In the last decade, voluntary environmental programs have increased considerably in scope. A novel use of these programs is to di¤use new technology in industry as means to improving their environmental outcomes. This paper tests whether the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Combined Heat-and-Power Partnership has encouraged the installation of CHP applications since its start in 2001. Two h...

A majority of the air pollution currently regulated under U.S. emissions trading programs is nonuniformly mixed, meaning that health and environmental damages depend on the location and dispersion characteristics of the sources. Most emissions trading programs ignore this fact. Emissions are penalized at a single permit price, regardless of the location of the source. In theory, di¤erentiated p...

I document voting behavior in Washington State’s revenue-neutral carbon tax referendum of November 2016. The initiative (I-732) would have taxed carbon emissions from fossil fuels while simultaneously lowering the retail sales tax and certain manufacturing taxes and matching the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. Voters rejected I-732 with 41% voting for and 59% against. Precinct-level vote shar...

In this paper, which forms a chapter in the forthcoming Book “Delivering a Low Carbon Electricity System: Technologies, Economics and Policy”, Grubb and Newbery examine how carbon for electricity generation should be priced. They begin by suggesting that it is not clear what the correct price of carbon is, but that it spans the whole range of economically plausible prices. They then go on to di...

The remediation and redevelopment of brownfields are important for achieving sustainable neighborhoods. Voluntary cleanup programs (VCPs) have been established by most states as the principal tool for brownfield redevelopment. Therefore, it is important to understand what site and neighborhood characteristics make it more likely for brownfield property owners to participate. We provide policy-m...

We investigate farmers’ decision to engage in organic production. Our objective is to identify the key factors that promote or hinder the update of organic farming. In particular, we focus on neighborhood factors and the spatial allocation of organic land parcels. A rich spatial panel data of all agricultural parcels is compiled and the information on land use, soil quality, biodiversity, local...

In parallel with the top down, intergovernmental climate talks at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, there was a “Climate Solutions Hub,” which showcased concrete climate actions by businesses, cities, states and provinces. According to a Yale University report, 2,138 companies from 145 countries representing $36.6 trillion USD in revenue, roughly equivalent to the combined GDPs of the U.S., Ch...

a r t i c l e i n f o JEL classification: D58 H21 H23 Q38 Q58 Keywords: Resource tax reform Energy CGE model SAM price model China's resource tax reform, beginning with Xinjiang as a pilot area in June 2010, marked a new stage in the progression of China's resource tax system. Based on the 2007 social accounting matrix (SAM) for Xinjiang, constructed by ourselves, this paper takes a regional pe...

This paper examines the long-term impacts of early childhood exposure to air pollution on adult outcomes using U.S. administrative data. We exploit changes in air pollution driven by the 1970 Clean Air Act to analyze the difference in outcomes between cohorts born in counties before and after large improvements in air pollution relative to those same cohorts born in counties that had no improve...

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o JEL classifications: Q43 Q48 Q56 Q58 Keywords: Green growth Green economy UNEP OECD " Green growth " is an attractive slogan with a variety of possible meanings. This essay critically examines several potential meanings of t...