Abstract: We describe three essential elements of an effective post-2012 international global climate policy architecture: a means to ensure that key industrialized and developing nations are involved in differentiated but meaningful ways; an emphasis on an extended time path of targets; and inclusion of flexible market-based policy instruments to keep costs down and facilitate international equity. This architecture is consistent with fundamental aspects of the science, economics, and politics of global climate change; addresses specific shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol; and builds upon the foundation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Abstract: Urban water conservation is typically achieved through prescriptive regulations, including the rationing of water for particular uses and requirements for the installation of particular technologies. A significant shift has occurred in pollution control regulations toward market-based policies in recent decades. We offer an analysis of the relative merits of marketbased and prescriptive approaches to water conservation, where prices have rarely been used to allocate scarce supplies. The analysis emphasizes the emerging theoretical and empirical evidence that using prices to manage water demand is more cost-effective than implementing non-price conservation programs, similar to results for pollution control in earlier decades. Price-based approaches also have advantages in terms of monitoring and enforcement. In terms of predictability and equity, neither policy instrument has an inherent advantage over the other.As in any policy context, political considerations are important.

Abstract: Urban water pricing provides an opportunity to examine whether consumers react to the shape of supply functions. We carry out an empirical analysis of the influence of price and price structure on residential water demand, using the most price-diverse, detailed, household-level water demand data yet available for this purpose. We adapt the Hausman model of labor supply under progressive income taxation to estimate water demand under non-linear prices. Ours is the first analysis to address both the simultaneous determination of marginal price and water demand under block pricing and the possibility of endogenous price structures in the cross section. Inorder to examine the possibility that consumers facing block prices are more price-responsive, all else equal, we test for price elasticity differences across price structures. We find that households facing block prices are more sensitive to price increases than households facing uniform marginal prices. Tests for endogenous price structures cannot rule out a behavioral response to the shape of supply, but suggest that observed differences in price elasticity under supply curves of varying shapes may result, in part, from underlying heterogeneity among utility service areas.