Climate change, whether through increased temperatures or sea-level rise, is likely to affect the spatial and temporal pattern of tourism demand. Despite the cultural and economic importance of tourism and its overwhelming dependence on climatic factors, relatively few studies have tackled the...

In the absence of markets for environmental quality, researchers resort to stated and revealed preference techniques to estimate the benefits of environmental programs. One of the most widely used revealed preference approaches is hedonic property value models, where the value of an...

There are hundreds of thousands of crude oil and natural gas wells across North America that are currently not producing oil or gas. Many of these wells have not been permanently decommissioned to meet environmental standards for permanent closure, but are in an inactive state that enables them...

Policy analysis of nonmarket goods requires accurate knowledge about the behavior of economic agents. This dissertation explores several facets of behavior models in recreational angling for three New England groundfish species.Stated preference methods are used frequently for nonmarket...

Due to the growing concerns with climate change and energy supply, Energy Performance Contracting (EPC), which uses the guaranteed future utility savings to repay the initial renovation investments, becomes increasingly popular. However, most Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) set the savings...

The formation of harvest cooperatives has recently generated considerable interest among fishermen and regulators as an alternative to other rights-based systems such as individual transferable quotas. Many consider the promotion of self-governance to be essential to more sustainable, equitable...

The focus of this thesis is on whether or not it is possible to decouple economic growth from the physical growth of the economy and its associated negative environmental pressures and pollution. The thesis demonstrates that it is possible to achieve significant levels of decoupling of economic...

This thesis covers three issues: the aggregate and welfare effects of environmental policies when plants are heterogeneous; what causes the different patterns of employment dynamics in small versus large firms over business cycles; and the welfare costs of expected and unexpected inflation. In...

This research investigated the general association between corporate environmental performance and the firms' annual returns independent of any particular environmental event. The association analysis was based on the most recent environmental data for the years 2006, 2007, and 2008. The results...

Master of Arts