An increasingly popular instrument for solving environmental problems is the "public voluntary agreement (VA)", in which government offers technical assistance and positive publicity to firms that reach certain environmental goals. Prior papers treat such agreements as a superior, low-cost...

We extend the economic theory of regulation to allow for strategic self-regulation that preempts political action. When political "entry" is costly for consumers, firms can deter it through voluntary restraints. Unlike standard entry models, deterrence is achieved by overinvesting to raise the...

In Mexico, voluntary environmental incentive programs such as the Clean Industry certificates are hugely complementary to the traditional command-and-control regulations. Due to the limited resources of the regulatory agency, enrollment in voluntary programs offers the incentive of public...

This article is among the first to integrate current climate change science, particularly ongoing impacts and predicted impacts, with a detailed roadmap for substantial reform of our environmental processes for reviewing proposed renewable energy projects. Most existing articles either focus...

The construction of new power plants in the United States carries the risk of significantly contributing to global climate change. After concluding that the current federal regulatory response to climate change risks from power plants is inadequate, this Article examines three potential roles...

In recent years, companies have begun to pursue “green business” by taking actions that enhance both the firm’s environmental performance and its competitiveness. This Article describes the green business phenomenon and offers a new theory as to how environmental law and policy can promote...

Several researchers have suggested using some type of offset program as a way of getting selected countries or sectors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The reason for this interest is that offset programs have the potential to reduce the costs of achieving a given environmental target. For...

This paper shows empirically that the choice between auction and grandfathering for the distribution of pollution permits is not neutral in presence of political market failures as it motivates rent-seeking. We model the distribution of free permits in the US sulfur emissions trading system as...

We address in this paper the problem of comparing and choosing among different policy instruments to implement the incentive objective of an efficient deterrence of environmental degradation and the remedy objective of an efficient clean-up of damages and a proper compensation of victims. Two...

Fish stock depletion in the world's oceans and seas is one of the world's most serious environmental problems. In light of Greece's less than compliant State practice toward fishery management and conservation, this paper explores whether co-managed Fishery Protected Areas (FPAs) are an...