Free Market Solutions (Micro)

Congestion Pricing (1/10/2007)

Road tolls that vary directly with congestion have reduced peak-hour traffic volume in Singapore and Stockholm by forcing commuters to internalize congestion cost.

Keywords: commons resource, commuting, congestion pricing, external cost, externality, Singapore, Stockholm, toll, traffic

Dying for Money? (12/7/2000)

Compensated physician-assisted death could reduce end-of-life health care expenditures and reduce pain and suffering.

Keywords: asymmetric information, benefit conversion, cash payment, de facto property right, death benefit, entitlement, health care, Medicare, moral hazard, payment in kind, physician-assisted death, suicide

Enforce It or Lose It (12/21/2001)

Dutch property owners hire free antisquatters to prevent squatters from occuping vacant buildings.

Keywords: Amsterdam, antisquatting, enforcement cost, fence, Netherlands, property right, referral agency, squatter

Fished Out! (2/9/2001)

By assigning fishing quotas to individual fisherman, Iceland has solved the problem of over-exploitation typically associated with open access to common-pool resources.

Keywords: common-pool resources, Iceland, Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), negative externalities, open access fishery, over-extraction, over-fishing, property rights, returns to capital, tragedy of the commons

Free-Market Solutions (7/10/2006)

Free-market solutions can minimize cost and rent dissipation of market interventions and regulation.

Keywords: cost, free market solutions, intervention, macro-stability, market, micro-flexibility, regulation, rent dissipation

Green Tax (8/30/2001)

Taxing nonrenewable resources instead of labor income would create more jobs and encourage conservation while reducing pollution.

Keywords: carbon tax, climate change, eco-tax, energy-efficient technologies, environment, global warming, green taxes, greenhouse gas emissions, income taxes, labor income, natural resources, negative externality, pollution, tax revenues, tax shift

Guilt-free Pollution (6/22/2006)

Paying lower-cost avoiders to reduce pollution could reduce the total cost of pollution control.

Keywords: environment, green energy. TerraPass, green tags, guilt, Kyoto accords, pollution control, renewable energy, Starbucks, Whole Foods, wind energy

Load Pricing (9/17/2002)

Peak-load pricing can lower electric bills and increase business profitability by inducing household consumers to shift their consumption from higher-rate peak period to lower-rate slack period.

Keywords: electric bill, electricity, energy, load shift, peak-load pricing, power, time-of-day pricing, time-or-use pricing, utilities, variable rates, variable-rate pricing

Making Animal Conservation Pay (6/29/1999)

People will conserve wildlife if they have a financial stake in it.

Keywords: animal, conservation, elephants, endangered species, environmentalism, free-market, Greenland, hunting rights, Kenya, property right, salmon, wildlife, wolf, wolves, Zimbabwe

One Road's Congestion Is Another Road's Revenue (12/21/2001)

Charging motorists for contributing to rush-hour congestion may be economists' dream of internalizing negative externality on toll roads but politicians' nightmare when competing highways are free.

Keywords: 91 Express Lanes, California Private Transportation, Caltrans, congestion pricing, external cost, negative externality, non-compete clause, Orange County, revenue, Riverside Expressway, toll road, traffic, value pricing

Pollution control (transcript) (3/27/2007)

Narrated lecture on cost efficient pollution control when firms have different pollution-reduction costs.

Keywords: cost, cost efficiency, pollution control, pollution quota, pollution reduction, pollution tax, uniform reduction

Right Makes Might (2/27/2001)

The right to transfer private property has led to windfall gain to right owners and better allocation of scarce resources, such as water and power.

Keywords: aluminum, Aurora, cheap electricity, northwest, power shortage, private property, property rights, resale, right to transfer, Rocky Ford Ditch, water rights, windfall gain

The Right to Pollute? (10/20/1999)

Pollution credits convert the atmosphere from a commons into private property. They can reduce pollution if the pollution cap is lower than the unrestricted total and lower the costs of reducing pollution if credits can be sold from low-cost avoiders and high-cost avoiders.

Keywords: allowances, Clean Air Act, commons, emissions, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxide, pollution, pollution credits, private property, quotas, sulfur dioxide, trading, utilities.