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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2013‒11‒14
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Carlén, Björn (VTI); Hernández, Aday (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) |
| Abstract: | We study an environmental policy that (i) tax some emitters while others are covered by a cap-and-trade system and (ii) index the tax level to the permit price. Such a policy could be attractive in a world where abatement costs are uncertain and the regulator has information about the correlation between the cost shocks to the two groups. We show that this index policy yields lower expected social cost than the policy mix studied in Mandell (2008). The value of indexing is higher the stronger the correlation is, the steeper the marginal abatement benefit curve is, and the more uncertain we are about the taxed sector’s abatement costs. The index policy may also outperform the uniform policy alternatives emission tax and cap-and-trade system. The conditions for this are more restrictive, though. Given parameter values plausible for the European climate change policy context, expected net-gains are small or negative. |
| Keywords: | Uncertainty; Environmental policy; Emissions tax; Tradable permits |
| JEL: | H23 Q23 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–10–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2013_033&r=res |
| By: | Timothy Halliday (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa); Sumner La Croix (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa) |
| Abstract: | We examine the welfare consequence of emissions tax with and without a Border Tax Adjustment for an imperfectly competitive industry, where intra-industry trade arises between countries. BTA allows a government to impose a pollution-content tariff on imports and refund an emission tax for export sales. We analyze the structure of an optimal emission tax with BTA when a government chooses its emission tax rate to maximize its national welfare. We show that the optimal emission tax policy with BTA achieves greater national welfare and higher environmental quality than the optimal policy without BTA. |
| Keywords: | trade and environment, border tax adjustment, intra-industry trade |
| JEL: | F18 F12 Q56 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:201318&r=res |
| By: | Larson, Donald F.; Gurara, Daniel Zerfu |
| Abstract: | In Africa, farmers have been reluctant to take up new varieties of staple crops developed to boost smallholder yields and rural incomes. Low fertilizer use is often mentioned as a proximate cause, but some believe the problem originates with incomplete input markets. As a remedy, African governments have introduced technology adoption programs with fertilizer subsidies as a core component. Still, the links between market performance and choices about using fertilizer are poorly articulated in empirical studies and policy discussions, making it difficult to judge whether the programs are expected to generate lasting benefits or to simply offset high fertilizer prices. This paper develops a conceptual model to show how choices made by agents supplying input services combine with household livelihood settings to generate heterogeneous decisions about fertilizer use. An applied model is estimated with data from a panel survey in rural Ethiopia. The results suggest that adverse market conditions limit the adoption of fertilizer-based technologies, especially among resource-poor households. Farmers appear to respond to market signals in the aggregate and this provides a pathway for subsidies to stimulate demand. However, the research suggests that lowering transaction costs, through investments in infrastructure and market institutions, can generate deeper effects by expanding the technologies available to farmers across all pricing outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change and Agriculture,Markets and Market Access,Fertilizers,Economic Theory&Research |
| Date: | 2013–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6681&r=res |
| By: | Chowdhury, Tasnim; Datta, Rajib; Mohajan, Haradhan |
| Abstract: | Green finance is part of a broader occurrence; from the incorporation of various non-financial or ethical concerns onto the financial universe. Generally green finance is considered as the financial support for green growth which reduces greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutant emissions significantly. Green finance in agriculture, green buildings and other green projects should increase for the economic development of the country. In this paper an attempt has been made to describe green financing in a boarder sense. |
| Keywords: | Environment, Green building, Green finance, Green projects, Renewable energy. |
| JEL: | G17 |
| Date: | 2013–03–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:51169&r=res |
| By: | Arjaliès , Diane-Laure; Goubet , Cécile; Ponssard , Jean Pierre |
| Abstract: | The ability of firms to transform an environmental constraint into a strategic opportunity has been a controversial issue in the literature. Based on a comparative study of CO2 strategies in the cement and chemical industries, the article shows that the capacity of firms to be proactive regarding sustainable development is largely constrained by the characteristics of the sector in terms of dependence on natural resources, flexibility in the composition of activities portfolio and structure of the downstream sector. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Sustainable Development; Corporate Strategy |
| JEL: | M14 M21 Q25 |
| Date: | 2013–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:0994&r=res |
| By: | Jean-Francois Mercure; Pablo Salas (Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an assessment of global economic energy potentials for all major natural energy resources. This work is based on both an extensive literature review and calculations based onto natural resource assessment data. In the first part, economic potentials are presented in the form of cost-supply curves, in terms of energy flows for renewable energy sources, or fixed amounts for fossil and nuclear resources, using consistent energy units that allow direct comparisons to be made. These calculations take into account, and provide a theoretical framework for considering uncertainty in resource assessments, providing a novel contribution aimed at enabling the introduction of uncertainty into resource limitations used in energy modelling. The theoretical details and parameters provided in tables enable this extensive natural resource database to be adapted to any modelling framework for energy systems. The second part of this paper uses these cost-supply curves in order to build a tool for analysing global scenarios of energy use, in the context of exploring the feasibility global decarbonisation using renewable energy sources. For such a purpose, a theoretical framework is given for evaluating either flows of stock energy resources for given price path assumptions for the related energy carriers, or the prices of energy carriers given energy demand assumptions. Results of both approaches are used in order to produce a complete comparison of global energy resources. The particular case of the feasibility of global decarbonisation by the end of the century is explored. Since the scale of the required amount of energy flows from renewables is comparable to the sum of the technical potentials, the associated scale of global land use for energy production is found to be large. For complete decarbonisation, without energy demand reductions, 7 to 12\% of the global land area could be required for energy production activities, emphasising the importance of improving energy consumption patterns and intensity of the global economy. The third part of this work is an appendix that provides all missing details, equations and databases necessary to understand and reproduce the work of Part I. This part is therefore aimed at enabling energy modellers to reproduce exactly and use in their own work the database that was constructed in this work. |
| Keywords: | Global energy resources, Climate change mitigation, Energy Commodity Price Dynamics, Global Decarbonisation |
| JEL: | Q21 Q31 Q41 Q54 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ccc:wpaper:002&r=res |