HEEP Discussion Papers

Homebuyers make their purchase decisions based on a number of structural, environmental and neighborhood characteristics. Using Geographic Information Systems data and a hedonic price model this study attempts to empirically demonstrate the value placed...

The use of market based instruments in developing countries is rapidly expanding, particularly in environmental policy. Several different market mechanisms theoretically lead to efficient allocation of investments in environmental quality without ex post...

China urbanization is associated with both increases in per-capita income and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper uses micro data to rank 74 major Chinese cities with respect to their household carbon footprint. We find that the “greenest” cities based...

We examine an implication of the “Coase Theorem” which has had an important impact both on environmental economics and on public policy in the environmental domain. Under certain conditions, the market equilibrium in a cap-and-trade system will be cost...

In this paper I comment on the reactions of William Nordhaus to a recent article of mine entitled "On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change" that appeared in the February 2009 issue of the Review of Economics and...

Climate change is characterized by deep structural uncertainty in the science coupled with an economic inability to evaluate meaningfully the welfare losses from high temperature changes. The probability of a disastrous collapse of planetary welfare from...

The global climate regime and the global trade policy regime are on a collision course. National efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) instill among environmentalists fears of leakage and among businesspeople fears of lost competitiveness...

This paper offers a detailed plan to set quantitative national limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, building on the foundation of the Kyoto Protocol. It attempts to fill in the most serious gaps: the absence of targets extending as far as 2100, the...

The proposal discussed in this paper is to levy a common charge on all emissions of greenhouse gases, worldwide. All countries would be covered in principle, but the proposal could be implemented with a much smaller number of countries, provided they...

This article provides an overview of the economics of environmental policy, including the setting of goals and targets, notably the Kaldor-Hicks criterion and the related method of assessment known as benefit-cost analysis. Also reviewed are the means of...