examine the importance of distributional assumptions, the choice of the welfare...

In this paper the climate change effect is an unforeseen earth temperature level above which a negative externality on technology and hence on society's welfare is exerted. We use a dynamic overlapping generations model to develop a positive analysis of the growth path of an economy with the...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a non-technical exposition of the main conclusions of the theory of Rational Belief Equilibrium (RBE) for market volatility. It is argued that the theory of Rational Belief Equilibria (RBE) provides a unified paradigm for explaining market volatility by...

We discuss the selection of the socially optimal discount rate for public investment projects that entail costs and benefits in the very long run. More specifically, we examine in an expected utility framework how the uncertainty on the growth rate of the GNP per head affects this rate. Under...

The behaviour of future policy-makers substantially influences future greenhouse gas emissions. Uncertainty about the motives of future policy-makers may thus strongly influence the climate policy strategies of current policy-makers. Analytical and numerical analyses in this paper confirm this...

In a dynamic model of a risk-neutral competitive firm which can lower its pollution emissions per unit of output by building up abatement capital stock, we examine the effect of a higher pollution tax rate on abatement investment both under full certainty and when the timing or the size of the...

We compare taxes and quotas when firms and the regulator have asymmetric information about abatement costs. Damages are caused by a stock pollutant. Uncertainty enters multiplicatively, i.e. it affects the slope rather than the intercept of abatement costs. We calibrate the model using cost and...

Endogenous Uncertainty is that component of economic risk and market volatility which is propagated within the economy by the beliefs and actions of agents. The theory of Rational Belief (see Kurz [1994]) permits rational agents to hold diverse beliefs and consequently, a Rational Belief...

The main issue is the organisation of firms when different degrees of labour participation are taken into account. We start reviewing the literature on the LM firm. We then consider a less radical labour participation, i.e. the Aoki firm. We survey extensions of the Aoki's firm to the case of...

When economic agents decide their optimal environmental behavior, they have to take into account non continuos evolutionary trends and irreversible changes characterising environmental phenomena. Given the still non perfect biophysical and economic knowledge, decisions have to be taken in an...