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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2015‒05‒09
24 papers chosen by |
| By: | Emiliano Magrini; Mauro Vigani |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses the impact of agricultural technologies on the four pillars of food security for maize farmers in Tanzania. Relying on matching techniques, we use a nationally representative dataset collected over the period 2010/2011 to estimate the causal effects of using improved seeds and inorganic fertilizers on food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Overall, the technologies have a positive and significant impact on food security, but substantial differences between the pillars are observed. Improved seeds show a stronger effect on food availability and access, while - in terms of utilization - both technologies increase the diet diversity and only improved seeds reduce the dependence on staple food. Finally, improved seeds reduce the household vulnerability while inorganic fertilizers guarantee higher resilience. The study supports the idea that the relationship between agricultural technologies and food security is a complex phenomenon, which cannot be limited to the use of welfare indexes as proxy for food security. |
| Keywords: | Food security, technology adoption, propensity score matching, Tanzania |
| JEL: | Q12 Q16 Q18 O13 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:35214&r=agr |
| By: | Andrea Guariso; Mara P. Squicciarini; Johan Swinnen |
| Abstract: | The recent spikes of global food prices induced a rapid increase in mass media coverage, public policy attention, and donor funding for food security, and for agriculture and rural poverty. This has occurred while the shift from “low” to “high” food prices has induced a shift in (demographic or social) “location” of the hunger and poverty effects, but the total number of undernourished and poor people have declined over the same period. We discuss whether the observed pattern can be explained by the presence of a “global urban bias” on agriculture and food policy in developing countries, and whether this “global urban bias” may actually benefit poor farmers. We argue that the food price spikes appear to have succeeded where others have failed in the past: to move the problems of poor and hungry farmers to the top of the policy agenda and to induce development and donor strategies to help them. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:34814&r=agr |
| By: | Johan Swinnen; Kristine Van Herck; Liesbet Vranken |
| Abstract: | Land regulations have a major impact on economic development, especially in agrarian societies, and they continue to affect the efficiency of the rural economy when economies further develop. This paper aims to give an overview of the regulations that are present in the land market in the EU member states and builds a land regulatory index to quantify the extent of regulations of agricultural land sales and rental markets. |
| Keywords: | Institutions, regulation, land markets, Europe |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:35414&r=agr |
| By: | Olivia Riera; Johan Swinnen |
| Abstract: | The indirect effects of biofuels are mostly considered negative. In this paper, we argue that there may be a positive indirect effect of biofuels on food security and poverty. Our analysis shows that the introduction of castor production for biofuel in a poor country as Ethiopia can significantly improve food productivity of rural households who produce raw material for biofuel production. This spillover seems particularly linked to enhanced access to inputs and technical assistance which were provided as part of biofuel feedstock production contracts. Our results thus help nuancing the view that biofuels necessarily harm smallholders' food security. |
| Keywords: | biofuels, contract farming, productivity, spillovers, Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:35614&r=agr |
| By: | Dusan Drabik; Pavel Ciaian; Jan Pokrivcak |
| Abstract: | This is the first paper to analyze the impact of biofuels on the price transmission along the food chain. We analyze the U.S. corn sector and its vertical links with food and ethanol (energy) markets. We find that biofuels affect the price transmission elasticity in the food chain compared to a no biofuel production situation but the effect depends on the source of the market shock and the policy regime: the price transmission elasticity declines under a binding blender’s tax credit and a food market shock. Our results also indicate that the response of corn and food prices to shocks in the corn and/or food markets is lower in the presence of biofuels. Finally, the sensitivity analyses indicate that our results are robust to different assumptions about the model parameters. |
| Keywords: | price transmission, food chain, biofuels, prices |
| JEL: | Q11 Q21 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:35114&r=agr |
| By: | Carlos M. Gómez (University of Alcalá (UAH) and Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Water Technologies (IMDEA-Water), Madrid (Spain)); C. Dionisio Pérez-Blanco (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Venice (Italy)) |
| Abstract: | Greening the economy is mostly about improving water governance and not only about putting the existing resource saving technical alternatives into practice. Focusing on the second and forgetting the first risks finishing with a highly efficient use of water services at the level of each individual user but with an unsustainable amount of water use for the entire economy. This might be happening already in many places with the modernization of irrigated agriculture, the world’s largest water user and the one offering the most promising water saving opportunities. In spite of high expectations, modern irrigation techniques seem not to be contributing to reduce water scarcity and increase drought resiliency. In fact, according to the little evidence available, in some areas they are resulting in higher water use. Building on basic economic principles this study aims to show the conditions under which this apparently paradoxical outcome, known as the Jevons’ Paradox, might appear. This basic model is expected to serve as guidance for assessing the actual outcomes of increasing irrigation efficiency and to discuss the changes in water governance that would be required for this to make a real contribution to sustainable water management. |
