This chapter provides an economic perspective of environmental law and policy. We examine the ends of environmental policy, that is, the setting of goals and targets, beginning with normative issues, notably the Kaldor–Hicks criterion and the related method of assessment known as...

The public trust doctrine is an ancient doctrine of public property law that governs sovereign stewardship of natural resources. The doctrine both promote public access to trust resources and requires sovereign protection of them for the benefit of the public, including future generations. The...

This article reviews the economics literature on monitoring and enforcement of environmental policy. In the last few years there has been a rapid growth in both theoretical developments and empirical studies of monitoring and enforcement. Various factors have contributed to this growth,...

This article reviews the economics literature on monitoring and enforcement of environmental policy. In the last few years there has been a rapid growth in both theoretical developments and empirical studies of monitoring and enforcement. Various factors have contributed to this growth,...

In the past two decades, the U.S. Congress has passed several major environmental statutes that designate natural resource management agencies as trustees of the resources on behalf of the public and that allow the trustees to recover damages for injuries to public resources from releases of...

Valuing the environment is an extremely difficult and contentious issue. Courts have struggled with this issue in determining natural resource damages (NRD) under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA)....

In this article, "things" lawyers call "principles" of environmental law will be discussed from a theoretical perspective. Three fundamental questions are answered: 1. Where does the high moral value that is usually attributed principles come from? 2. What is the exact difference between a...

A central issue in environmental law is the choice among regulatory instruments. From Pigou to Coase to the present, scholars have debated the relative merits of liability rules, property rules, technology standards, taxes, subsidies, and tradeable allowances. An emerging scholarly consensus in...

With the United States’ reentry to the Paris Agreement, there is now consensus among the world's largest carbon emitters that emissions must be reduced. But there is still a radical lack of consensus on what regulations should be chosen to reduce carbon. Worse, there is also a radical...