This paper studies how society votes on the payroll taxes of a basic income and a social health insurance scheme. Individuals differ along the two most important dimensions when it comes to the design of the two welfare schemes, namely, income and risk. Even though the introduction of a basic...

How do individuals shape societies? How do societies shape individuals? This paper develops a framework for studying the connections between micro and macro phenomena. The framework builds on two ingredients widely used in social science - population and variable. Starting with the simplest case...

We propose a new approach to the normative analysis of public-good provision in a large economy. Our analysis is based on a mechanism design approach that involves a requirement of coalition-proofness, as well as a requirement of robustness, so that the mechanism must not depend on specific...

Reasonable and equitable water resource decision-making is at the core of good governance around the world. Sustained water collaboration is an antidote to foreign relations disintegration. Lack of water quality and quantity policies can lead to water insecurity for everyone, yet bureaucratic...

Wind-generated electricity in the United States has grown by more than 400 percent since 2000. According to the Department of Energy, 6 percent of US land could supply more than one and a half times the current electricity consumption of the country. Yet, challenges remain in matching demand for...

This is a book chapter in a forthcoming book, Law, Property, and Society (Ashgate Press). The chapter argues that financing extreme catastrophic loss will become more problematic as catastrophes become more frequent and severe. An effective strategy must increase the level of participation in...

A weather beaten economy has become a wake up call. The International Energy Agency predicts that carbon emissions will rise 130 percent and oil demand will rise 70 percent by 2050. A sound energy policy that addresses climate change relies upon widespread transfer and implementation of...

The Bali Roadmap marks a milestone in the process of international consensus building, setting forth a multilateral legal framework to address climate change. Delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali (Dec. 3-15 2007) launched a two-year process with a comprehensive agenda and 2009...

In the past 70 or 80 years, there have been three “waves” of reforms to the process of creating and managing U.S. federal and state regulations. The first wave began in 1946 with the passage of the federal Administrative Procedure Act, after which states went on to pass and formalize their...

This paper studies the resilience of public policies that governments design for catalyzing economic development. This property depends on the extent to which behavioral heuristics and spillover effects allow policymakers to attain their original goals when a particular policy cannot be funded...