Energy efficiency and conservation are considered key means for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving other energy policy goals, but associated market behavior and policy responses have engendered debates in the economic literature. We review economic concepts underlying consumer...

Under conventional models, subsidizing energy efficiency requires electricity to be priced below marginal cost. Its benefits increase when electricity prices increase to finance the subsidy. With high prices, subsidies are counterproductive unless consumers fail to make efficiency investments...

I review two recent estimates of the costs and, in one case, benefits of federal regulation. The first is found in the Office of Management and Budget's 2005 report to Congress on the benefits and costs of federal regulations (OMB 2005b). OMB estimates annual benefits in 2004 to be $70 to $277...

We explore conditions determining which anti-leakage policies might be more effective complements to regulation of domestic greenhouse gas emissions. We consider four policies that could be combined with unilateral emissions pricing to counter effects on international competitiveness: a border...

This paper reviews literature on the optimal design of pricing policies to reduce urban automobile congestion. The implications of a range of complicating factors are considered, such as traffic bottlenecks, constraints on which roads and freeway lanes in the road network can be priced, driver...

This paper argues that an increased application of quasi-experimental and experimental techniques will improve understanding about core environmental economics questions. This argument is supported by a review of the limitations of associational evidence in assessing causal hypotheses. The paper...

Using Japanese facility-level data from an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development survey, we estimate the effects of implementation of ISO14001 and publication of environmental reports on the facilities' environmental performance. While most previous studies focused on an index...

This paper explores the relationships among economic development, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by focusing on a set of advanced economies, the U.S. states. Energy consumption and emissions grew 50-60 percent on average over the 1960-1999 period. The states' per capita...

We use analytical and numerical models to explain and quantify the welfare effects of subsidies for artemisinin combination treatments (ACTs), a valuable new class of antimalarial drugs. There are two (second-best) efficiency rationales for such subsidies: by expanding drug use, they reduce...

Following Executive Order 12898 in 1994, federal agencies have taken a variety of steps to incorporate environmental justice (EJ) into their programs and practices. Two scales at which these efforts are critical are regulatory design and enforcement. This study evaluates Regulatory Impact...