Whereas 'traditional environmental economics' - considering pervasive 'market failure' in the form of negative externalities as the root cause of the problem of environmental degradation - argues for specific government intervention in the market process via a host of different measures to...

Recently, attention has turned to the use of voluntary agreements between regulators and polluters as an alternative to mandatory approaches based on regulation or legislation. Voluntary agreements have the potential to reduce compliance costs by allowing greater flexibility and to reduce...

Voluntary agreements with polluting industries are becoming a popular alternative to traditional environmental regulation. One reason may be that voluntary agreements can reduce compliance costs of polluting industries. In this paper we develop a family of simple policy formulation and...

Why do governments and industry contract voluntary agreements (VA) for the improvement of the environment? The number of agreements in this field is constantly increasing and an important one was recently signed in France on carwaste processing. This agreement aims to trigger the emergence of...

Voluntary Agreements (VAs) are becoming increasingly prominent in many countries as a policy instrument for achieving improvements in the environmental performance of industry. They aim to encourage industry led initiatives to set and meet environmental goals, to raise the environmental profile...

This paper investigates the economic implications of a comprehensive approach to sustainable greenhouse policies that strives to stabilise the atmospheric concentration of the five major greenhouse gases at an ecologically determined threshold level. In a theoretical optimisation model...

This paper concerns optimal emissions of greenhouse gases when catastrophic consequences are possible. A numerical model is presented which takes into account both continuous climate-feedback damages as well as the possibility of a catastrophic outcome. The uncertainty in the model concerns...

The goal of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) is to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at levels which avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate (United Nations, 1992). This paper examines the performance and cost characteristics...

We model the occurrence of an environmental accident as a stochastic event, in particular the situation of an oil spill is explored. Characteristics of the ship operator, and the different types of the ship's operating environment determine a stochastic process governing the time patterns and...

This paper critically assesses the literature on the relationship between economic integration and the environment. In particular, we investigate how trade liberalisation and capital market integration affect environmental policy and thus environmental quality. Conversely, we also study how...