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This dissertation closely examines the merits, weaknesses, and potential of decentralized environmental regulation. I examine three areas of particular concern in the structure of environmental regulation. In the first chapter, I examine how information problems resulting from incorrectly specified atmospheric models are likely to affect economic efficiency in a permit market. While permit markets have been heralded as a promising solution for controlling environmentally damaging emissions, there is no formal research linking the atmospheric model, which directly affects permit prices, with economic outcomes. In the chapter, I develop a generalized theoretical model that demonstrates the problems that are likely to arise when there is uncertainty in the underlying atmospheric parameter estimates. As it turns out, permit markets operating with incorrectly specified atmospheric models may result in large losses in economic efficiency, even if the permit market is operating ideally in an economic sense. The second chapter analyzes a much broader issue, that of state versus federal environmental regulation. The chapter focuses on the methods used by states attempting to control interstate water pollution in the Ohio Valley in the early 1900s. The time period was chosen to predate federal intervention into environmental regulation and, hence, allows for a clean test of how states might be expected to address difficult pollution problems under a system of state regulation. Using a simple game theoretic model, the paper explores interstate water pollution control compacts and their uses in addressing interstate water pollution. I find that states were able to overcome significant bargaining difficulties in formulating the compacts, which ultimately led to effective control of interstate water pollution. The final chapter focuses on voluntary overcompliance by firms facing environmental standards. The paper models environmental regulation according to the EPA's Best Available Control Technology (BACT). The model predicts voluntary overcompliance by firms as they attempt to raise the (endogenous) environmental standard and, in the process, raise their rivals' costs. The paper also demonstrates the merits of nonuniform environmental standards. In attempting to elicit efficient levels of R&D investment, the regulatory authority may discourage socially wasteful overinvestment in pollution technology through the use of nonuniform standards.

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American Indian lands and cultural resources have been observed, desired, and then taken by Euroamericans since the "Invasion of America." To know any case of such encroachment is to understand something of the entire history and perhaps the future of Native American - Euroamerican relations. But it is only by comparing cases through time and across space that we see most clearly the patterns that best help us understand this process of encroachment. From our reading of the literature on this subject, especially the outstanding contributions made by Francis Jennings in The Invasion of America (1975) and by Alfred Crosby in The Columbian Exchange (1972), it is clear that certain strategies of competition and domination are regularly utilized by Euroamericans. Because such strategies are deeply rooted in fundamental premises of Euroamerican culture (Hagen 1980:66), we can expect that the strategies are and will continue to be important factors where Native Americans and Euroamericans are competing for resources. Moreover, we believe that much contemporary competition for resources can be viewed as the latest phase in the continuing "Invasion of America" (MacDonald, 1980: 170).

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The implementation of sustainable development is the social imperative of the 21st century, requiring strong leadership by governments at all levels. As the logical convenor of constituent groups in civil society, governments have a key role to play in diffusing its concepts and practices in the next decade, before critical thresholds are reached. This role will not be realized, however, without a guiding framework across governments that provides consistent and effective leadership to other sectors of Canadian society, equally supported by a new framework for governance based on human responsibility and the interconnectedness of human and natural systems. These frameworks are grounded on the reconciliation of three imperatives, the ecological, the social and the economic, based on analogues taken from ecological systems. Principles such as integrity, cyclical processes, resilience and systems approaches are key, as are the many alternative paradigms circulating within society capable of providing new information about the ways in which our systems operate.

This thesis is composed of three essays. In the first essay I identify the effects of imposing a broad range of environmental regulations under different market conditions.. I compare four types of regulatory controls under Perfect Competition, Monopoly, and Cournot Competition: Emission Standards, Design Standards, Concentration Standards, and Output Standards. I rank each of the standards in terms of firm profitability, industry output, abatement costs, and social welfare. I derive sufficient conditions for Design, or Concentration Standards, to dominate Emission Standards. I show how the different forms of regulation can raise industry profits by reducing the degree of inter-firm competition. Further, I show how environmental regulations can enhance competition and yield a "double dividend": higher Social Surplus and less pollution. In the second essay I extend the comparison of standards to an open country. I show how a country's choice of regulatory regime influences the level of environmental protection when governments care about the competitiveness of their industries. I show that the mode of regulation can create a "race to the bottom" if regulators behave strategically. I show that Emission Standards permit the race, as do Emission Charges. Design Standards, on the other hand, avoid the race altogether by breaking the link between environmental stringency and industrial competitiveness. Countries using Design Standards will always regulate emissions. This holds regardless of the environmental stance taken by competitor nations. If countries do not behave strategically, then Emission Standards and Emission Charges always dominate Design Standards. In the third essay I use the concept of home biases in traded goods, or "Border Effects", to rank industries and countries in terms of their openness to trade. I first confirm the presence border effects for individual sectors and individual industries among OECD countries for 1970 to 1985. I also examine whether country-specific border effects are determined by the sectoral composition of a country's production. I find limited evidence to support this. Rather, per capita incomes appear to be the most important factor. The conclusion I draw is that the level of development appears to be the prime factor in explaining the differences in country-specific border effects. What countries produce is of some importance. Therefore, we should see continued, though possibly slow, reductions in home biases as all countries continue to develop. This will partially determine the kind of environmental regulation used as well as their level.

