Foreword

This special issue on “Environmental Regulation and Innovation in Local Communities” came out of the 2019 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association's Post-Conference Workshop. The workshop sought to invite a conversation among researchers, think tanks, government agencies, and policy makers to enhance our understanding of (1) how local communities innovate when shaping and responding to environmental regulations, and (2) how these environmental regulations affect rural communities’ economic well-being and environmental quality. This resulting special issue includes two invited pieces from the workshop's keynote speakers, both leading scholars in the area of regulation or innovation and five manuscripts that deal with local environmental issues—issues that highlight geographically distinct environmental problems related to land use, water quality, and energy—each of which require different solutions. In various ways, these papers look at the linkages between economic and environmental objectives that define the location-specificity of the environmental issue at hand and the requisite policy solutions.