This thesis investigates several selected environmental issues in China from an economic perspective. It consists of four self-contained papers. Chapters 2-4 address the issues related to water shortage, while Chapter 5 focuses on the cost of air pollution. Chapter 2 analyses the potential...

Policy instruments for GHG abatement may follow different strategies. Two prominent distinct strategies that are also part of the EU climate protection approach are market oriented cap and trade regimes and support schemes for carbon free generation technologies. The two strategies differ in...

Numerous air pollution regulations affecting petroleum refineries recently have been promulgated, have been proposed, or are under consideration at the federal, state, and local level. As shown in Figure ES-1, all of these environmental regulations are intended to take effect over the relatively...

The effectiveness of SO{sub 2} emission allowance trading under Title 4 of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act (CAA) is of great interest due to the innovative nature of this market incentive approach. However, it may be a mistake to frame the compliance problem for a utility as a decision...

This paper deals with the market for SO{sub 2} emission allowances over time and electric utility compliance choices. For currently high emitting plants ( 2.5 lb SO{sub 2}/MMBtu), the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) provide for about twice as many SO{sub 2} allowances to be issued per year...

This report provides background information for the Bonneville Power Administration (Bonneville) in its efforts to quantify the environmental externalities associated with new electricity resources. A more detailed companion document has been provided to Bonneville for internal use. This report...

Concentrations of environmental pollutants tend to follow positively skewed frequency distributions. Two such density functions are the gamma and lognormal. Minimum variance unbiased estimators of the expected value for both densities are available. The small sample statistical properties of...

This paper focuses on how electric utility companies can respond in their decision making to uncertain variables. Here we take a mean- variance type of approach. The ``mean`` value is an expected cost, on a discounted value basis. We assume that management has risk preferences incorporating a...

The effectiveness of SO{sub 2} emission allowance trading under Title 4 of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act (CAA) is of great interest due to the innovative nature of this market incentive approach. However, it may be a mistake to frame the compliance problem for a utility as a decision...

This paper focuses on how electric utility companies can respond in their decision making to uncertain variables. Here we take a mean- variance type of approach. The mean'' value is an expected cost, on a discounted value basis. We assume that management has risk preferences incorporating a...