Theory and Policy in Equilibrium Springer Texts in Business and Economics

Thirteen papers addressing current issues in international environmental economics. They analyze the relationship between trade liberalization and environmental policy; the impact of trade liberalization on environmental quality; investigate problems of commitment faced by regulating authorities; provide new insights into the Porter hypothesis; present empirical research related to international competitiveness and location of polluting plants; address international environmental agreements, with a special focus on income distribution and the political-economy dimension, tradable emission reductions, and the quantitative impact of trade liberalization and the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on carbon leakage.

The papers in this volume show that even after ten years of intense research both on trade and the environment, and on transfrontier pollution and international environmental agreements, research in this area still produces new, relevant, and thought-provoking ideas and results.

Sustainable development, climate policy, and biodiversity conservation are examples of issues on the current political agenda in many countries. These themes are also subject to economic research, and economic insights are increasingly finding their way into the design of environmental policy. Still, the reception of academic findings by policy makers as well as the timely identification of policy-relevant questions by economic researchers often seem to be problematic. This volume attempts to vitalise the exchange between policy makers and academics. It offers a snapshot of environmental economic research on a range of policy-relevant problems. Academic contributions are complemented by views of policy makers on priority fields in environmental policy, the usefulness of academic research for decision making, and requirements to applied research in the future.

Written for:
Researchers in Environmental Economics

Keywords:
Energy Economics
Environmental Economics
Environmental Policy
Environmental Regulation
Sustainability Assessment
Trade and Resource Use
Transport Economics

International forum for debates on environmental economics

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