| Keywords: | Jevons' Paradox, Rebound Effect, Agricultural Economics, Water Economics, Irrigation Efficiency |
| JEL: | Q15 Q18 Q25 Q51 Q58 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.08&r=agr |
| By: | Héctor M. Núñez; Andrés Trujillo-Barrera (Division of Economics, CIDE) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of total and partial waivers of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) under uncertain changes in climate conditions that affects crop yields distributions. The main model results show that reducing RFS would make world agricultural consumers better off, and increase U.S. corn share in the world market, while slightly decrease agricultural commodity prices, but the higher the RFS reduction the higher the uncertainty on the price changes. On the other hand, price changes would make ethanol and agricultural producers face losses as well as increase gasoline consumption and, therefore, bringing larger environmental damages. Overall RFS reduction generates negative changes in total economic surplus, specifically, RFS reductions up to 40 percent generate significant changes in the socioeconomic variables, however any reductions beyond 40 percent do not appear to bring further changes, although welfare results appear more uncertain under an increased reduction. |
| Keywords: | Biofuel Policy, Climate Uncertainty, Crop Commodity Markets |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emc:wpaper:dte585&r=agr |
| By: | Bignebat, C.; Bosc, P.M.; Perrier-Cornet, P. |
| Abstract: | The question of farm size has long been a concern in the agricultural economics literature. The observation of a long-lasting persistence of so-called small farms drew the attention of numerous researchers. The size of farms is often approximated by the farm area in hectares or the added value and gross margin. We propose to investigate the opportunity to use labour family labour and hired, permanent and seasonal, wage labour) as an entry point for a typology of agricultural holdings, with an application on French data from the Census collected in 2000. Then, we characterize the holdings belonging to the groups defined by the typology based on the type of labour. ....French Abstract : La question de la taille des exploitations agricoles, en relation avec leurs performances, a été largement abordée par la littérature dédiée à l’économie agricole. En particulier, la persistance de l’existence de petites exploitations a attiré l’attention. La taille des exploitations est le plus souvent estimée en hectares, en valeur ajoutée ou en chiffre d’affaires. Cet article propose une entrée par le travail (familial ou salarié, saisonnier ou permanent) pour construire une typologie des exploitations françaises sur la base du Recensement Agricole 2000. Il caractérise ensuite les différents types d’exploitations identifiées. |
| Keywords: | AGRICULTURAL LABOUR; FARM SIZE; TRAVAIL AGRICOLE; TAILLE DES EXPLOITATIONS; FRANCE |
| JEL: | D22 D13 J43 Q12 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umr:wpaper:201501&r=agr |
| By: | Petterson Molina Vale (London School of Economics and Political Science) |
| Abstract: | More cattle, less deforestation? Land use intensification in the Amazon is an unexpected phenomenon. Theories of hollow frontier, speculative behaviour and boom-bust all share the prediction that livestock production will remain largely extensive. Yet between 1996 and 2006 productivity of cattle grew by an astounding 57.5% in the average Amazon municipality. Does rising land productivity of cattle increase deforestation? I use secondary data and spatial econometrics to look for evidence of a positive relation between cattle intensification and deforestation (‘rebound effect’). The reduced-form model I employ is based on a spatial econometric specification by Arima et al. (2011) and uses panel data at the municipality-level. I show that mounting productivity in consolidated areas has been associated with lower deforestation both in frontier and consolidated municipalities. This suggests that any process of out-migration spurred by the rising productivity is insufficient to have a positive impact on deforestation. |
| Keywords: | Amazon, Rebound Effect, Intensification, Deforestation, Land Use, Cattle Ranching |
| JEL: | Q53 Q15 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.20&r=agr |
| By: | Johan Swinnen; Anneleen Vandeplas |
| Abstract: | “Modern” agricultural markets are characterized by, among other things, quality requirements and vertical coordination. The nature of the industrial organization of the value chain depends on a variety of factors, such as local institutions, economic growth, demand, institutional infrastructure etc. In this paper we present a conceptual framework to explicitly integrate key characteristics of these “modern” agricultural markets and derive implications for price transmission and market power in these markets and value chains. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:34714&r=agr |
| By: | Asian Development Bank (ADB); (Central and West Asia Department, ADB); ; |
| Abstract: | If water is to be managed in a sustainable way, the planners and managers must know how much there is and how much of it is needed, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. The report provides the guidance, methods, data, and analyses needed to assess water availability and needs in micro watersheds. It shows how to prepare short-, medium-, and long-term water investment and management plans on the basis of volume of surface and groundwater within a watershed and the needs of agriculture, people, and livestock. It offers a practical approach based on real-life assessments that have helped planners decide on investments to develop and manage water. |
