A Cross-Country Study of Waste Prevention and Recycling

With worldwide concern for how and where to dispose of household waste, policy-makers are increasingly looking for tools to efficiently and effectively reduce the amount of waste households produce. Using a comprehensive household-level data set involving 10,251 respondents from a cross-section of ten countries (Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden), we examine waste policy, recycling behavior, and waste prevention. Unlike previous work, we empirically make comparisons across countries, incorporate attitudinal characteristics, and allow for potential correlation between the decisions of recycling different materials.waste management; recycling; waste prevention; environmental policy

Implications of Uncertainty and Spillovers for Access and Benefit Sharing Agreements

One of the objectives of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity is to create access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing (ABS) systems that incorporate the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainable development. Under the Convention, governments have sovereignty over their genetic resources but also the responsibility of using them sustainably. This provision is particularly relevant for biologically-abundant developing countries as it offers a direct means of reducing the financial pressures against conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats, particularly in light of recent. This paper examines the impacts of a benefit-sharing system involving royalties and governmental ownership of genetic resources in a two-firm research and development (R&D) market with uncertainty and information spillovers. Royalties are shown to reduce the research output of the taxed firm, which results in much lower expected government revenues when the research output of a competing rm is a strategic subsitute relative to when it is a strategic complement. Further, taxation alone is generally inferior to a combination of taxation/subsidization of successful products and research costs. The paper shows that subsidization rather than taxation of successful products may even be optimal under particular types of uncertainty.Biodiversity prospecting; research and development (R&D); uncertainty; spillovers; imperfect competition.

TRANSBOUNDARY RENEWABLE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: A DYNAMIC GAME WITH DIFFERING NONCOOPERATIVE PAYOFFS.

Recent conflicts over fish stocks, such as salmon and turbot, have revived public interest in the optimal management of transboundary renewable natural resources. Given that enforcement of binding contracts is often a major obstacle, dynamically consistent or self-enforcing contracting, as proposed by Vislie (1987), must be relied upon. A more general model is developed which recognizes that, in the absence of a cooperative agreement, two countries may enjoy differing economic payoffs. The predictions of the model are consistent with, and provide insights into, the particulars of recent disputes.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Inter-regional Competition, Comparative Advantage, and Environmental Federalism

In this paper, we compare endogenous environmental policy setting with centralized and decentralized governments when regions have comparative advantages in different polluting goods. We develop a two-region, two-good model with inter-regional environmental damages and perfect competition in product markets, where both regions produce both goods. Despite positive spillovers of pollution across regions, the model predicts that decentralization may lead to weaker or stricter environmental standards or taxes, depending on the degree of regional comparative advantage and the extent of transboundary pollution. This suggests that federalism can lead to either a "race to the bottom" or a "race to the top," without relying on inefficient lobbying efforts or capital competition.environmental policy; federalism; centralism; public economics

Foreign Direct Investment and the Choice of Environmental Policy

We use a simple two-country oligopoly model of intra-industry trade to examine the implications of foreign direct investment for the pollution haven hypothesis and environmental policy. Countries which lower environmental standards to be more competitive in world markets generate pollution havens if environmental policy is exogenous. However, if FDI is a viable option as a mode of entry, profit-shifting considerations weaken in favour of environmental considerations and FDI recipients tighten environmental policy, reducing incentives to relocate production. Interestingly, when countries are sufficiently similar in their environmental awareness, "grey" countries can become greener than originally "green" countries but firms in the latter still engage in FDI in the former, in spite of the stricter standard they face, in order to level the playing field. We derive conditions under which FDI-receiving countries have incentives to manipulate their environmental standards to prevent or attract FDI, potentially eliminating or creating pollution havens.Environmental policy; Foreign Direct Investment; Pollution Haven Hypothesis.