Using the case study of water pollution in the Flemish textile industry, we discuss three empirical questions concerning the use of emission standards. We find that the Becker result ("maximal fine / minimal inspection") does not hold if we include rule making, implementation and enforcement...

This paper is concerned with the issue of how to introduce monetary valuation into public decision-making. This issue is closely related to introducing rational procedures into public decision-making (Pearce, 2001). All public decision-making involves choice. To economists, rational choice means...

For the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, governments of annex I countries need to develop strategies and policies for greenhouse gas reduction. Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) offer CO2 emission reduction opportunities both home and abroad. Selection of effective forestry...

We combine the newest concepts of non-cooperative coalition theory with a computable general equilibrium model close to the seminal RICE-model of Nordhaus and Yang (1996) to determine stable coalition structures in a global warming game. We consider three coalition games that allow for the...

A number of recent studies on taxation in the presence of externalities in a second-best framework consider the implications of taking into account the feedback effects of environmental quality. This paper explores by means of GEM-E3, a computable general equilibrium model for the EU countries,...

In Flanders (Belgium), distribution companies are to a large extent owned by the municipalities and as such these municipalities collect an important share of the profits from electricity distribution. This situation (by many it is seen as a hidden tax) cannot be maintained because, in the...

This paper studies the order of magnitude of the pricing corrections that are needed to implement marginal social cost pricing for all transport modes. With the TRENEN model we study this question for 6 areas in the EU. As marginal social cost pricing may generate important surpluses and...

The purpose of this paper is to study, within a general equilibrium framework, the welfare implications of a balanced-budget tax reform for an externality-generating intermediate input in a second-best economic environment. For purposes of concreteness, the focus is on tax reform for freight...

We use a multi-task principal-agent model with moral hazard to study environmental regulation of a private agent by an EPA that can also allocate its budget to an alternative project with environmental benefits. In a first possible optimum, the EPA imposes a flat fine that exhausts the agent's...

This paper studies the relevance of strategic trade effects in the environmental policy for the European electricity sector. The production, investment and trade of electricity are modelled for four European countries. Three market regimes are distinguished: perfect competition, price regulation...