A growing body of literature suggests that political factors are one of the major causes of environmental damage in developing countries endowed with a relative abundance of renewable resources. This has prompted calls for the use of trade sanctions to encourage sustainable resource management...

Recent evidence suggests that special interest groups significantly affect tropical deforestation through lobbying. We develop an open-economy model in which resource conversion is determined by a self-interested government that is susceptible to the influences of the political contributions it...

We develop and estimate an econometric model of the relationship between several local and global air pollutants and economic development while allowing for critical aspects of the socio-political-economic regime of a State. We obtain empirical support for our hypothesis that democracy and its...

This paper shows how competition between interests can internalize economic externalities groups. The key feature is that some lobby groups give political voice to environmental demands. We illustrate the basic ideas in a common agency model of politics, into which we introduce a negative output...

This study explores the linkages between trade policy, corruption, and environmental policy. We begin by presenting a theoretical model that produces several testable predictions: i) trade liberalization raises the stringency of environmental policy; ii) corruption reduces environmental policy...

The use of tax policy to address environmental destruction is entering a new phase in Canadian history with the adoption of a Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which features a federal carbon tax regime. This Framework is designed as a backstop to existing sub-national...

In actual environmental policy, the design of actual pollution emission taxes differs significantly with the optimal Pigovian tax. In particular, earmarking prevails and actual taxes are usually combined with regulation. Furthermore tax rates are generally too low to significantly influence...

This paper develops a theory of environmental policy formation, taking into consideration the degree of corruptibility and political turbulence. The predictions that emerge are that the interaction between the two variables is important. Political instability has a negative effect on the...

Under the 'new normal' in the labor market, individuals can work remotely or in person, a hybrid work mode that became ubiquitous during the pandemic. This paper studies the efficiency of decentralized leadership in federations in which hybrid work is the modus operandi. Self-interested regional...