An increasingly popular instrument for solving environmental problems is the "public voluntary agreement (VA)", in which government offers technical assistance and positive publicity to firms that reach certain environmental goals. Prior papers treat such agreements as a superior, low-cost...

An increasingly popular instrument for solving environmental problems is the "public voluntary agreement (VA)", in which government offers modest technical assistance and positive publicity to firms that reach certain environmental goals. Prior papers treat such agreements as a superior,...

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...

As more ethanol plants throughout the United States produce cellulosic ethanol at a commercial level, ethanol policies must catch up. Cellulosic ethanol, regarded as more sensible than corn ethanol in several environmental criteria, is a biofuel made of nonfood materials. Policies to spur...

Whether or not the federal government should price carbon continues to be debated. There were several scholarly pieces examining the relative advantages and disadvantages of cap and trade v. a carbon tax at the time of Congressional Debate on the American Clean Energy and Security Act in 2010....

This paper examines the extent to which income taxation interferes with cap-and-trade environmental regulation, and reaches two conclusions. First, within a single tax period, imposing an income tax will not undermine the cost-effectiveness of cap-and-trade regulation. Second, taxes may distort...

Environmental policies typically combine the identification of a goal with some means to achieve that goal. This chapter focuses exclusively on the second component, the means – the “instruments” – of environmental policy, and considers, in particular, experience around the world with...