This article introduces a symposium on decentralized approaches to environmental management. These approaches include voluntary contributions to public goods, bundling contributions with private goods, and bundling the use of the environment with private goods. The article compares and contrasts...

Some twenty years ago, Harvard Business School economist and strategy professor Michael Porter challenged conventional wisdom about the impact of environmental regulation on business by declaring that well-designed regulation could actually enhance competitiveness. The traditional view of...

This article synthesizes the key conceptual insights from economics for the design of international policies to reduce deforestation and forest degradation and increase reforestation (known as REDD+) as part of the international climate change mitigation effort. Most of the emphasis is on the...

This article examines the extensive and evolving literature regarding the economics of water policy. It offers policymakers a way of thinking and a set of skills to (1) identify the least-cost way to reach a particular water quantity or quality objective or set of objectives (e.g., cost...

Economists are increasingly using weather data and climate model output in analyses of the economic impacts of climate change. This article introduces weather data sets and climate models that are frequently used, discusses the most common mistakes economists make in using these products, and...

At the core of environmental economics is the potential for a divergence between private and social costs (based on the work of A. C. Pigou) and the potential for private contracts to shrink this divergence (based on the work of Ronald Coase). A close examination of Pigou and Coase reveals that...

Interest in decentralized approaches to environmental management has grown significantly in recent years. Along with the standard instruments of environmental policy--quantity, price, and technology regulations--is a growing number of voluntary--and information-based approaches (VIBAs) that...

Climate policy poses a dilemma for environmental economists. The economic argument for stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement is far from clear. There is disagreement among both climate scientists and economists concerning the likelihood of alternative climate outcomes, the nature and extent...

What is the rationale for benefit-cost analysis (BCA)? The answer is critical for determining how BCA should be conducted and interpreted, and identifying its implications for policy. This article examines two possible justifications for BCA: positive and normative. The positive rationale is...

This article takes stock of economic modeling tools and findings related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation as well as other forestry activities in developing countries (REDD+), and discusses priorities for future research. The economics literature has...