The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, whereby pollution first increases then decreases as income increases, has generated a large literature beginning in the 1990s. The current analysis contributes to that literature in two main ways, one theoretical and one empirical. First, a novel...

This paper examines biofuels from an economic perspective and evaluates the merits of promoting biofuel production in the context of the policies' multiple objectives, life-cycle implications, pecuniary externalities, and other unintended consequences. The policy goals most often cited are to...

Recent literature has investigated whether the welfare gains from environmental taxation are larger or smaller in a second-best setting than in a first-best setting. This question has mainly been addressed indirectly, by asking whether the second-best optimal environmental tax is higher or lower...

This paper examines biofuels from an economic perspective and evaluates the merits of promoting biofuel production in the context of the policies' multiple objectives, life-cycle implications, pecuniary externalities, and other unintended consequences. The policy goals most often cited are to...

Recent literature has investigated whether the welfare gains from environmental taxation are larger or smaller in a second-best setting than in a first-best setting. This question has mainly been addressed indirectly, by asking whether the second-best optimal environmental tax is higher or lower...

The analysis finds that in addition to U-shaped paths of environmental quality arising for growth in income per capita, growth in population can also produce socially efficient patterns that are U-shaped. Sufficient conditions for both types of paths are identified for a range of models and...