In the past decade, innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have fueled a boom in the production of natural gas (as well as oil) from geological formations – primarily deep shales – in which hydrocarbon production was previously unprofitable. Impacts on U.S. fossil fuel...

The potential for impacts on water resources is often recognized as an important issue when shale gas development is discussed. Potential and significant impacts on groundwater and surface water resources might arise by wellbores traversing drinking-water aquifers, the use of significant water...

Booming production of oil and gas from shale, enabled by hydraulic fracturing technology, has led to tension between hoped-for economic benefits and feared environmental and other costs, with great associated controversy. Study of how policy can best react to these challenges and how it can...

In February, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came into force, but without participation by the United States. Its impacts on emissions of greenhouse gases — including carbon dioxide (CO2) , the primary anthropogenic driver of climate change...

This paper seeks to assess the current status of water quality trading and to identify possible problems and solutions. Water pollution permit trading programs have rarely been comprehensively described and analyzed in the peer-reviewed literature. Including active programs and completed or...

Urban water conservation is typically achieved through prescriptive regulations, including the rationing of water for particular uses and requirements for the installation of particular technologies. A significant shift has occurred in pollution control regulations toward market-based policies...

We estimate the price elasticity of water demand with household-level data, structurally modeling the piecewise-linear budget constraints imposed by increasing-block pricing. We develop a mathematical expression for the unconditional price elasticity of demand under increasing-block prices and...

Urban water pricing provides an opportunity to examine whether consumers react to the shape of supply functions. We carry out an empirical analysis of the influence of price and price structure on residential water demand, using the most price-diverse, detailed, household-level water demand data...

Robert Stavins and Sheila Olmstead propose ways to modify the Kyoto Protocol for its second commitment period (2012-2016) so that it will provide a way forward that is scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic.