Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions...

The problem of global climate change presents overwhelming factual, analytical, and normative challenges. Nordhaus surveys this terrain bravely and mostly successfully. He explains the scientific/economic consensus that the planet is warming, that people are responsible, that the consequences...

This paper surveys the existing literature on diffusion of environmentally beneficial technology. Overall, it confirms many of the lessons of the larger literature on technology diffusion: diffusion often appears slow when viewed from the outside; the flow of information is an important factor in...

There is a strong foundation in theoretical and empirical research in economics for the proposition that efficient climate policy must include both carbon-price policy and technology policy. Even the most modest projections of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reductions needed to moderate climate change...

The explosion in the patenting rate in the U.S. during the last half of the 1990s is often attributed partly to an apparent decline in examination standards. We estimate a simultaneous equation model accounting for the fact that a decline in examination standards would itself induce an increase...

Concern about carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas has focused renewed attention on energy conservation because fossil fuel combustion is a major source of CO2 emissions. Since it is generally acknowledged that energy use could be significantly reduced through broader adoption of existing...