Offers an easy way for students, academics, journalists, policymakers, and the public to learn about a diverse range of policy issues affecting the environment, energy, transportation, and public health.

Issues of the Day provides an easy way for students, academics, journalists, policymakers, and the public to learn about a diverse range of policy issues affecting the environment, energy, transportation, and public health. Each commentary gives a short assessment of a topic, summarizing in a non-technical way the current state of analysis or evidence on the issue, along with selected recommendations for further reading. The essays are written by world renowned scholars, mostly economists, and provide useful insights on policy problems that are often complex and poorly understood. Some of the topics covered include air pollution, hazardous waste, voluntary environmental programs, domestic (U.S.) and global climate policy design, fishery management, water quality, endangered species, forest fires, oil security, solar power, road and airport, fuel taxes and fuel economy standards, alternative fuel vehicles, health and longevity, smoking, malaria, tuberculosis, and the environment and development. The objective is to disseminate the findings of sound, objective research on the costs, benefits, and appropriate reform of public policies. The book provides a useful supplement for undergraduate- and graduate-level course reading, a reference guide for professionals, and a way for the general reader to quickly develop an informed perspective on the most important policy problems of the day. Issues of the Day is available to download as a PDF from the Resources for the Future website: www.rff.org/weeklycommentary

'What a great idea! Get 100 qualified individuals, or teams, to produce brief, 2-page analyses of urgent policy issues a nontechnical encyclopedia of current issues in climate, energy, ecology, and related topics. My suggestion: read one each day, and think about it all day. In a hundred days you'll be hugely enriched. Only RFF could do this.' Thomas C. Schelling, University of Maryland, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 'This unique book offers an impressive set of brief, understandable, and authoritative analyses of 100 issues in the important policy areas on which recent RFF research has focused. It belongs on the bookshelf of everyone who has ever encountered an unfamiliar issue in this broad domain and wondered,What is the best thinking on this? It is a terrific source of readings for courses dealing with public policy.' Richard Schmalensee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 'The short essays in this volume provide a treasure trove of interesting analyses of a variety of important economic policy issues. Instructors in economics and public policy courses will particularly value the clear, sensible, and student-friendly fashion in which microeconomic tools are employed.' Harvey S. Rosen, Princeton University 'In this refreshingly different approach to environmental policy, we hear from a very wide variety of the world's environmental economists and policy researchers, with short and pointed opinion pieces. This is great reading and should be valuable for anyone who wishes to appreciate the nuances of solving many of today's pressing environmental problems.' Charles D. Kolstad, University of California, Santa Barbara