Policies that encourage recycling may be used to reduce environmental costs from waste disposal because direct restrictions on disposal are difficult to enforce. Four recycling policies have been advanced: (i) taxes on the use of virgin materials, (ii) deposit/refund programs, (iii) subsidies to...

In this article, I present a model of cumulative innovation to investigate what factors should influence a court's decision when a patentee alleges that another inventor has infringed the patent with an improved version of the patented product. The model reveals how the optimal patent would...

Many public policies for hazardous waste raise the costs of legal disposal. Concerned about substitution of illegal disposal, economists have instead recommended policies that reward desirable waste management alternatives. This article studies the empirical determinants of dumping as reported...