Wallace Oates was a leading scholar in public and environmental economics, focusing on the assignment of functions among different levels of government in a federal system. He deeply explored the provision of local public goods, the design of intergovernmental grants, and the structure of local revenue systems. His work in environmental economics centered on using economic incentives for environmental management. He particularly studied the design and implementation of taxes on polluting activities and systems of tradable emissions allowances.
Bringing together major articles on the economics of the environment and natural resources, this book encompasses works on the theory of externalities and its application to environmental regulation, techniques for the valuation of environmental amenities, the theory and management of common property resources, and the intertemporal analysis of managing both exhaustable and renewable resources. These papers represent the ongoing research in environmental and natural resource economics.