There is a large literature on the role infrastructure plays in economic development, but few papers document the causal effect of infrastructure on the sustainability of natural resources. We examine the effect of the arrival of two new national highways on ground water levels in a small...

This paper examines the sequence of optimal extraction of nonrenewable resources in the presence of multiple demands. We provide conditions under which extraction of a nonrenewable resource may be discontinuous over the course of its depletion

Billions of dollars will be spent globally to upgrade water infrastructure in the coming years. The standard economic prescription is privatization and the introduction of water markets. A major lesson from the recent privatization debacle in electricity is that prescriptions for reform must...

The US Clean Air Act allows individual states to implement their own clean fuel programs to address local or regional air quality concerns. These regulations have led to a proliferation of fuel blends known as "boutique fuels." For each of the three grades of gasoline, more than 15 types of...

The Kyoto Protocol is now a legally binding treaty signed by 141 nations, although not by major polluting nations such as the United States, China and India. Can nuclear power, which is carbon free, save Kyoto and solve the global warming problem? Nuclear energy is a tough sell in the developed...

Environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol aim to stabilize the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which is mainly caused by the burning of nonrenewable resources such as coal. We characterize the solution to the textbook Hotelling model when there is a ceiling on the stock of...

French Abstract: La pollution due à l'utilisation de combustibles tels que le bois de chauffage et les résidus de récolte est un problème environnemental majeur dans les pays en développement. Elle entraîne une mauvaise qualité de l'air intérieur et a des effets néfastes sur la santé...