Many environmental-policy problems are characterized by complexity and uncertainty. Government's choice concerning these policies commonly relies on information provided by a bureaucracy. Environmental bureaucrats often have a political motivation of their own, so they might be tempted to...

This paper surveys recent approaches towards lobbying if interest groups influence the decision of an incumbent government. It describes the two main channels of influence which mainly exist in parallel, namely contribution payments and the transmission of information through lobbying. Recent...

We analyze the determinants of environmental policy when two firms engage in two types of lobbying against a restriction on allowed pollution: General lobbying increases the total amount of allowed pollution, which is beneficial for both firms. Private lobbying increases the individual pollution...

In actual environmental policy, the design of actual pollution emission taxes differs significantly with the optimal Pigovian tax. In particular, earmarking prevails and actual taxes are usually combined with regulation. Furthermore tax rates are generally too low to significantly influence...