The recycling of packaging waste is an objective of the Community with very ambitious recycling rate targets laid down in the European law. Research on the operations and on the financial and economic costs that resulted from this environmental policy is an ongoing effort. Currently, there is...

All European Union (EU) member states have to comply with the demanding recycling rates targets that were set for the recovery of packaging waste in the Directive 94/62/EC. Nevertheless, each country has its own system for accomplishing these targets. Some already had national legislation when...

Noise pollution is detrimental to health and to the cognitive development of children. This is not only true for extreme levels of noise in the neighborhood of an airport but also for traffic noise in urban areas. Using a census of preschool children, we show that children exposed to intensive...

Transfers have recently become the most important fiscal policy tool of the U.S. Government. Moreover, within the transfer category, refundable tax credits have reached the same magnitude as unemployment insurance, yet little research documents the macroeconomic implications of tax credits. The...

In light of climate change mitigation efforts, revenues from climate policies are growing, with no consensus yet on how they should be used. Potential efficiency gains from reducing distortionary taxes and the distributional implications of different revenue recycling schemes are currently...

This paper studies the impact of majority voting on interregional competition for firms. We model the competition as a first-price sealed bid auction under full information between two regions inhabited by low- and high-skilled individuals. The firm's location causes an increase in wages for the...

Climate policies overlapping a cap-and-trade scheme are generally considered not to change domestic emissions. In a two-sector general equilibrium model where only one sector is covered by a cap, we find that such policies do have a net impact on carbon emissions through inter-sectoral leakage....

This paper studies the long-term distribution of energy-efficiency outcomes in the German residential sector. To uncover the underlying energy efficiency of buildings, we estimate the causal response of building-level heat energy demand to variability in heating degree days. We examine...

Carbon pricing policies worldwide are increasingly coupled with direct or indirect subsidies for emission-intensive and trade-exposed firms. We analyze the incentives created by novel forms of emissions intensity-based rebating (IBR) and contrast them with more common approaches like...