It has been claimed that good environmental performance can improve firms’ economic performance. However, because of e.g. data limitations, the methods applied in most previous quantitative empirical studies of the relationship between environmental and economic performance of firms suffer...

This paper aims at clarifying the notion "overall distributive effect" of an income component or a policy proposal and moreover discusses various approaches for assessing the distributional impact of the components of total income. We pay particular attention to the problem of evaluating the...

The relationship between the concept of option value in the literature on environmental preservation and the financial theory of option value is discussed by Fisher (2000), suggesting an equivalence between the two concepts. In a recent paper, Mensink and Requate (2004) argue that Fisher’s...

The transition from more traditional to modern modes of production has large implications for time allocation, accumulation of social capital, market and non-market production, consumption, as well as for the environmental externalities of production and consumption. In this paper we explicitly...

This paper discusses the effects of the substantial rise in labor force participation of married women on the level, structure and trend in family labor income inequality. An interesting question is to what extent the rise in women's labor force participation has led to a tendency of "flocking...

How much is a wildflower worth? Inspired by “The worth of a songbird” by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1994) we use the value of a wildflower as symbol of the complexity of evaluating environmental qualities and risks. We critically discuss the application of cost-benefit analysis in evaluating...

Climate change impacts in the Arctic require that complex relationships between the economy, the environment, and the living conditions of indigenous and local people be taken into account. While traditional approaches to economic valuation may not be sufficient to capture these relationships,...

The environmental risk associated with genetically modified organisms (GMO) implies that new approaches to risk assessment, risk management and risk communication are needed. In this paper we discuss the role of the precautionary principle in policy responses to GMO risk. We first discuss...

Investment in pollution prevention technologies are often made under significant uncertainty about the future pay-off from the investments. However, as time passes some of the uncertainties may be resolved by new information, implying that the timing of investments becomes an important issue for...

A recent study of the welfare state in Sweden, Rosen (1995, 1996, 1997), concludes that child care subsidies may lead to substantial deadweight losses that may impede economic growth and the future of the welfare state. In this article we show that the deadweight losses are highly sensitive to...