We link farmland values to climatic, soil, and socioeconomic variables for counties east of the 100th meridian, the historic boundary of agriculture not primarily dependent on irrigation. Degree days, a non-linear transformation of the climatic variables suggested by agronomic experiments as...

This paper explains the economic conception of water - how economists think about water. It consists of two main sections. First, it reviews the economicconcept of value, explains how it is measured, and discusses how this has been applied to water in various ways. Then it considers the debate...

This paper studies the reality and the potential for green industrial policy. We provide a summary of the green industrial policies, broadly understood, for five countries. We then consider the relation between green industrial policies and trade disputes, emphasizing theBrazil-US dispute...

The uncertainty of future economic development affects the term structure of discount rates and, thus, the intertemporal weights that are tobe used in cost benefit analysis. The U.K. and France have recently adopteda falling term structure to incorporate uncertainty and the U.S. is consideringa...

Concern about the possible affects of biofuels on deforestation have led to assigning biofuel producers with the responsibility for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the indirect land use changes (ILUC) associated with their activities when assessing their compliance with biofuel policies. We...

Commodity prices have been rising at unprecedented rates over the last two years. The primary objective of this paper is to assess if and how firms pass through upstream cost increases to final good prices. First, we investigate what happens to the shelf prices (the regular prices) of goods that...

The paper explores the consequences of limited substitutability in welfare between environmental and produced goods for long-term evaluation. I show how the magnitude and time development of optimal social discount rates depend on the substitutability between the different classes of goods. The...

We provide a unified discussion of the issues that confront negotiators of the next international climate agreement. We offer a novel proposal that entitles countries to discharge their treaty obligations by paying a “fineâ€. This escape clause provides cost insurance, simplifies the...

We analyze the impact of damage uncertainty on optimal mitigation policies in the integrated assessment of climate change. Usually, these models analyzeuncertainty by averaging deterministic paths. In contrast, we build a consistentmodel deriving optimal policy rules under persistent...

The Central and West Coast groundwater basins (“basins†or “Central and West Coast Basinsâ€) are located in southern Los Angeles County. Groundwater produced from these basins provides approximately forty percent of the water supply for residents and businesses in all or parts...