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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2014‒09‒08
ten papers chosen by |
| By: | Abolhosseini, Shahrouz (College of Engineering, TEMEP, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea); Heshmati, Almas´ (Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS), and Jönköping University (JIBS)); Altmann, Jörn (College of Engineering, TEMEP, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea) |
| Abstract: | Electricity consumption will comprise an increasing share of global energy demand during the next two decades. In recent years, the increasing prices of fossil fuels and concerns about the environmental consequences of greenhouse gas emissions have renewed the interest in the development of alternative energy resources. In particular, the Fukushima Daiichi accident was a turning point in the call for alternative energy sources. Renewable energy is now considered a more desirable source of fuel than nuclear power due to the absence of risk and disasters. Considering that the major component of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide, there is a global concern about reducing carbon emissions. In this regard, different policies could be applied to reducing carbon emissions, such as enhancing renewable energy deployment and encouraging technological innovations. Two main solutions may be implemented to reduce CO2 emissions and overcome the problem of climate change: replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources as much as possible and enhancing energy efficiency. In this paper, we discuss alternative technologies for enhancing renewable energy deployment and energy use efficiency. |
| Keywords: | energy resources; renewable energy; energy use efficiency; generation technology; carbon emission; green employment |
| JEL: | D61 D62 H23 N50 O13 Q52 Q55 |
| Date: | 2014–08–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0374&r=res |
| By: | Sebastian Miller; Mauricio Vela |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the question of whether the magnitude of long-established environmentally related taxes (ERT) is related to countries environmental performance. While environmental taxes efficiencies have previously been discussed, those taxes contribution to reducing pollution and improving environmental quality has not been fully explored. This paper therefore analyzes the effectiveness of environmental taxes by examining the environmental performance of 50 countries from all regions in association with the amount of revenues from environmentally related taxes each country collects. Using a cross-section regression and a panel dynamic regression, the paper finds that countries with higher revenues from these types of taxes also exhibit higher reductions in CO2 emission, PM10 emissions, and energy consumption and production from fossil sources. |
| JEL: | H23 Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-467&r=res |
| By: | Hanna Krings (University of Aachen) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes resource partnerships and their influence on the environmental quality in a resource-rich country by introducing incomplete contracts, imperfect property rights protection, and a lack of valuation for the environment by the government in the South. Employing numerical simulations, I determine the equilibrium extraction rate, the applied extraction technology, and the environmental quality in dependence of the state of democracy in the resource-rich country. In contrast to what one might expect, under certain circumstances it can be environmentally beneficial to have incomplete contracts that induce the utilization of a suboptimal technology for resource extraction. Further, reducing the holdup problem by shifting bargaining power to the North, is only desirable if the environmental quality in- creases with a better extraction technology. |
| Keywords: | Resource Extraction, Environment, North-South Trade |
| JEL: | F18 Q37 Q56 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201434&r=res |
| By: | Kostka, Genia |
| Abstract: | China's national leaders have recently made a priority of changing lanes from a pollution-intensive, growth-at-any-cost model to a resource-efficient and sustainable one. The immense challenges of rapid urbanization are one aspect of the problem. Central-local government relations are another source of challenges, since the central government's green agenda does not always find willing followers at lower levels. This paper identifies barriers to a more comprehensive implementation of environmental policies at the local level in China's urban areas and suggests ways to reduce or remove them. The research focuses particularly on the reasons for the gap between national plans and policy outcomes. Although environmental goals and policies at the national level are quite ambitious and comprehensive, insufficient and inconsistent local level implementation can hold back significant improvements in urban environmental quality. By analyzing local institutional and behavioral obstacles and by highlighting best-practice examples from China and elsewhere, the paper outlines options that can be used at the national and local levels to close the local"environmental implementation gap."The findings emphasize the need to create additional incentives and increase local implementation capacities. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics&Policies,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Climate Change Economics,Public Sector Management and Reform |
| Date: | 2014–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7016&r=res |
| By: | Omar Chisari; Sebastian Galiani; Sebastian Miller |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the optimal dynamic choices between policies of mitigation and adaptation for three economies: Brazil, Chile and the United States. The focus is on the optimal role of mitigation and adaptation for “environmentally small economies,” i. e. , economies that are witnessing an exogenous increase in emissions to which they are contributing very little. The simulations lead to three main conclusions. First, small economies should concentrate their environmental efforts, if any, on adaptation. This is not a recommendation that such economies indulge in free-riding. Instead, it is based on considerations of cost effectiveness, ceteris paribus. Second, small economies that are unable to spend enough on adaptation may end up spending less on mitigation owing to their impoverishment as a result of negative climate shocks. Third, higher mitigation expenditures may arise not only as a result of greater optimal adaptation expenditures, but also because of increased adaptation to the incentives for mitigation provided by richer countries. |
| JEL: | Q52 Q54 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-417&r=res |
