In the dominant firm model, we show that an increase of the fringe's reserves of a nonrenewable resource may lead to a decrease in aggregate discounted social welfare. This happens when the difference between the fringe's extraction cost and the dominant firm's is positive and large enough. We...

We show that (i) subsidies for renewable energy policies with the intention of encouraging substitution away from fossil fuels may accentuate climate change damages by hastening fossil fuel extraction, and that (ii) the opposite result holds under some specified conditions. We focus on the case...

This paper proposes a welfare criterion that balances the need for development and the concern for the least advantaged generations, and explores its implications. This criterion, called the mixed Bentham-Rawls criterion, moderates the effect of discounting, yet permits some degree of...