We study the environmental and economic effects of public abatement in the presence of multiple stable steady-state ecological equilibria. Under shallow-lake dynamics (SLD), the isocline for the stock of pollution features two stable branches, a good and a bad one. Assuming that the ecology is...

Climate mitigation policy should be imposed over a long period, and spur development of new technologies in order to make stabilization of green house gas concentrations economically feasible. The government may announce current and future policy packages that stimulate current R&D in...

The paper analyzes international environmental agreements that incorporate transfers from a group of industrialized countries to developing countries in a situation of asymmetric information. The framework of the analysis is a static model of transboundary pollution in which information on...

Time was when solar energy was facilely dismissed as impractical, inefficient, and pricey. In recent years, however, innovations in technology, regulation, and financing have resulted in remarkable efficiency improvements and price reductions, thereby reversing the skepticism about this...

The paper explores the prospects for international environmental cooperation in a context of limited enforcement, if we allow for side-payments between countries and sequential moves in the implementation of the agreement. The framework of the analysis is a static model of heterogenous countries...

In this paper we investigate optimal harvesting of a renewable natural resource. While in the standard approach the resource is located at a single point in space we allow for the resource to be distributed over the plane. Consequently, an agent who exploits the resource has to travel from one...

We study the environmental and economic effects of public abatement in the presence of multiple stable steady-state ecological equilibria. Under shallow-lake dynamics (SLD), the isocline for the stock of pollution features two stable branches, a good and a bad one. Assuming that the ecology is...

This paper explores the synchronicity of two mega-crises we are now facing: The BP oil spill and the repercussions of the 2008 financial meltdown. It examines some key common threads in both of these crises. The overarching message is that firms must maintain a culture of social responsibility,...

Gasoline taxes vary widely among industrialized countries, as does support for the United Nations' effort to curtail the use of fossil fuels to address the climate change problem. We argue that malapportionment of the electoral system affects both the rate at which governments tax gasoline and...

The Chinese government is vigorously promoting commercialization of renewable energy and bioproducts, given environmental issues plus food, energy, and national security concerns, according to Chinese industry experts at the August 2010 “China Bioenergy Workshop” and its related technical...