| By: | Thai-Thanh Dang; Annabelle Mourougane |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to estimate the effect on MFP of air pollution in 7 ASEAN economies (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) and China. For this purpose, standard measures of MFP are corrected for the impact of pollution applying the framework developed by Brandt et al. (2013), and valuing pollution through country-specific time-varying shadow price estimates for CO2, SOx, NOx and PM10, derived from an output distance function approach. Shadow prices of pollutants, the opportunity cost of abating pollution in the form of reduced output, are found to vary widely across economies, depending on national environmental regulations, the use of inefficient abatement technologies, and the structure of the economy. In all countries but Cambodia, shadow prices of the various pollutants experience a downward trend since the Asian crisis, suggesting that ASEAN countries and China have strengthened their regulatory framework and encouraged the adoption of clean technologies. Accounting for pollution leads to very different adjustments to standard MFP measures across countries. In most countries the adjustment is positive, suggesting that standard MFP measures have tended to underestimate the true measure. Such correction would be above 2 percentage points in Lao PDR and the Philippines. It is estimated to be around 1 percentage point in China, Indonesia and Thailand and about half that size in Malaysia. It would be negative in Cambodia in this country and nil in Vietnam. |
| Date: | 2014–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2014-491&r=res |
| By: | Henriques, Sofia Teives (Department of Business and Economics); Borowiecki, Karol Jan (Department of Business and Economics) |
| Abstract: | Fossil-fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions have risen dramatically since 1800. We identify the long-run drivers of CO2 emissions for a sample of twelve developed economies using an extended Kaya decomposition. By considering biomass and carbon-free energy sources along with fossil fuels we are able to shed light on the effects of past and present energy transitions on CO2 emissions. We find that at low levels of income per capita, fuel switching from biomass to fossil fuels is the main contributing factor to emission growth. Scale effects, especially income effects, become the most important emission drivers at higher levels of income and also dominate the overall long-run change. Technological change is the main offsetting factor. Particularly in the last decades, technological change and fuel switching have become important contributors to the decrease in emissions in Europe. Our results also individualize the different CO2 historical paths across parts of Europe, North America and Japan. |
| Keywords: | CO2 emissions; Kaya decomposition; Energy transition |
| JEL: | N70 O44 Q40 Q54 |
| Date: | 2014–08–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sdueko:2014_013&r=res |
| By: | Sebastian Galiani; Manuel Puente; Federico Weinschelbaum |
| Abstract: | Latin America has a comparative advantage in deforestation compared to other forms of climate change mitigation. Thus, to the extent that Latin America should engage in mitigation, the optimal climate change policy should manage these advantages by generating incentives in Latin America to deal with forestry. This paper describes the problem of deforestation and studies the market failures that arise in relation to forestry emission problems, analyzing them from a global public good perspective. The paper additionally describes other problems related to forestry emission issues and presents a non-exhaustive review of the solutions currently proposed to address this issue. The paper concludes with policy recommendations. |
| JEL: | D71 D79 F18 F53 Q54 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:idb-pb-182&r=res |
| By: | Sebastian Miller; Mauricio Vela |
| Abstract: | Environmental taxes have been discussed as one of the main mechanisms to deal with environmental problems. Nonetheless, instruments of this type have rarely been implemented, and the adoption of new or higher environmental taxes has faced resistance in some countries. The purpose of this work is to identify one possible political answer to why adoption of environmental taxes varies. One explanation is that legislatures’ ideological position affects the degree of usage of taxes generally and environmental taxes in particular. For example, right-wing parties tend to be less associated with environmental concerns and more associated with lower government intervention. This paper presents evidence that reflects this relationship, showing the positive association of more left-wing legislatures with higher levels of environmental taxation. A panel of data for 37 developed and developing countries over 16 years is used considering the percentage of total revenue from environmentally related taxes, the ratio of this revenue to total energy use and tax levels in industry and household sectors. The results show that most of these impacts involve environmentally related taxes in the industry sector. Proportional representation electoral systems and high seat concentration by few parties appear to be necessary conditions for the negative relation of right-wing ideology with environmental taxes. |
| JEL: | H23 P16 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-443&r=res |
| By: | Abolhosseini, Shahrouz (College of Engineering, TEMEP, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea); Heshmati, Almas (Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS), and Jönköping University (JIBS)) |
| Abstract: | Considering that the major part of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide, there is a global concern aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Additionally, major consumer countries are looking for alternative sources of energy to avoid the impact of higher fossil fuel prices and political instability in the major energy supplying countries. In this regard, different policies could be applied to reduce carbon emissions, such as enhancing renewable energy deployment and encouraging technological innovation and creation of green jobs. There are three main support mechanisms employed by governments to finance renewable energy development programs: feed-in-tariffs, tax incentives, and tradable green certificates. Considering that many of the promising technologies to deploy renewable energy require investment in small-scale energy production systems, these mechanisms could be used to enhance renewable energy development at the desired scale. Employing a carbon emission tax or emission trading mechanism could be considered ideal policies to mitigate emissions at the lowest cost. The comparison of feed-in-tariffs and renewable portfolio standard policies showed that the former is good when a policy to develop renewable energy sources with a low level of risk for investors is considered. However, the latter is an appropriate policy when a market view policy is applied by the government. |
| Keywords: | Renewable energy; financing renewable energy; feed-in-tariffs; tax incentives; tradable green certificates; carbon emission tax; green jobs |
| JEL: | H23 L71 O13 O31 Q27 Q42 |
| Date: | 2014–08–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0373&r=res |