Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions...

The GHG cap-and-trade system is a key element of the policies designed to achieve California's ambitious goal of reducing GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. The cap-and-trade program creates allowances necessary for regulatory compliance that become valuable because of their limited...

Policy makers and policy analysts in the environmental realm are frequently faced with situations where it is unclear whether market-based instruments hold real promise of reducing costs, relative to conventional command-and-control approaches. We develop some simple rules-of-thumb that can be...

This paper, prepared for The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law, provides a summary of the theory and the reality of economic-incentive approaches to environmental regulation. The paper begins with a derivation of the necessary and sufficient condition for a policy instrument to be...

The fundamental question that needs to be addressed by public policy in the area of environmental protection as we move into the next century is, "what is the appropriate role of government?" This question emerges along three fundamental dimensions in relation to environmental protection, which...

This paper reviews lessons from the two decades of experience in the United States with market-based instruments for environmental protection. Normative lessons are considered for design and implementation, for analysis of prospective and adopted systems, and for identification of new...

This paper draws on American experience with four categories of market-based instruments for environmental protection: charge systems; tradeable permits; market friction reduction; and government subsidy reduction. The paper examines normative and positive lessons that can be learned from these...

This article, prepared for the forthcoming 2nd edition of the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, provides an overview of the economics of environmental policy. Included are the setting of goals and targets, notably the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, and the related method of assessment known as...

This article, prepared for the forthcoming 2nd edition of the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, provides an overview of the economics of environmental policy. Included are the setting of goals and targets, notably the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, and the related method of assessment known as...