The controversial immigration bill S.B. 1070 enacted by the Arizona legislature utilizes local police to enforce Arizona's interpretations of immigration rules. Meanwhile, the "Utah Compact" suggests that all aspects of immigration policy should be handled by the federal government, not by...

Valuing the environment is an extremely difficult and contentious issue. Courts have struggled with this issue in determining natural resource damages (NRD) under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA)....

Many economists have studied the effects of political, administrative, and legal institutions on the design and performance of environmental policies. While there have been a number of empirical studies of some institutional effects, not all aspects of enforcement activities have been examined...

The predominant form of paying for health care in the United States (Fee-for-Service) creates inefficient incentives and leads to rising costs. A number of changes were incorporated into the health care reform legislative package of 2010, but these changes will not stop rising costs. Instead,...

Regulatory reform through the use of economic incentive programs such as emissions-trading markets has become increasingly popular because of the promise of substantial cost savings. However, these prospective economic benefits will not be the sole determinant of whether these reforms will be...

This article presents the institutional-transaction-cost framework for public policy analysis. While many economists have considered institutional effects, none has presented a complete view of how these institutions affect the desirability of policies. By integrating many diverse insights into...

In this dissertation, I examine surface water quality policies using a new pragmatic policy-analysis framework, which arises from a theory of a sanctionable act. This framework emphasizes implementation-transaction-costs which are normally forgotten or misanalyzed in typical cost-benefit...