A crucial factor in the success of any water quality trading market is its ability to cost-effectivelyreallocate nutrient allowances from initial holders to those users who find them most valuable;the market's trading efficiency. We explore causes of and solutions to trading inefficiency...

The theory of environmental regulation suggests that economic instruments, such as taxes and tradable permits, create more effective technology adoption incentives than conventional regulatory standards. We explore this issue for an important industry undergoing technological responses to a...

An auction of carbon permits is the best way to achieve carbon caps set by international negotiation to limit global climate change. To minimize administrative costs, permits would be required at the level of oil refineries, natural gas pipe lines, liquid sellers, and coal processing plants. To...

Fisheries worldwide continue to suffer from the negative consequences of open access. In 1986, New Zealand responded by establishing an individual transferable quota (ITQ) system that by 1998 included 33 species and more than 150 markets for fishing quotas. We assess these markets in terms of...

Voluntary opt-in programs to reduce emissions in unregulated sectors or countries have spurred considerable discussion. Since any regulator will make errors in predicting baselines and participants will self-select into the program, adverse selection will reduce efficiency and possibly...

In this paper we estimate deforestation patterns (across time and 436 districts within Costa Rica) with an econometric method explicitly derived from a dynamic microeconomic model. While the underlying model is similar to that used by Stavins and Jaffe 1990, we use different econometric tools...