This is the inaugural paper that introduced a new indicator of sustainability, which the author coins HANPP: Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production. This indicator estimates the extent of human use of ecological and land resources, contributing to the nascent ecological-footprint movement...

The distinctive nature of environmental quality problems in agriculture — an industry based on the extraction of highly variable natural resources under stochastic conditions — has important implications for policy design. First, we examine the source of environmental quality problems and...

China’s exceptional economic expansion has led to rising energy demand and pollution as well as other environmental pressures. Strong efforts by the government have moderated emissions of some types of air and water pollution from high levels but others, including greenhouse gas emissions,...

In this review we synthetize the existing contributions that use econometric approaches to examine the influence of institutions and governance on environmental policy, environmental outcomes, and investments. The paper describes how the relationship between institutions and various response...

In recent years, extensive literature on the Environmental Kuznets Curve leading to optimistic policy conclusions has attracted great attention. However, the underlying cross-section estimations are not very reliable. Accordingly, this contribution uses time series data for a single country with...

In this review we synthetize the existing contributions that use econometric approaches to examine the influence of institutions and governance on environmental policy, environmental outcomes, and investments. The paper describes how the relationship between institutions and various response...

We provide ex-post empirical analysis of the effects of climate policies on carbon dioxide emissions at the aggregate national level. Our results are based on a comprehensive database of 121 countries. As climate policies we examine carbon taxes and emissions trading systems (ETS), as well as...

We introduce a "smart" cap and trade system that eliminates the welfare costs of asymmetric information (“uncertainty”). This cap responds endogenously to technology or macroeconomic shocks, relying on the market price of certificates to aggregate information. It allows policy makers to...

"Prices versus quantities" (Weitzman 1974), a hugely influential paper, is widely cited (and taught) in current debates about the best policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The paper's criterion for ranking policies suggests that technological uncertainty favors taxes over cap and trade....