The economic effects of environmental policies are of central interest to policymakers. The traditional approach sees environmental policies as a burden on economic activity, at least in the short to medium term, as they raise costs without increasing output and restrict the set of production...

This paper assesses the effect of environmental regulations on plant survival and emissions using data on the extent of vintage differentiation of regulations (VDR5) regarding air pollution emission limit values for existing and new coal-fired power plants. Focussing on NOx and SOx emissions,...

This article reviews the empirical literature combining economic and environmental performance data at the micro-level, i.e. firm- or facility-level. The literature has generally found a positive and statistically significant correlation between economic performance, as measured by stock market...

Traditional measures of multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth generally do not recognise natural capital as inputs into the production process. Since productivity growth is measured as the residual between output and input growth, it will pick up the growth in unmeasured inputs, which can lead...

Important challenges for the future of Austrian well-being arise from demographic and environmental trends. The ageing of the population calls for a fair balance between life-time pension contributions and entitlements, drawing on the recent pension reform. Such progress will allow Austrians to...

The IPAT-model developed by Ehrlich and Holdren is widespread in ecological economics in order to quantify the impact of population growth on environmental deterioration. We comment on this model and extensions proposed by several authors from a theoretical and empirical point of view.

Getting tax and transfer systems to efficiently deliver sufficient revenues to achieve macroeconomic targets, address goals in re-distribution and social welfare, encourage employment, accommodate business-competitiveness concerns and incorporate environmental issues is difficult. In Australia,...

With strong economic growth overall and an increasingly important role as a regional economic centre, Luxembourg is experiencing mounting environmental pressures. This is mainly a result of a growing population and a rapid increase in transport, which is dominated by the car, as the number of...

As its workforce ages and major economies shift towards producing higher value-added goods and services, New Zealand will face increasing challenges to remain globally competitive and maintain high living standards. Future growth will need to come increasingly from productivity gains, and...