This paper considers how transferring some or all future responsibility for cleanup of a contaminated site affects the current owner's incentives to reduce contamination, given that he anticipates selling his property in the future. The results depend on the probabilities that the parties will...

Unfunded mandates are orders imposed by higher level governments on lower-level governments without providing the funds necessary for implementation. We highlight the following trade-off associated with unfunded mandates: on the one hand, no funding creates a risk of over-regulation by the...

Stated preference surveys often provide ambiguous descriptions of ecological commodities, yielding welfare estimates that have unclear interpretations and cannot be linked to measurable outcomes. This paper proposes guidelines to promote ecological content validity in survey scenarios and...

We consider a policy environment in which an entire industry is faced with possible imposition of an emissions tax if environmental goals are not met voluntarily. We develop a multiple-firm model of pollution abatement in this context. Using the concept of a self-enforcing equilibrium, we...

Besides climate change mitigation, policies encouraging the conversion of agricultural land to forest may generate additional environmental benefits. We estimate the reductions in agricultural externalities (soil erosion, nitrogen, and atrazine pollution) from an afforestation program in...

This paper estimates the effects of reduce water quality, and pollute, disturb open space and other amenities on housing prices or destroy natural habitats for wildlife. and development density in Portland, Oregon, Open space takes many forms. City within the framework of an urban equilibrium...

This paper evaluates the effects of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) on land values. A theoretical model is presented to analyze the interaction between farmers’ CRP participation decisions and land values. Empirical models are estimated to evaluate the effects of the CRP on land values....

Urbanization presents both opportunities and challenges for farmers and farm-supporting sectors on the urban fringe. This paper examines the effects of urbanization on the viability of input suppliers and output processors and on the cost and profitability of farming. An analytical model is...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of major drivers of land use change in China from 1988 to 2005. We compile a geographic information system database and develop a new method to estimate an econometric land use model that explicitly takes into account the spatial interactions between...

This national-scale, watershed-level analysis provides an empirical assessment of land use impacts on water quality and aquatic ecosystems in the United States. Results suggest that the level of conventional water pollution in a watershed is significantly affected by the amount of land allocated...