The introduction of the U.S. SO2 allowance-trading program to address the threat of acid rain as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 is a landmark event in the history of environmental regulation. The program was a great success by almost all measures. This paper, which draws upon a...

Energy-efficient technologies offer considerable promise for reducing the financial costs and environmental damages associated with energy use, but these technologies appear not to be adopted by consumers and businesses to the degree that would apparently be justified, even on a purely financial...

Economists have expended considerable effort to develop economically meaningful definitions of the somewhat elusive concept of "sustainability". We relate such a definition of sustainability to well known concepts from neoclassical economics, in particular, potential Pareto improvements (in the...