This article assesses the relative effects on household recycling across characteristics of individuals and their households, their counties, and the states in which they live. We use a representative United States sample of over 380,000 household observations to explore which factors promote or...

In the debate on international waste trade, the focus on resource efficiency and recycling has gradually begun to accompany the focus on negative environmental externalities. In this context, we examine the impact of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) on the export of waste batteries (WB)....

The rise of shale gas and tight oil development has triggered a major debate about hydraulic fracturing (HF). In an effort to mitigate risks from HF, especially with respect to water quality, many U.S. states have introduced disclosure mandates for HF wells and fracturing fluids. We use this...

Environmental law relies on self-monitoring by regulated parties, but reporting violations persist in nontrivial numbers. Failure to report on time can mask pollution problems and impede efficient enforcement efforts. We examine correlates of late reporting and present results of a collaborative...

Under most federal environmental laws and some health and safety laws, states may apply for “primacy,” that is, authority to implement and enforce federal law, through a process known as “authorization.” Some observers fear that states use authorization to adopt more lax policies in a...

In "The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin argues that those who can use a resource for free consume more of it than they would if they had to pay for it. Public resources eventually collapse because people overuse them. Hardin’s widely accepted argument seems correct as far as it goes,...

Every production process gives rise to unintended outputs. We argue that whether an output is desired or undesired, is not given per se, but depends on the economic circumstances which change over time. As a result, by-products of one industry, first perceived as non-marketable wastes, may...

What is the rate at which people discount future lives saved? The answer to this question has important implications when comparing policies on the grounds of cost per life saved, especially in the context of hazardous waste site remediation, where risk reductions may occur at different times,...

L’economia dell’attuazione delle politiche ambientali: il caso cinese, di Miron Mushkat e Roda Mushkat La letteratura sulle strategie di politica ambientale sta crescendo rapidamente e diventando sempre più sofisticata. Tuttavia essa tende più al rigore teorico che alla robustezza empirica...

Economic theory developed in the prior literature indicates that under the joint and several liability imposed by the federal Superfund statute, the government should recover more of its costs of cleaning up contaminated sites than it would under nonjoint liability, and the amount recovered...