Economics of the environment.

• Position: Conferences

Over 70 economists gathered in Cambridge on December 13 and 14 for an NBER-Universities Research Conference on "Economics of the Environment." R. Glenn Hubbard, on leave from the NBER at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Jeffrey K. MacKie Mason, NBER and University of Michigan, organized the program:

Robert Hahn, Carnegie-Mellon University,

"Government Markets and the Theory of the Nth Best"

Discussants: Gunnar Eskeland, World Bank, and

Martin Weitzman, Harvard University

Adam Jaffe, NBER and Harvard University, and

Robert Stavins, Harvard University, "The Energy

Paradox and the Diffusion of Conservation Technology"

Discussants: Sharon Oster, Yale University, and Ariel

Pakes, NBER and Yale University

Trudy Ann Cameron, University of California, Los

Angeles, and Jeffrey Englin, University of Nevada,

Reno, "Cost-Benefit Analysis for Nonmarket

Resources under Individual Risk"

Discussants: Stephen Berry, NBER and Yale

University, and Lawrence H. Goulder, NBER and Stanford

University

V. Kerry Smith and Ju Chin Huang, North Carolina

State University, "Can Hedonic Models Value Air

Quality? A Meta-Analysis"

Discussants: Myrick Freeman, Bowdoin College,

and Thomas Tietenberg, Colby College

Dinner Speaker: Thomas Barthold, U.S. Congress

Joint Committee on Taxation, "Issues in the Design

of Environmental Excise Taxes"

Kevin Hassett, Columbia University, and Gilbert E.

Metcalf, NBER and Princeton University,

"Residential Energy Tax Credits and Home

Improvement Behavior"

Discussants: Jeffrey Dubin, California Institute of

Technology, and Dennis Epple, Carnegie-Mellon

University

Margaret Walls, Resources for the Future,

"Differentiated Products and Regulation: The Welfare Costs

of Natural Gas Vehicles"

Discussants: James A. Levinsohn, NBER and

University of Michigan, and Martin Zimmerman, Ford

Motor Company

Gene M. Grossman and Alan B. Krueger, NBER and

Princeton University, "Environmental Impacts of

a North American Free Trade Agreement" (NBER

Working Paper No. 3914)

Discussants: Robert Crandall, Brookings Institution,

and Maureen Cropper, University of Maryland

Hahn provides some general guidelines for the organization of government markets in property rights, to allocate such resources as landing rights and environmental quality. He examines the problem of devising such markets when there are multiple inputs to the production process that are subject to different taxes and regulations. Finally, he analyzes how some simple rules can be applied...