The primary objectives of recent energy initiatives have been: (1) lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and (2) increasing US energy security by reducing oil imports for the purposes of making the US less vulnerable to the actions of other countries. The concern is that relying on sometimes...

This study addresses the possible impacts of energy and climate policies, namely corporate average fleet efficiency (CAFE) standard, renewable fuel standard (RFS) and clean energy standard (CES), and an economy wide equivalent carbon tax on GHG emissions in the US to the year 2045. Bottom–up...

Water scarcity is a growing problem world wide. Economists uniformly suggest water pricing to improve water use efficiency; however, governments tend to reject that advice due to political risk, and economic and cultural concerns. This dissertation addresses questions of what policy alternatives...

Economists are challenged to account for the influence of cultural norms and expectations on economic behavior. Recent experimental economic evidence suggests culture significantly affects certain economic behavior. It is not clear, however, how pervasive culture's influence is on multiple...