Choosing long-term goals is a key issue in the climate policy agenda. Targets should be easily measurable and feasible, but also effective in damage control. Once goals are set globally, given the uncertainty affecting long-term strategies and region-specific preferences for different policy...

Technical change is generally considered the key to the solution of environmental problems, in particular global phenomena like climate change. Scientists differ in their views on the thaumaturgic virtues of technical change. There are those who are confident that pollution-free technologies...

Although developing countries face a drastic increase in their greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation actions against climate change do not rank high among their priorities. The obvious reason lies in the necessity for them to continue the development process, which is characterised by pressing...

The relationship between economic growth and pollution is very complex, depending upon a host of different factors. Thus the study of this phenomenon represents a challenging endeavor. While most economics papers begin with theory and support that theory with econometric evidence, the literature...

There is a long-standing debate on the relationship between economic development and environmental quality. From a sustainable development viewpoint there has been a growing concern that the economic expansion of the world economy will cause irreparable damage to our planet. In the last few...

Sunsets - or expiring provisions - have long been a feature of the tax code, but they changed dramatically in character and magnitude in recent years as policy makers aimed to hide the costs of recent tax cuts. Removing all the sunsets in the tax code would reduce revenue by almost $2 trillion...

This paper studies constitutional restrictions on the tax base that protect future generations from expropriation and improve the optimality of investment in Intergenerational Public Goods (IPGs). The choice of the tax base matters because it affects how intergenerational (IG) spillovers are...

In this paper we present some numerical simulations with the MacGEM model to evaluate the consequences of the recent Marrakesh agreements and the defection of the USA for the Kyoto Protocol. MacGEM is a global marginal abatement cost model for carbon emissions from fossil fuel use based on the...

This paper examines recent theoretical developments of the theory of coalition stability. It focuses on the relationship between the incentives to defect from a coalition, the size of the resulting equilibrium coalition structure, and the different assumptions on membership rules, coalition...

In this short story Leon, a man of African descent, and Pete, a man of unknown ethnicity, are discussing the results of some recent presidential primaries. It appears that a man named Jim, who has won the last two primaries, might become the next president, and Elizabeth, a woman of Samoan...