This dissertation is a collection of three essays in the fields of environmental and public economics. The first essay assesses the effect of government spending on charitable donations to environmental causes. Using a theoretical model, I solve for changes in private donations due to increased...

In the first essay, I assess the effect of indoor air quality (IAQ) in school buildings on student test performance and attendance rates. Results indicate that performance on standardized tests significantly improves while attendance rates are unresponsive to improvements in IAQ. The improvement...

Unchecked anthropogenic climate change has the potential to destroy human lives and wealth on an unprecedented scale. This dissertation analyzes from an economic perspective various public policy options to correct the market failures caused by climate change.The widespread adoption of...

This dissertation provides a robust assessment of value surfaces and the potential for benefit transfer (BT) in the international context of coral reef. Environmental values are considered as useful tools to improve management of these declining ecosystems. Nevertheless, primary valuation is...

This thesis covers three issues: the aggregate and welfare effects of environmental policies when plants are heterogeneous; what causes the different patterns of employment dynamics in small versus large firms over business cycles; and the welfare costs of expected and unexpected inflation. In...

This research investigated the general association between corporate environmental performance and the firms' annual returns independent of any particular environmental event. The association analysis was based on the most recent environmental data for the years 2006, 2007, and 2008. The results...

Master of Arts

Doctor of Philosophy

Targets for CO2 reduction tend to be set in terms of the amount of pollution generated within the borders of a given region or nation. That is, under a "production accounting principle". However, in recent years there has been increased public and policy interest in the notion of a carbon...

Recent work by Kahneman and others has led to a new focus in economics on a wellbeing-based approach to utility. This suggests that ‘experienced utility’ is an alternative and more appropriate basis for the measurement of economic value compared with ‘decision utility’. In this paper, we...