The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for understanding how analysis of costs and benefits might be incorporated into an assessment of regulatory policies affecting deepwater drilling. We begin by providing a framework for analyzing the life-cycle impacts of oil drilling...

As a consequence of the negotiations for a new agricultural policy of the EU the multifunctionality of agricultural production has come into new prominence in the public. The philosophy that subsidies for the agricultural sector should be calculated not only by agricultural market production but...

Food safety shocks can threaten the health of consumers, create havoc within an industry and result in severe losses to producers. Governments often attempt to aid food safety by mandating standards and inspection of food products to supplement the efforts by private firms and industries. This...

To justify substantial carbon emission reductions, recent literature on cost-benefit analysis of climate change suggests discounting environmental quality at a lower discount rate than the standard consumption discount rate. Recent literature also shows that a theoretical foundation for such a...

The Value of a Statistical Life is a key input into the calculation of the benefits of environmental policies that save lives. To date, the VSL used in environmental policy analyses has not been adjusted for age or the cause of death. Air pollution regulations, however, are linked to reductions...

Recent work by Kahneman and others has led to a new focus in economics on a wellbeing-based approach to utility. This suggests that ‘experienced utility' is an alternative and more appropriate basis for the measurement of economic value compared with ‘decision utility'. In this paper, we...

Should public assets such as infrastructure, education, and the environment earn the same return as private investments? We consider if time-inconsistent decision-makers can gain from institutions that enforce cost-benefit rules on large projects that influence the economy as a whole. Long-term...

The Enviroclub initiative was developed by three federal government agenciesCanada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, Environment Canada and the National Research Council Canadaand launched in 2001 to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in improving their profitability and...

Unreliable travel times cause substantial costs to travelers. Nevertheless, they are not taken into account in many cost-benefit-analyses (CBA), or only in very rough ways. This paper aims at providing simple rules on how variability can be predicted, based on travel time data from Dutch...

The Enviroclub initiative was developed by three federal government agencies—Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, Environment Canada and the National Research Council Canada—and launched in 2001 to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in improving their profitability...