We construct a panel of satisfaction with democracy (SWD) and economic, institutional, and environmental variables for 1990-2001 for fifteen European countries. In this sample, controlling for a number of factors, we find that average SWD is higher where (1) there exists an energy / CO2 tax,...

Whether a country is able effectively to address collective action problems is a critical test of its ability to fulfill the demands of its citizens to their satisfaction. We study one particularly important collective action problem: the environment. Using a large panel dataset covering 25...

The US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulation mandates, subject to a civil penalty, producers to achieve a certain fleet average fuel economy on sales of new passenger cars. Analysing the incentive effects of CAFE, we find that it affords differential tax treatment to car models with...

This paper examines the role of liability for past environmental contamination in the privatization processes of Central and Eastern Europe. The theoretical section establishes a link between a risk-averse investor’s amount of information regarding the extent of past environmental...

Because standards and regulations respond to a society's demand for specific public goods, we expect them to be shaped by preferences, endowments, technologies - the fundamental determinants of this demand. There is no a priori reason why standards should be equal in different societies. This...

Traditional analyses of standards in international trade identify standards as government regulations and investigate the potential for distortion of trade flows. In reality, however, private industry groups exercise critical influence on the determination of technical standards. The composition...

There are several judicial cases under the US environmental law, in which a lending bank is liable for cleaning up environmentally hazardous materials generated by its borrowing firm. Such a liability rule, so-called lender liability, is applied to a lending bank which has been actively involved...

Two methods for pricing an externality -taxes and strict liability- are modeled as lobbying contests with endogenous numbers of participants. In the tax contest, a regulator is susceptible to lobbying by polluters and victims. Under liability, the court's view is affected by legal representation.

Is liability law a suitable instrument for controlling externalities? The optimistic view from the law and economics literature conflicts with observed outcomes from jurisdictions relying on a tort-based procedure for controlling externalities. This discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that...

Since only the residents of a single jurisdiction are affected by local consumption externalities, local regulation might be expected to be inefficient. Yet when production has increasing returns to scale, one jurisdiction's choice of regulatory standard affects the prices and availability of...