Publications

The costs of China’s record economic growth—including pollution—threaten to undercut its progress if left unchecked. Standing in the way of China’s efforts to control pollution is a complex political system of overlapping levels of local and national authorities. This paper examines recent efforts to address the ill-aligned incentives lead some officials to allow high levels of pollution.

The Globalization of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Policy examines how cost-benefit analysis can help developing and emerging countries confront the next generation of environmental and public-health challenges. Analysis in the book examines the growing reach of cost-benefit analysis; presents relevant case studies where cost-benefit analysis has been incorporated in the Americas, Africa, Middle East, and Asia; and includes a discussion on the conceptual and institutional issues that must be addressed when adopting cost-benefit analysis in developing and emerging countries. By providing both theoretical and practical discussion of this important new tool, this book makes a valuable contribution to the fields of environmental policy, development studies, and environmental law.

This policy brief discusses an on-going inter-disciplinary study to measure whether laws that reshape local electricity demand can achieve significant health benefits in New York City. A
collaborative effort of legal, economic, and public health researchers, the study will answer crucial questions that should inform New York’s energy planning decisions

Are Passenger Vehicles Positional Goods? examines to what degree vehicles generate consumption externalities that are not currently corrected for by the market, and whether a
uniform downward shift in the size of the passenger vehicle fleet will actually result in reduced consumer welfare.

Vehicle fuel efficiency improvements through Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, may lead owners of more fuel-efficient cars may be driving more as their fuel cost per mile travelled decreases. It’s called the “rebound effect” and it has significant policy implications.