Virtually all U.S. states have now created voluntary cleanup programs (VCPs), offering liability relief and other incentives for responsible parties to remediate contaminated sites. We use a multinomial probit model to analyze participation in Oregon’s two VCPs. In contrast to previous VCP...

This report is meant to inform a joint publication by the World Bank and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) on the economic costs of air pollution. Air pollution is a global challenge and one that is acutely felt in developing countries. Illnesses caused by ambient and household...

In 2009 the World Bank launched the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC) study to provide up-to-date and consistent estimates of adaptation costs for developing countries. The EACC study addresses many of the shortcomings found in the adaptation cost literature. First, it defines...

This paper develops an analytical framework to examine how rural households in developing countries derive income from common-pool natural resource stocks. The focus is on how three types of private assets—land, livestock, and human capital—and one household characteristic—its...

This paper develops two-period analytical and numerical models to study the question: given a stock of greenhouse gases that poses a risk of future damages of unknown magnitude, and the possibility of learning about damages, how do sunk abatement capital and a nondegradable stock of greenhouse...