| Keywords: | Agriculture and natural resources, Water, water balance, sustainable development, water assessment, integrated water resources management, Pakistan, water availability, rainfall, snowmelt runoff, groundwater, water consumption, agriculture, livestock, watershed management, irrigation, Bajaur, Khyber, Mohmand, geographic information system, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), FATA Development Authority, curve number method, electric resistivity survey, water balance model, water infrastructure |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:asd:wpaper:rpt146624-3&r=agr |
| By: | Juan Carlos Munoz Mora; José Antonio Fortou; Sandra L Johansson; Jorge Giraldo-Ramirez |
| Keywords: | civil conflict; land tenure; impact of conflict; Land inequality |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/199248&r=agr |
| By: | Cristina Cattaneo (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)); Emanuele Massetti (Georgia Institute of Technology, CESIfo and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)) |
| Abstract: | We analyse whether migration is an adaptation that households employ to cope with climate in Ghana and Nigeria. If migration is part of the present adaptation portfolio of households in developing countries, it is reasonable to expect that it will also be an adaptation to future climate change. It is important to stress that we are interested in long-term climatic conditions rather than in short-term weather fluctuations. The data to test these predictions are drawn from two different household surveys: the Nigeria General Household Survey and the Ghana Living Standard Survey. We find a hill-shaped relationship between temperature in the dry sea son and the propensity to migrate in households that operate farms. We also find a significant hill-shaped relationship between precipitations in the wet seasons and the propensity to migrate in farm households. Climate has instead no significant impact on the propensity to migrate in non-farm households. Climate change scenarios generated by General Circulation model reveal that, ceteris paribus, migration may decline in Ghana and in Nigeria. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change Impacts, Migration, Development Economics |
| JEL: | O15 Q54 R23 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.29&r=agr |
| By: | Emanuele Massetti (Georgia Institute of Technology); Robert Mendelsohn (Yale University); Shun Chonabayashi (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | Farmland values have traditionally been valued using seasonal temperature and precipitation. A new strand of the literature uses degree days over the growing season to predict farmland value. We find that degree days and daily temperature are interchangeable over the growing season. However, the way that degree days are used in these recent studies is problematic and leads to biased and inaccurate results. These new findings have serious implications for any study that copies this methodology. |
| Keywords: | Degree Days, Climate Change Impacts, Agriculture, Land Values |
| JEL: | Q12 Q24 Q51 Q54 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.12&r=agr |
| By: | Johan Swinnen,; Kristine Van Herck; Liesbet Vranken |
| Abstract: | The creation of optimal land institutions attracted renewed attention in the 1990s because of its central role in the transition process in former Communist countries in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and more recently because of large-scale land investments in developing countries. This paper documents the existence of large variations in land institutions (markets and regulation) using current and historical data from Western and Eastern Europe. It then offers explanations for these differences and draws implications for the role and optimality of land institutions in development (with special reference to the current debate on large scale land acquisitions). |
| Keywords: | Institutions, regulation, land markets, Europe |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:35514&r=agr |
| By: | C. Dionisio Pérez Blanco (University of Alcalá (UAH) and Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Water Technologies (IMDEA-Water), Madrid (Spain)); Thomas Thaler (Flood Hazard Research Center (FHRC), Middlesex University, London (United Kingdom)) |
| Abstract: | Traditionally, water policy has focused on coordinating the public effort required to fuel economic growth by supplying water services demanded as a result of the progress in the many areas of the economy. Under this supply-oriented paradigm, population growth and the improvement of living standards brought about by development have driven water demand up and the pressures over water resources have escalated. The failure to acknowledge the limited availability of water and to decouple economic development from water demand has resulted in a water dependent growth model that in many areas is currently threatened by increasing scarcity and more frequent and intense droughts. Consequently, there is an urgent need to use sparse water resources in a sustainable and efficient way. This demands a comprehensive assessment of water productivity dynamics as well as of the linkages among economic sectors in order to calculate the actual costs of eventual water reallocations to the environment and establish priorities in the design of strategic actions such as river basin or drought management plans. However, available studies only offer static analyses that are insufficient to attain the dual objective of reverting current water scarcity trends without impairing economic growth. This paper develops a methodology based on the Hypothetical Extraction Method to estimate inter-temporal indirect (i.e., including intersectoral linkages) water productivity values. The method is applied in the Spanish region of Castile and León for the period 2000-2006. The intensive use and the low water productivity found for agriculture confirms the intuition that this sector has to play a fundamental role in any water saving policy. However, the relevant linkages between agriculture and the rest of the economy, which acts as an indirect consumer of water for irrigation, may complicate the finding of a Pareto improvement in water allocation. Results also show increasing returns to scale in the manufacturing industry and the service sector, which may be regarded as an evidence of the existence of a Verdoorn’s Law for water. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Input-output Modeling, Verdoorn’s Law, Water Management, Productivity |
