Modern geographic information system (GIS) tools have allowed a more careful examination of how the physical characteristics of a property's neighborhood and surrounding land uses are capitalized into property values. The ArcGIS Viewshed tool is a case in point: it identifies the cells in an...

There is growing interest in floodplain conservation as a flood damage reduction strategy, particularly given the co-benefits protected lands provide. We evaluate one such investment—a greenway along the Meramec River in St. Louis County, Missouri. We estimate the opportunity costs, the...

This study examines the redistributional effects of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) using a national database of premium, coverage, and claim payments at the county level between 1980 and 2006. Measuring progressivity as the departure from per capita county income proportionality, we...

Eco-certification of coffee, timber, and other high-value agricultural commodities is increasingly widespread. In principle, it can improve commodity producers' environmental performance, even in countries where state regulation is weak. However, evidence needed to evaluate this hypothesis is...

This study estimates the impacts on a disaggregated set of California industries of introducing a carbon pricing policy within the state.Two time horizons are considered, the "very short run" and the "short run". To limit adverse impacts on the state's energy-intensive and trade-exposed (EITE)...

This paper estimates the welfare costs of the main medium-term options for significantly reducing U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, including carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems applied economy-wide and to the power sector only, and an emissions rate standard for power...

This paper presents an overview of the economics literature on the effect of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards on the new vehicle market. Since 1978, CAFE has imposed fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. market. This paper reviews the history of the...

The United States and many other countries are dramatically tightening fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles. Higher fuel economy reduces per-mile driving costs and may increase miles traveled, known as the rebound effect. The magnitude of the elasticity of miles traveled to fuel economy...

When every individual's effort imposes negative externalities, self-interested behavior leads to socially excessive effort. To curb these excesses when effort cannot be monitored, competing output-sharing partnerships can form. With the right-sized groups, aggregate effort falls to the socially...

Over the past several years, labeling schemes that focus on a wide range of environmental and social metrics have proliferated. Although little empirical evidence has been generated with respect to carbon footprint labels, much can be learned from our experience with similar product labels. We...