Economists have speculated that the welfare gains from technological innovation that reduces the future costs of environmental protection could be a lot more important than the "Pigouvian" welfare gains over time from correcting a pollution externality. If so, then a primary concern in the...

Costs and benefits in the distant future-such as those associated with global warming, long-lived infrastructure, hazardous and radioactive waste, and biodiversity-often have little value today when measured with conventional discount rates. We demonstrate that when the future path of this...

Considerable uncertainty surrounds both the consequences of climate change and their valuation over horizons of decades or centuries. Yet, there have been few attempts to factor such uncertainty into current policy decisions concerning stringency and instrument choice. This paper presents a...

The possibility that workers could be adversely affected by environmental policies imposed on heavily regulated industries has led to claims of a "jobs versus the environment" trade-off by both business and labor leaders. The present research examines this claim at the industry level for four...

Uncertainty about compliance costs causes otherwise equivalent price and quantity controls to behave differently. Price controls - in the form of taxes - fix the marginal cost of compliance and lead to uncertain levels of compliance. Meanwhile quantity controls - in the form of tradable permits...

Using a simple analytical model incorporating benefits of a stock, costs of adjusting the stock, and uncertainty in costs, we uncover several important principles governing the choice of price-based policies (e.g., taxes) relative to quantity-based policies (e.g., tradable permits) for...

Momentum may be building for federal climate change policy in the United States. Assuming this leads to mandatory greenhouse gas regulations, the door will be open for the United States to constructively re-engage other countries concerning an international climate regime. Such a regime will...

While most of the world has pursued absolute emission limits for greenhouse gases, the Bush administration has proposed an alternative policy formulation based, among other things, on reducing emissions intensity-that is, emissions per dollar of real gross domestic product (GDP). Critics of this...

Carbon markets are substantial and they are expanding. There are many lessons from experiences over the past eight years: fewer free allowances, better management of market-sensitive information, and a recognition that trading systems require adjustments that have consequences for market...

We ask whether the US government should replace its current discounting practices with a declining discount rate schedule, as the United Kingdom and France have done, or continue to discount the future at a constant exponential rate. We present the theoretical basis for a declining discount rate...