We analyze a model of environmental regulation with learning about environmental damages and endogenous choice of emissions abatement technology by a polluting firm. We compare environmental policy under discretion, in which policy is updated upon learning new information, versus under rules, in...

This paper studies countries’ incentives to develop advanced pollution abatement technology when technology may spillover across countries and pollution abatement is a global public good. We are motivated in part by the problem of global warming: a solution to this involves providing a global...

This paper explores the efficiency of tradable permit markets for stock pollutants. With uncertainty about the future stock level or damages, a market with banking and borrowing is inferior, in terms of efficiency, compared to a market without banking and borrowing if the regulator commits to an...

Dynamic externalities are at the core of many long-term environmental problems, from species preservation to climate change mitigation. We use laboratory experiments to compare welfare outcomes and underlying behavior in games with dynamic externalities under two distinct settings:...

A number of studies have estimated how much energy conservation is achieved by providing households with real-time information on energy use via in-home displays. However, none of these studies tell us why real-time information changes energy-use behavior. We explore the causal mechanisms...

We consider payment schemes in experiments that model infinite-horizon games by using random termination. We compare paying subjects cumulatively for all periods of the game; with paying subjects for the last period only; with paying for one of the periods, chosen randomly. Theoretically,...

Design of environmental regulation has substantial implications for size distribution and mass of firms within and across industries in the long run. In a general equilibrium model that accounts for endogenous entry and exit of heterogeneous firms, the welfare impacts of emissions trading are...

In many collective action settings, such as decisions on public education or climate change mitigation, actions of a group have welfare consequences for themselves as well as their followers. We conduct laboratory experiments with two-stage predecessor-follower prisoners' dilemma and...

Design of environmental regulation has substantial implications for size distribution and mass of firms within and across industries in the long run. In a general equilibrium model that accounts for endogenous entry and exit of heterogeneous firms, the welfare impacts of emissions trading are...