This paper asks whether the European Union's (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme has encouraged investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in developing countries. So far, it has produced very little investment in either in spite of the EU's decision to allow credits for projects...

Regulatory reform through the use of economic incentive programs such as emissions-trading markets has become increasingly popular because of the promise of substantial cost savings. However, these prospective economic benefits will not be the sole determinant of whether these reforms will be...

The Porter hypothesis posits that a properly designed environmental standard can enhance productivity and competitiveness. Using a unique data set from the Thailand Institute of Directors' Corporate Governance Benchmarking Survey, this study provides indirect support to the Porter hypothesis....

The paper outlines the role of insurance as a political economic tool that can be used to face the issue of climate change. The magnitude of potential loss, the adverse social and economic consequences for millions of people and considerable fiscal strain imposed on the government budget by...

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...

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 the realm of environmental policy instrument choice, there is great divergence between the recommendations of normative economic theory and positive political reality. Four gaps stand out. First, despite the advantages of market-based policy instruments, they have been used to a minor degree,...

This article evaluates an environmental protection instrument that the literature has hitherto largely overlooked, Dirty Input Limits (DILs), quantitative limits on the inputs that cause pollution. DILs provide an alternative to cumbersome output-based emissions trading and performance...

We aim to integrate information, monitoring and enforcement costs into the choice of environmental policy instruments. We use a static partial equilibrium framework to study different combinations of regulatory instruments (taxes, standards...) and enforcement instruments (criminal fine,...