The author brings together two of government's primary challenges: environmental protection, and taxation to generate revenues. If negative externalities can be reduced not only by changes in consumption patterns, but also by making each activity cleaner (abatement efforts), how shall...

According to a theoretical model, school autonomy and parental participation in schools, can increase student learning through separate channels. Greater school autonomy increases the rent that can be distributed among stakeholders in the school, while institutions for parental participation...

In this theoretical analysis, the"principal"can be the head of the tax collection agency (or"government"or even citizens), the"supervisor"can be the tax collector, and the"agent"can be the taxpayer. The principal, interested in controlling an agent's socially costly activity ("cheating"), hires...

Without continuous monitoring of emissions, a pollution control agency needs to evaluate abatement options itself. Apart from making activities cleaner, it should also stimulate reductions in the level of activity in polluting sectors. The author develops an analytical framework to show that a...

Charging for social marginal costs is efficient regardless of price elasticities, but the importance of getting prices"right"is greater the more manageable, or elastic, the demand. In efficient pollution control programs, options to make cars cleaner are combined optimally with demand...

Struck by the fact that economists did not have a plausible model for why emissions standards, and mandated technologies, play a dominant role in pollution control, the author sought answers to two questions: 1) Should one stimulate emissions reductions by firms, and households, rich and poor,...

This paper presents the design of cost effective interventions to protect the environment from excessive pollution in developing countries. The concept of intervention is motivated by the typical explanation for environmental problems in economic theory--external effects. The aim of the paper is...

Heavy outdoor pollution is found in developing country cities such as Jakarta, Katowice, Mexico City, and Santiago. But most epidemiological studies of dose-response relationships between particulate air pollution (PM10) and premature deaths are from Western industrial nations. This study of...

In November 1989, Mexico City's administration imposed a regulation banning each car from driving on a specific day of the week. The regulation has been both popular and controversial. Some feel that it is a reasonable concession aimed at alleviating congestion and pollution problems. Others...