If pollution is observable, but some emissions cannot be verified by court,voluntary agreements between a regulator and an industry may bewelfare-improving compared to second-best emission taxes. Such agreementsdiffer from direct regulation in a non-trivial way. The first-best optimummay be...

In traditional cost-benefit analyses of public projects, every citizen’s willingness to pay for a project is given an equal weight. This is sometimes taken to imply that cost-benefit analysis is a democratic method for making public decisions, as opposed to, for example, political processes...

Corporate social responsibility can improve firms' ability to recruit highly motivated employees. This can secure socially responsible firms' survival even in a highly competitive environment. We show that if both socially responsible (green) and non-responsible (brown) firms exist in...

To secure their membership in a popular group, individuals may contribute more to the group's local public good than they would if group formation were exogenous. Those in the most unpopular group do not have this incentive to contribute. This may result in substantial differences in individual...