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In a lovely May 16, 2009, Rose Garden setting, President Barack Obama announced stricter fuel economy standards for the U.S. auto fleet. The new fuel economy rules, which include the [...]

The environmental economics literature has ignored the effects of the interaction among capital mobility, private and public pollution abatement, and cross-border pollution on environmental policies. We analyze these effects in the context of a general equilibrium model. We find, among other things, that (i) when countries are symmetric, the presence of public pollution abatement makes Nash equilibrium pollution taxes efficient while lump-sum taxes remain inefficient; and (ii) when countries are asymmetric, both taxes are inefficient and the Nash equilibrium pollution taxes depend mainly on the direction of capital mobility, factor intensity, and the degree of cross-border pollution. These results indicate that policy cooperation is more important when countries are different. JEL Classification: F18, F22, H21, 1. Introduction In response to growing environmental concerns, governments and international organizations have designed policies of pollution abatement and control (PAC). In a 2003 report the Organisation for Economic Co-operation [...]

Ensuring access to quality water supplies is among the most pressing environmental policy challenges of the 21st century, and not just in the developing world. In the United States, demographic [...]

State voluntary cleanup programs (VCPs) were established in the 1990s to encourage cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated properties. I ask three questions: First, what properties are attracted to VCPs? Second, is there an interaction between VCP incentives and enterprise or brownfield zone incentives? Third, does participation in VCPs affect property values? Data from Colorado's VCP suggest that (a) the main determinants of participation are the size of the parcel and the surrounding land use, (b) other incentives have little effect, (c) properties with confirmed contamination sell at a 43%-56% discount, and (d) participation does tend to raise the property price. (JEL R14, Q58, K32), I. INTRODUCTION Environmental regulation and enforcement-based environmental programs sometimes result in unintended consequences that defeat the purpose of the programs themselves. Many observers argue that the U.S. Superfund program is [...]

Big names like Apple and Deli have gone public in recent months with commitments to stop using brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in the plastics they use. Some types have turned [...]

We study two issues in the enforcement of public law. The first is whether the system of inspections and penalties set by the regulator is effective. The second is whether a better system of inspections and penalties can be designed, given the institutional constraints under which the regulator must function. We study these issues in the context of oil spill prevention activities of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), the agency entrusted with the enforcement of maritime pollution laws. A theoretically optimal contract that mixes penalties based on the amount of pollution ex post with penalties based on the extent of noncompliance ex ante is derived. The effectiveness of USCG inspections and penalties in reducing oil spills is then econometrically studied using microlevel data on a panel of U.S. flag tank vessels. Whether the optimal penalty can potentially improve the effectiveness of compliance inspections in reducing oil spills is examined in the light of the empirical results and recent developments in the economics and public management literature on effective incentive contracting. Among our findings is the potential for combining unilateral incentive-based methods with cooperative methods based on reciprocity to solve the complex problem of law enforcement. Key words: violations; optimal penalty; micropanel data; oil spills; public policy, 1. Introduction The objective of this paper is to study whether law enforcement organizations carry out their activities and policies in accordance with the well-established principal-agent model in the economics [...]

The effectiveness of environmental regulation can be viewed as conditioned by the action of two main agents: regulated firms and public agency. Using a questionnaire on the pulp and paper industry in Portugal, this article finds that firms' decision to comply with environmental regulations is strongly influenced by firms' information on its legal obligations; this effect is stronger for smaller firms. Moreover larger/younger firms are less likely to comply with environmental regulations than smaller/older firms. Regarding the public agency's behavior, the authors find that greater monitoring efforts are directed toward larger/younger firms and toward those firms most likely to cause higher pollution levels. (JEL K32, Q28), I. INTRODUCTION Compliance with environmental regulations is a major issue in most countries because imposing a limit on firms' emissions does not guarantee that effective emissions will meet the limit [...]

IN FEBRUARY 2001, the European Union released a plan for a sweeping reform of chemical regulatory policy. The plan, known as REACH, requires manufacturers to provide safety information about chemicals [...]

IN AUGUST 2002, THE LARGEST FIRE IN THE NATION that year skittered and leaped across a steep and rocky landscape, through a unique ecosystem and the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the [...]

THE PAPER IN THE PRINTER at your office or school might once have been part of a rare 500-year-old tree. So might the door into your house, or its shingles, [...]

Mangroves line one quarter of the world's tropical coastlines, and approximately 117 countries and territories have mangrove resources within their borders. Although recent years mangrove deforestation has occurred at a phenomenal rate worldwide, there have been few economic studies of the underlying causes. The article attempts such an analysis and particularly examines the role of economic development, with specific reference to those activities that may result in mangrove deforestation, in determining the area of mangrove left within a country. The article develops a model of economic activity and mangrove conversion. From this model, a relationship is established between remaining mangrove area, economic activity, and other important causative factors. The mangrove area relationship is estimated empirically for a cross-section of 89 countries. Results show that shrimp aquaculture and agriculture are significantly associated with mangrove loss across all countries, whereas the higher the level of GDP per capita the more mangrove area remains. The number of protected areas, length of coastline and political stability were also important in determining the remaining mangrove area of a country. (JEL O13, Q22, Q23, Q24), I. INTRODUCTION Mangrove, or mangal, systems are the subtropical and tropical equivalents of the temperate coastal and estuarine salt marsh system. They are essentially forest-based systems that tolerate salt and [...]

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), have been remarkably successful for 50 years at doing what governments mandated them to [...]

In a recent speech before the Institute for International Economics, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick did a fairly convincing job of knocking down a straw man in his discussion of [...]

The purpose of this study was to determine if any factors exist which can be used to predict the level of environmentally responsible (`green') business behaviour amongst SMEs (small and [...]

Four years ago, the Clinton Administration considered promulgating an executive order which would have required the federal government to purchase totally chlorine-free (TCF) paper to satisfy a small portion of [...]

Participation in community environmental activism is on the rise in the United States (Bennett, Freierman, and George 1993; Stisser 1994). Hence, the issues of environmental deterioration and environmental concern have [...]

CASHIKIARI, PERU - The highland forests near this tiny, remote indigenous village in central Peru's Urabamba region are abuzz every day with several large, black ex-army Chinook helicopters, Soviet-designed Antonov [...]

The environmental revolution has been almost three decades in the making, and it has changed forever how companies do business. In the 1960s and 1970s, corporations were in a state [...]

One of the byproducts of the negotiations on the Uruguay Round and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was the elevation and sharpening of a long-standing debate on the impact [...]

Under sweeping attack from some, the chlorine industry is called a 'bad actor' that pollutes the environment with dangerous toxic products. Some critics contend that chlorine production should be banned [...]

MADRAS, INDIA -- 'We want safe drinking water, not Pepsi,' proclaim signs posted in Sambalpur, in the eastern Indian province of Orissa, where Indians are campaigning against Pepsi. Hundreds of [...]

WITHIN A SPAN OF TWO WEEKS in August 1993, major accidental fires broke out at three chemical factories owned by multinational corporations in Ireland. The fires focused attention on the [...]