Abstract This paper looks at a model in which two countries trade agricultural and manufactured commodities. The manufactured-goods sector produces with increasing returns to scale under conditions of monopolistic competition. It is shown that an increase in land endowment (or an increase in...

Social norms and intrinsic motivations lead to environmentally friendly behaviour even in the absence of environmental policy. This paper looks at the interactions of social norms and environmental regulation in their impact on individual behaviour. People obtain social rewards for voluntary...

The paper combines an economic-geography model of agglomeration and periphery with a model of species diversity and looks at optimal policies of biodiversity conservation. The subject of the paper is natural biodiversity, which is inevitably impaired by anthropogenic impact. Thus, the economic...

The paper looks at a model of directed technical change in an environmental-economics context. Firms can do conventional or green R&D or they can abate emissions at the end of pipe. The paper has two main foci. On the one hand, it investigates the impact of environmental regulation on the...

Is tax competition good for economic growth? The paper addresses this question by means of a simple model of endogenous growth. There are many small jurisdictions in a large federation and individual governments benevolently maximise the welfare of immobile residents. Investment is costly:...

In situations where the traditional instruments of trade policy are not available, protection for import-competing industries can be given only indirectly. One of the candidates of giving indirect subsidies is environmental regulation. The competitiveness of a domestic industry can be improved...

Lobbying activities bias the political decision making process. There tend to be deviations from the socially optimal solutions. This paper shows that, in an international context, this bias is not necessarily harmful from an economic-welfare point of view. It may correct externalities that...

It has been argued in the literature that, interjurisdictional competition forces the public sector to increase its efficiency and thus helps to tame Leviathan governments. The paper addresses this hypothesis by means of a simple taxcompetition model with a Leviathan state. It is seen that the...

Ecological dumping is a catchword used in the public discussion on environmental policies in open economies to characterize situations in which a country uses a too-lax environmental legislation as an instrument of achieving trade-related economic policy goals. The paper first tries to define...