The author reviews recent studies that investigate how social status concerns influence individual preferences for redistribution and impact the design of optimal tax policies. He focuses on two aspects: the relevant dimension over which relative concerns are defined and the different...

We quantify the effects of the Swedish GCR, a program to reduce oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions in the automobile industry. We ?nd the GCR to increase the market shares of `green cars' and its cost to be $109/tonCO2 saved, thus 5 times the price of an emission permit. Since the main...

Increasing environmental awareness may affect the pleasure of consuming a good for which an environmental friendly substitute is available. When deciding to buy differentiated products, a compromise is sometimes made between preferred characteristics of the good and its environmental properties....

We study the impact of learning-by-doing with spillovers in competitive markets with free market entry. Within a two period model, we consider first the case where fixed costs are incurred only once, and entry is once and for all. In the second case fixed costs are incurred in each period, and...

Increasing environmental awareness may affect the pleasure of consuming a good for which an environmental friendly substitute is available. When deciding to buy differentiated products, a compromise is sometimes made between preferred characteristics of the good and its environmental properties....

The ecological literature suggests that biodiversity reduces the variance of ecosystem services. Thus, conservative biodiversity management has an insurance value to risk-averse users of ecosystem services. We analyze a conceptual ecological-economic model in which such management measures...

There is a widespread consensus among the most important players in developed countries (voters, politicians, producers, traditional and green interest groups and bureaucracies) that a shift towards an eco-social market economy is essential for sustainable growth. Nevertheless, market-based...

Regulating an export firm (or a homogeneous industry) with private information about emission technology is analysed, when the firm, owned partly by foreigners, has an option to bypass domestic regulation through costly relocation. If the firm chooses to relocate, it will set up a new plant in a...

This discussion paper has resulted in the publication (2007) 'Order without law? Experimental evidence on voluntary cooperation and sanctioning', 2007, KritV - Kritische Vierteljahresschrift fur Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft, 90, 1-2, 140-155.In this paper we discuss experimental evidence...

Optimal policy rules - including those regarding income taxation, commodity taxation, public goods, and externalities - are typically derived in models with homogeneous preferences. This article reconsiders many central results for the case in which preferences for commodities, public goods, and...