Economists generally hold that environmental regulations impose constraints on the production possibilities set and are therefore potentially harmful to economic growth. In recent years, however, it has been recognized that environmental regulation can enhance the prospects for growth if...

There has been a recent economic literature arguing that international environmental agreements (IEAs) can have no real effect, on account of their voluntary and self-enforcing nature. This literature concludes that the terms of IEAs are the codification of the noncooperative equilibrium, and...

Population growth is often viewed as a most oppressive global problem with respect to environmental deterioration, but the relationships between population development, economic dynamics and environmental pollution are complex due to various feedback mechanisms. We analyze society’s economic...

This paper surveys recent advances in climate models by emphasising how quantitative instruments can answer the main crucial questions addressed by the policymakers involved and therefore aid the formulation of effective global climate policies. The limits of existing models are highlighted and...

Judged by the principle of intertemporal Pareto optimality, insecure property rights and the greenhouse effect both imply overly rapid extraction of fossil carbon resources. A gradual expansion of demand-reducing public policies - such as increasing ad-valorem taxes on carbon consumption or...

The environmental discussion is increasingly extended to the question of how to preserve biodiversity. As sensible regulation of biodiversity utilization uses politically set incentive schemes, it is required to discus the monetary value of biodiversity. Consequently, the relation between...

Income inequality in China is severe; measured by the Gini-coefficient it amounted to 0.46 in 2011; wealth distribution is even worse with 0.61. These disparities led to a major shift in emphasis of politics in general and of the Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development by the...

This thesis was written by Christian Beermann while he was a research assistant at the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at the University of Munich. It was completed in December 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in May 2015. The...

The paper addresses the dynamic-incentive effect of environmental policy instruments when innovation is uncertain and occurs in very complex industrial subsystems. The case of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is considered focusing predominantly on the effects of the European Directive adopted in...

We formulate two kinds of sustainability criteria by using feedback and arbitrary rules for selecting policy variables in non optimizing economies. We show that when policy variables are selected arbitrarily their accounting prices could determine sustainability in addition to the accounting...