Employment contracts give a principal the authority to decide flexibly which task his agent should execute. However, there is a tradeoff, first pointed out by Simon (1951), between flexibility and employer moral hazard. An employment contract allows the principal to adjust the task quickly to...

We study the introduction of new technologies when their costs are subject to idiosyncratic uncertainty and can only be fully learned through individual experience. We set up a dynamic model of clean experience goods that replace old polluting consumption options and show how optimal regulation...

We study (energy) markets with dirty incumbents and costly entry by clean producers. For intermediate entry costs, the market outcome exhibits inefficient production and inefficient entry. A policy mix of three popular regulatory instruments—taxation on polluters, feed-in tariffs for clean...

The ability of companies to turn an environmental constraint into a source of strategic opportunities is a controversial topic in published research. The article, which is based on a comparative study of the CO2 emission reduction strategies implemented by the cement and chemical industries,...

A central issue in the study of sustainable development is the interplay of growth and sacrifice in a dynamic economy. This paper investigates the relationship among current consumption, sacrifice, and sustainability improvement in a general context and in two canonical, stylized economies. We...

I define “generous sustainability” as a combination of two conditions: neither instantaneous maximin income nor attainable maximin income should decrease over time. I provide a formal definition and study applications to an AK economy, a Ramsey economy, and a Climate Economy. Generosity is...