In 2005, the European Union introduced the largest and most ambitious emissions trading program in the world to meet its Kyoto commitments for the containment of global climate change. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has some distinctive features that differentiate it from the more...

This paper reviews first the theoretical literature and then the empirical studies of interjurisdictional competition among governments. Of central interest is the normative question of whether fiscal and regulatory competition promotes a more efficient functioning of the public sector or...

This paper is the Presidential Address to the Sixteenth Annual Convention of the Eastern Economic Association. It offers some reflections on the role that economics has, and can, play in the determination of environmental policy. These reflections address the choice of policy instruments for...

This paper explores the role for economic instruments in the control of global warming. It begins with a review of what theory and practice have taught us about these instruments--pollution taxes and systems of transferable permits--in the pursuit of domestic environmental management. It then...