It has been widely argued that tort law can provide an effective decentralizes mechanism by which a socially optimal level of externality control can be achieved. I reconsider this argument in the very common situation in which there are multiple contributors to an incident of external damages,...

This essay makes the case that Canada should abandon the Kyoto accord and refuse to participate in any such future accords. The first part to the argument reviews some of the key uncertainties in climate science, which are of sufficient magnitude as to indicate that we may still be all wrong...

Recent studies of climate anomalies have highlghted an apparent upward trend at the surface and the relevance absence of such a trend in the troposhere, which conflicts with predictions from climate models. Time series estimation methods are used to evaluate linear and piecewise-linear trends in...

It is to be expected that rational peole defend themselves against pollution externalities, at the very least through spatial separation from the source. Bu even in the simplist models, defensive generates nonconvexities, multiple optima, and inconclusive policy guidance. This calls into...

It is observed that many regulations specify the ratio of two variables, rather than the level of a single variable. This paper considers the design of such regulations.

Two methods for pricing an externality -taxes and strict liability- are modeled as lobbying contests with endogenous numbers of participants. In the tax contest, a regulator is susceptible to lobbying by polluters and victims. Under liability, the court's view is affected by legal representation.

Is liability law a suitable instrument for controlling externalities? The optimistic view from the law and economics literature conflicts with observed outcomes from jurisdictions relying on a tort-based procedure for controlling externalities. This discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that...