Omitted, misspecified, or mismeasured spatially varying characteristics are a cause for concern in hedonic house price models. Spatial econometrics or spatial fixed effects have become popular ways of addressing these concerns. We discuss the limitations of standard spatial approaches to hedonic modeling and demonstrate the spatial generalized additive model as an alternative. Parameter estimates for several spatially varying regressors are shown to be sensitive to the scale of the fixed effects and bandwidth dimension used to control for omitted variables. This sensitivity reflects the uncertainty associated with the estimates when the appropriate spatial scale of the controls is unknown. (JEL Q51, Q52)The authors are, respectively, postdoctoral researcher,

Voluntary environmental management programs for firms have become an increasingly popular instrument of environmental policy. However, the literature's conclusion on the effectiveness of such programs is ambiguous, and for the European region there is a lack of evidence based on a large control group. We seek to fill this gap with an evaluation of the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), introduced in 1995 by the European Union as a premium certification of continuous pro-environmental efforts above regulatory minimum standards. It is more demanding than other voluntary programs due to annual public reports of the environmental performance and targets for improvements. We use official firm-level production census data on the German manufacturing sector, a major energy consumer and emitter in Europe. To account for the self-selection of firms, we combine the Coarsened Exact Matching approach with a Difference-inDifferences estimation. Our results do not suggest reductions of firms' CO2 intensity and energy intensity neither before nor after certification. Moreover, program participants do not increase renewable energy consumption or investments into the protection of the environment and climate. Our results are robust to a variety of checks and call into question the effectiveness of the EMAS program concerning these particular outcome variables. Highlights:-We evaluate the EMAS program in Germany using production census firm-level data.-Matching Difference-inDifferences estimation accounts for self-selection of firms.-The program mainly attracts large and energy-intensive producers.-We find no impact on CO2 and energy intensity, renewable usage or eco-investments.

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The European Union (EU) recently adopted CO 2 emissions mandates for new passenger cars, requiring steady reductions to 95 gCO 2 /km in 2021. We use a multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which includes a private transportation sector with an empiricallybased parameterization of the relationship between income growth and demand for vehicle miles traveled. The model also includes representation of fleet turnover, and opportunities for fuel use and emissions abatement, including representation of electric vehicles. We analyze the impact of the mandates on oil demand, CO 2 emissions, and economic welfare, and compare the results to an emission trading scenario that achieves identical emissions reductions. We find that vehicle emission standards reduce CO 2 emissions from transportation by about 50 MtCO 2 and lower the oil expenditures by about €6 billion, but at a net added cost of €12 billion in 2020. Tightening CO 2 standards further after 2021 would cost the EU economy an additional €24-63 billion in 2025, compared with an emission trading system that achieves the same economy-wide CO 2 reduction. We offer a discussion of the design features for incorporating transport into the emission trading system.

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