I examine the process that led to major reforms in agriculture in Sweden, culminating in 1990. Economists were largely responsible for putting the issue on the agenda. Using a public choice perspective, they reformulated the debate. Who benefited, who paid, and what were the true costs? The...

Do economists reach a conclusion on household and municipal recycling? I explore the policy judgments of published economists on recycling and find that there is no broad consensus. The mainstream recycling literature is dominated by a guided-market approach; taxes and subsidies are advocated to...

During the Doha Round at the World Trade Organization (WTO), reductions in trade barriers on environmental goods (EG) were put forward as a means of helping developed and developing countries alike deal with current environmental problems. We examine the potential effectiveness of such a...

An orderly transition to lower emission intensity in a small open economy requires a careful balance of exposing the economy to emissions costs but at a manageable level and pace. What is considered manageable for the economy is subject to debate, as is the size and distribution of impacts on...

Concerns about the environmental effects of procurement decisions are gaining momentum. We investigate how the environmental quality of public purchases changes under two possible institutional settings: a centralized one, where a single regulator is in charge of both production efficiency and...

The objective of this paper is to combine a real options framework with portfolio optimization techniques and to apply this new framework to investments in the electricity sector. In particular, a real options model is used to assess the adoption decision of particular technologies under...

We study a model which explains a politically determined pollution tax outcome under asymmetric duopoly. We assume an asymmetry of firms in the pollution emissions per unit of output. The polluting duopoly and three-stage political game are considered. We derive the equilibrium tax rate and show...

The purpose of environmental taxes is to correct the market when it fails to take environmental damages into account, i.e. to internalize the Pigouvian element. In addition, fiscal taxes are levied on both polluting and clean goods, which may follow the Ramsey principle. In practical policy,...

We experimentally study auctions versus grandfathering in the initial assignment of pollution permits that can be traded in a secondary spot market. Low and high emitters compete for permits in the auction, whereas permits are assigned for free under grandfathering. In theory, trading in the...

.There is a large consensus among international institutions and national governments to favor urban-containment policies –the compact city– as a way to improve the ecological performance of the urban system. This approach overlooks a fundamental fact: what matters for the ecological outcome...