This paper makes some steps toward a formal political economy of environmental policy. Economists' quasi-unanimous preferences for sophisticated incentive regulation is reconsidered. First, we recast the question of instrument choice in the general mechanism literature and provide an incomplete...

We examine the productivity and profitability changes in the US electric generating plants during the SO2 trading regime. Input distance function is used to compute the cumulative Malmquist productivity and Fisher productivity indexes. By exploiting the duality between cost and input distance...

The paper investigates the incentives created by environmental policy instruments to adopt cleaner technology. In a framework with many asymmetric firms we show that, if the regulator has committed to a certain aggregate emission level before the new technology was available, taxes lead to...

This paper examines the role of product differentiation within the model of Sartzetakis (1997, 2004) and shows that consumer surplus may be reduced under a tradable emission permits system rather than a command and control system when there is a high degree of product differentiation or less...

This note focuses on the design of prevention programmes and the role of tort law regarding the control of risky activities, associated with unknown or imperfectly known risks, such as innovation or (long term) environmental damages. Together with the existence of perception bias on the side of...

This note focuses on the design of prevention programmes and the role of tort law regarding the control of risky activities, associated with unknown or imperfectly known risks, such as innovation or (long term) environmental damages. Together with the existence of perception bias on the side of...

Rather than allowing urban water prices to reflect scarcity rents during periods of drought-induced excess demand, policy makers have mandated command-and-control approaches, primarily rationing the use of water outdoors. While such policies are ubiquitous and likely inefficient, economists have...

Economic theory suggests that liberalization of trade between countries with differing levels of environmental protection could lead pollution- intensive industry to concentrate in the nations where regulations are lax. This effect, often referred to as the “pollution haven” hypothesis, is...

In 2003, an industry-financed, government-administered buyback of trawl fishing permits and vessels took place on the US West Coast, resulting in the retirement of about one-third of the limited-entry trawl fleet. The lack of cost data in this fishery precludes an analysis of how the buyback has...