NAFTA’s investment treaty has led to several expropriation compensation claims from investors hurt by new environmental regulations. Expropriation clauses in international treaties solve post-investment moral hazard problems such as hold-ups. However, these clauses can interact with...

In customary international and public law, “takings†resulting from regulations designed to protect the public good are generally excluded from compensation rules; this exclusion is known as a police powers carve-out (PPCO). Increasingly, this PPCO is being challenged, particularly in...

An adversarial game is used to model the amount of influence a firm has over a government regulator, and its equilibrium level of regulation, as a function of firm fundamentals. The effective influence of a firm is identified as comprising both intrinsic and exerted components; where the latter...

Modern international investment agreements have challenged the customary exclusion of public good regulations from being considered government 'takings' subject to compensation rules. Full compensation for regulatory takings can, however, lead to over-investment and excessive entry in risky...

International investment agreements in bilateral treaties or free trade agreements allow investors to bring compensation claims when their investments are hurt by new regulations addressing environmental or other social concerns. Compensation rules such as expropriation clauses in international...

In 2009 the Australian government delivered approximately $8 billion in direct payments to households. These payments were preannounced and randomly allocated to households based on postal codes over a 5-week period. We exploit this random allocation to estimate the causal response of...

Review for: Politics and the Environment: Risk and the Role of Government and Industry, by Michael Howes. Published by Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia, 2005, pp. xxxiv + 218, ISBN 9781741142167 (pbk), $39.95

Studies of voluntary conservation response to changing information about an environmental problem have traditionally been synonymous with studies of information campaign effectiveness. As such, they have not been able to capture the response to actual changes in the environment. This paper takes...