Government Failure and Market Failure: On the Inefficiency of Environmental and Energy Policy

by David Anthoff and Robert W. Hahn

- There are three key contributions of this paper. The first is to synthesize a large literature on energy and environmental policy in a way that can be easily digested by both non-experts and experts. The second contribution is to suggest that, if history is a guide, then we should not expect many interventions in these policy areas to come close to maximizing net economic benefits. The third is to suggest what might be needed for the development of more efficient energy and environmental policies.

Anthoff, D. and R.W. Hahn (2009). "Government Failure and Market Failure: On the Inefficiency of Environmental and Energy Policy." Smith School Working Paper Series, Working Paper No. 005, Available at SSRN. Nov 2009.