This paper clarifies issues debated by A.C. Pigou and Frank Knight about correcting inefficient use of congestible resources. Instead of government-imposed Pigouvian access fees, Knight favored access fees set by private toll-setters. For concreteness we use the original example of commuters...

US state and local governments generate revenues from oil and gas production through a variety of mechanisms. In this paper, we quantify four leading sources: (1) state taxes levied on the value or volume of oil and gas produced; (2) local property taxes levied on the value of oil and gas property;...

A carbon tax provides certainty about the price of emissions, but it does so in a context characterized by uncertainty about its environmental benefits, economic costs, and international relations implications. Given current knowledge, suppose that the government sets a carbon tax schedule. In...

In the United States, standard homeowners insurance policies cover damages resulting from fire, wind, and hail, but exclude damages caused by floods and earthquakes. This is not the practice worldwide: several countries include all perils in homeowners insurance. Building on two fundamental...

Autonomous vehicles use sensing and communication technologies to navigate safely and efficiently with little or no input from the driver. These driverless technologies will create an unprecedented revolution in how people move, and policymakers will need appropriate tools to plan for and...

In this study, I estimate a causal effect of increased billing frequency on consumer behavior. I exploit a natural experiment in which residential water customers switched exogenously from bimonthly to monthly billing. Customers increase consumption by 3.5-5 percent in response to more frequent...

We identify behavioral responses, defined as “voluntary exposure benefits,” that have the potential to offset measured costs of climate change. We quantify these responses for the transportation sector. We find warmer temperatures and reduced snowfall are associated with an increase in fatal...

Insurance is an essential component of household and community resilience: it protects insureds financially against disaster losses, can encourage investments in cost-effective mitigation measures through premium reductions, and facilitates rebuilding of property and long-term recovery following...

The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), passed at the end of 2002, established a public-private partnership between the US federal government, private insurers, and all commercial enterprises operating on US soil. Renewed and modified by the US Congress and the president in January 2015 until...

The US Endangered Species Act (ESA) protects imperiled species by prohibiting harm to listed species and their habitat. Over the last 20 years, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service have developed programs to increase management flexibility under the ESA and to...