There is an increasing interest in the use of voluntary approaches to environmental protection as an alternative to more traditional regulatory approaches. In many cases, entire industries are faced with possible imposition of costly environmental policies if environmental goals are not met...

In this paper we incorporate interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Behavioral and Political Sciences), and suggest a framework for analysis of mechanisms of governance of agro-ecosystem services. Firstly, we...

[paper in French] Based on the INRA/CGSP report, we question the ecological and economic performance of conventional agriculture. “Double performance” is rejected for some agricultural practices or not proved for others. Economic literature shows that innovation is triggered by environmental...

Environmental policy instruments have an impact on the incentives to invest in environmental R&D and this link should deserve careful consideration when introducing new instruments. Some authors argue that environmental taxes and tradable permits have rather comparable impacts on environmental...

According to the so-called ‘self-licensing effect’, committing to a virtuous act in a preceding choice may lead to behave less virtuously in the succeeding decision. Consequently, well-intentioned policies can lead to overall counter-productive effects by licensing people to behave...

The effects of four environmental policy options for the reduction of pollution emissions, i.e. taxes, emission standards, auctioned permits and freely allocated permits, are analyzed. The setup is a real option model where the amount of emissions is determined by solving the firm's profit...

Employing an environmentally differentiated duopoly model, we analyze how emission standards affect imports, the environment, and social welfare. We show that a strict emission standard is not necessarily import-restrictive, whereas it may possibly degrade the environment. Furthermore, we...

Employing an environmentally-differentiated products model with heterogeneous consumers in terms of environmental consciousness, this paper examines the effect of a unilateral change in a home emission standard on the qualities of products, aggregate emissions, and welfare of both home and...

We model green markets in which purchasers, either firms or consumers, have higher willingness-to-pay for less polluting goods. The effectiveness of pollution reduction policies is examined in a duopoly setting. We show that duopolists' strategic behaviour may increase pollution levels. Maximum...