The purpose of this paper is to introduce a modification of a standard four input production process where energy is used in an inefficient way due to partly unnecessary waste of energy. In this production process, R&D investment is an additional input in order to improve energy efficiency. It...

International environmental agreements aiming at correcting negative externalities generated by transboundary pollution are difficult to achieve for many reasons. Important obstacles arise from asymmetry in costs and benefits, and instability may occur due to the fact that coalitions of...

This paper considers the relationship between natural resource management and poverty by analysing a specific example: an inland fishery in Bangladesh. The analysis involves substantial extensions to standard models and allows the simulation of market distortions and alternative management...

This paper is the keynote speech delivered by Professor William Baumol at the First World Congress of Environmental Economists that was held in Venice on June 25-27, 1998. It analyses the situation of the environment under different economic regimes: the feudal society, Marxism and capitalism....

Restructuring firms in a transition economy produces a sort of network externality, in that the profitability of restructuring depends on the number of firms that already adopted this strategy. We investigate under what conditions a ''critical mass'' exists, i.e. a situation in which such...

This paper provides a game-theoretic model of representative democracy with endogenous party formation. Coalition formation may occur before and after elections, and the expected payoffs from the after-election majority game affect incentives to form parties before the elections. In this way...

A well-known principle of welfare economics states that an efficient resources allocation can be achieved in a competitive economy when market prices are in line with social marginal costs. When applied to the transport sector, this implies that the price of the various transport modes should be...

Debt swaps as an instrument of international co-operation in environmental field were conceived and first applied in the 1980s. They were once thought of as "win-win" arrangements solving environmental and economic problems at the same time. In the 1990s it became clear, however, that (1)...

In this paper we estimate the Italian NAIRU using annual data for the period 1951-1996. We find evidence consistent with aggregate wage setting in Italy depending only on the rate of unemployment prevailing in the Northern and Central areas of the country. There is evidence supporting the...

Having grown faster than world GDP since the 1950s, international tourism is today one of the most important tradable sectors, with expenditure on tourist goods and services representing some 8% of total world export receipts and 5% of world GDP. Starting from a broad perspective, two main facts...