This thesis attempts to uncover the reasons why Canada, unlike the United States and Australia, does not have stand alone federal endangered species legislation. In particular, I will focus upon the history of Bill C-65, the proposed federal endangered species statute which died on the Order Table in 1997. Using the "policy regime" framework developed by George Hoberg, I examine the ideas, actors, and institutions that have combined within a given set of background conditions to produce this distinctive lack of a policy outcome, assessing the relative causal importance of each variable in terms Bill C-65's failure. Using Peter Haas' epistemic community approach, the causal knowledge of conservation scientists' regarding habitat loss is found not to have influenced the policy substance of Bill C-65. However, it is argued that scientists did play an important role in the legislative failure insofar as they joined forces with environmentalists to discredit the weak scope and substance of the bill. These pro-environment actors, however, were matched throughout the interest group competition by the parallel forces of industry and private landowner groups, who criticized Bill C-65 as a litigious, punitive and "American" style of legislation. The provinces, for their part, sided with the landowners and industry groups, arguing that the federal government had overstepped its wildlife management jurisdiction. Given a context of low public concern for environmental issues, and the institutional trend towards regulatory decentralization, the federal government had very few incentives to introduce a strong bill. However, the provinces, landowners, and industry groups, all felt it was too strong, while environmentalists and scientists felt just the opposite. Bill C-65's failure, therefore, was the result of the federal government's inability to satisfy anyone on this issue. Determining who "won" this first endangered species battle, however, is quite difficult without knowing whether Cabinet felt the bill was too strong or too weak, and without knowing what the next legislative proposal will entail. In conclusion, it is found that all three regime components of ideas, actors, and institutions were equally important factors in bringing about the failure of Bill C-65, and the current policy delay that continues to this day.

Europos Sąjungos formuojamos politikos įtaka suvaidino nemažą teigiamą vaidmenį kuriant efektyvų valstybės vaidmenį ir formuojant šalies ekonominę politiką. Tačiau esama atvejų, kai Europos Sąjungos institucijos diktuoja valstybėms narėms ir kandidatėms vienus ar kitus sprendimus – sprendimus, nebūtinai atitinkančius tų valstybių interesus. Šio darbo tikslas - ištirti Europos Sąjungos ir Lietuvos aplinkos apsaugos reguliavimo politikos harmonizavimą, remiantis Europos aplinkos agentūros poveikio analize. Tikslui pasiekti buvo atsižvelgiama į Europos Sąjungos reguliavimo agentūrų veiklos funkcionavimo ypatumus, pagrindinius Europos Sąjungos aplinkos apsaugos ir Lietuvos Respublikos aplinkosaugos veiklos prioritetus bei analizuojamas Europos aplinkos agentūros vaidmuo harmonizuojant Lietuvos aplinkos apsaugos politiką. Apibendrinus darbo rezultatus, galima teigti, kad reguliavimo agentūrų veikla yra labai svarbi ir naudinga veiksmingam Europos Sąjungos funkcionavimui. Nacionaliniai valstybių narių skirtumai gali būti šalinami pasitelkiant labiausiai tinkamą reguliavimo politikos metodą. Europos Sąjungos aplinkos apsaugos politika grindžiama nuostata, kad aukšti aplinkosaugos standartai skatina inovacijas, atveria verslo galimybes, prisideda prie ekonominio augimo skatinimo. Lietuvos valstybei tapus Europos Sąjungos nare, nemažas dėmesys buvo skiriamas rengiamų įstatymų ir kitų teisės aktų projektų harmonizavimui, atsižvelgiant į Europos Sąjungos direktyvose patvirtintų nuostatų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Policies being formed by the European Union have had a significant positive influence in developing an effective role of the state and forming economical policy of the country. However, there are cases when institutions of the European Union dictate certain decisions to the member and candidate states, and those decisions do not necessarily serve best interests of the states. Aim of this paper - is to analyze impact of the European Union and Lithuanian state environmental sector regulatory policy harmonization, using a case study of The European Environment Agency analysis. To reach the goal has been taken account European Union regulatory agencies' functioning characteristics, the main environmental priorities of the European Union and those of the Republic of Lithuania, and analyzing European Environment Agency's role in harmonizing Lithuanian environmental policy. Summarizing the results of the paper, it can be asserted that regulatory agencies are very important and useful for the efficient functioning of the European Union. National differences of member states can be eliminated by invoking the most proper method of regulatory policy. Environmental policy of the European Union is based on attitude that high environmental standards promote innovations, open business opportunities and further economical growth. When Lithuania joined the European Union, significant consideration was given to harmonizing new laws and projects of other legal acts with the guidelines expressed... [to full text]

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