In this paper I consider a small economy facing accession to a trade agreement. Before accession the government has control over trade and environmental policy. After accession it retains control over environmental policy but has to allow free trade. Through the analysis I highlight an effect of...

In this paper we analyze whether the Softwood Lumber Agreement between US and Canada imposed significant economic costs on the users of Lumber in the US. To ascertain this impact we use an event study. Our event study analyzes variations in the stock prices of lumber using firms listed at the...

We estimate the degree of trade diversion from provinces named under the Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) to provinces not named. Our regression results indicate that the SLA had a significant impact on the exports of non-named SLA provinces. Controlling for other factors, the SLA by itself would...

To control tailpipe pollution, governments often use environmental product standards and consumption taxes in conjunction (for example, the use of fuel economy standards and gasoline taxes to restrict automobile pollution in the US). Further, the choice of standards and consumption taxes is...

We estimate the impact of utility cash rebates on the market share of ENERGY STAR appliances by exploiting the variation in timing and size of rebates across US states. We find that a dollar increase in the population-weighted utility rebate raises the share of ENERGY STAR qualified clothes...

In this paper we estimate the increase in the market share of ENERGY STAR-qualified appliances that can be attributed to targetted cash rebates offered by utility companies. To estimate the impact of these incentives we use the variation in timing and size of the utility rebates across the US...

Are commonly observed resource conservation contracts efficient? In this paper we construct a model that embodies common characteristics of resource contracts. Using this model, we analyze a large class of real-world resource contracts and find them to be economically inefficient. This...

In this paper we present the economic determinants of the optimal length of a carbon offset contract. We find that because of a declining capacity of the soil to sequester carbon, the optimal length of the carbon contract is finite (the marginal benefit of remaining in the contract is declining...