The Kyoto Protocol (1997) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) may come into force without U.S. participation, but its effects on climate change will be virtually non-existent. At the same time, the economic and scientific consensus points to the need for a...

Urban water conservation is typically achieved through prescriptive regulations, including the rationing of water for particular uses and requirements for the installation of particular technologies. A significant shift has occurred in pollution control regulations toward market-based policies...

Environmental policies typically combine the identification of a goal with some means to achieve that goal. This paper, prepared as a chapter draft for the forthcoming Handbook of Environmental Economics, focuses exclusively on the second component, the means--the "instruments"--of environmental...

This paper provides an economic perspective of environmental law and policy with regard to both normative and positive dimensions. It begins with an examination of the central problem in environmental regulation: the tendency of pollution generators in an unconstrained market economy to...

Scientific and economic consensus increasingly points to the need for a credible and cost-effective approach to address the threat of global climate change, but the Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change appears incapable of inducing significant participation and...

We critically review the Kyoto Protocol and thirteen alternative policy architectures for addressing the threat of global climate change. We employ six criteria to evaluate the policy proposals: environmental outcome, dynamic efficiency, cost effectiveness, equity, flexibility in the presence of...

Business leaders, government officials, and academics are focusing considerable attention on the concept of "corporate social responsibility" (CSR), particularly in the realm of environmental protection. Beyond complete compliance with environmental regulations, do firms have additional moral or...

We review major developments in national environmental policy during the Clinton Administration, defining environmental policy to include not only the statutes, regulations, and policies associated with reducing pollution, but also major issues of public lands management and species...

When and if the United States chooses to implement a greenhouse gas reduction program, it will be necessary to decide whether carbon sequestration policies — such as those that promote forestation and discourage deforestation — should be part of the domestic portfolio of compliance...

We conduct a national-scale study of the determinants of agricultural land values to better understand how current farmland prices are influenced by the potential for future land development. The theoretical basis for the empirical analysis is a spatial city model with stochastic returns to...