Economics has played an increasingly important role in shaping policy, in the United States and elsewhere. This chapter reviews some of the dimensions of the economic approach to analyzing, understanding, and developing solutions to the problem of climate change. We then turn to the issue of...

Computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling is an attempt to use general equilibrium theory as a tool for analysis of resource allocation and income distribution issues in market economies. Since the beginning of the 1990s, CGE modeling has been widely used for analysis of environmental policy...

I review the complex welfare economic issues that arise in environmental decision-making over very long periods, as in cases relating to climate change and biodiversity loss. I also consider the issues that arise in choosing a discount rate to apply to very long-run projects and indicate how...

Within the field of environmental economics, the role of technological change has received much attention. The long-term nature of many environmental problems, such as climate change, makes understanding the evolution of technology an important part of projecting future impacts. Moreover, in...

This survey examines the history and current practice in integrated assessment models (IAMs) of the economics of climate change. It begins with a review of the emerging problem of climate change. The next section provides a brief sketch of the rise of IAMs in the 1970s and beyond. The subsequent...

Environmental risks may comprise the most important policy-related application of the economics of risk and uncertainty. Many biases in risk assessment and regulation, such as the conservatism bias in risk assessment and the stringent regulation of synthetic chemicals, reflect a form of...