| JEL: | Q25 Q28 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.07&r=agr |
| By: | Jessie Handbury; Ilya Rahkovsky; Molly Schnell |
| Abstract: | The poor diets of many consumers are often attributed to limited access to healthy foods. In this paper, we use detailed data describing the healthfulness of household food purchases and the retail landscapes in which these consumers are making these decisions to study the role of access in explaining why some people in the United States eat more nutritious foods than others. We first confirm that households with lower income and education purchase less healthful foods. We then measure the spatial variation in the average nutritional quality of available food products across local markets, revealing that healthy foods are less likely to be available in low-income neighborhoods. Though significant, spatial differences in access are small and explain only a fraction of the variation that we observe in the nutritional content of household purchases. Systematic socioeconomic disparities in household purchases persist after controlling for access: even in the same store, more educated households purchase more healthful foods. Consistent with this result, we further find that the nutritional quality of purchases made by households with low levels of income and education respond very little when new stores enter or when existing stores change their product offerings. Together, our results indicate that policies aimed at improving access to healthy foods in underserved areas will leave most of the socioeconomic disparities in nutritional consumption intact. |
| JEL: | I12 I24 I3 R2 R3 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21126&r=agr |
| By: | Debaere, Peter; Kurzendoerfer, Amanda |
| Abstract: | Water use in the U.S. has followed a remarkable pattern since 1950, not mimicking the almost uninterrupted 110 percent increase in the size of the U.S. population, the relatively steady 570 percent growth in real GDP, and the 220 percent improvement in per capita GDP. After doubling between 1950 and 1980, the total volume of water withdrawn has stabilized and even decreased in recent years. Our decomposition shows that between 35 and 50 percent of the productivity gains that allowed the U.S. to produce each dollar of its GDP with increasingly less water stems from long-term structural changes of the U.S. economy since 1950 (growing service economy, declining manufacturing and agricultural sectors). The remaining 50 to 65 percent is due to improved production techniques, and in particular due to water productivity improvements in the electricity-generating sector, especially since the mid to late 1970s. We argue that while globalization has helped reduce U.S. water use particularly since 1980, the U.S. ability to import more water-intensive goods is not the main reason U.S. water use plateaued. |
| Keywords: | international economics; natural resources; water |
| JEL: | F18 Q25 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10573&r=agr |
| By: | Lopamudra Chakraborti; José Jaime Sainz Santamaría (Division of Economics, CIDE) |
| Abstract: | Studies on industrial pollution and community pressure in developing countries are rare. We employ previously unused, self-reported toxics pollution data from Mexico to show that there exists some evidence of environmental justice concerns and community pressure in explaining industrial pollution behavior. We obtain historical data on toxic releases into water and land for the time period 2004 to 2012. We focus on 7 major pollutants including heavy metals and cyanide. To address endogeneity concerns of socioeconomic demographic variables, we use data from 2000 Census of Population and Housing and 2005 count data. Our results show that the immediate local population might be affected more by on-site land pollution than end-of-pipe discharges into waterbodies as the latter affects only downstream communities. Among our consistent results, increase in percent of households with telephone leads to lower land (and water) pollution; while increase percent of households with computer leads to increase in water pollution only. Similarly, vulnerable population as captured by percent of population over 65 years and higher unemployment rate leads to higher water pollution only. Other proxies for income and poverty have expected signs but not consistently across all models. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Pollution, Local Income and Unemployment Effects, Informal Regulation, Environmental Justice, Community Pressure, Toxic Releases |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emc:wpaper:dte587&r=agr |
| By: | Iimi,Atsushi; Lancelot,Eric R.; Manelici,Isabela; Ogita,Satoshi |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to provide feedback on the question of socioeconomic benefits from rural road development and the impact of transport infrastructure on the poor, particularly the poorest and the bottom 20 percent of the population. This paper relies on impact evaluation methodologies, which are traditionally used in social sectors but less so in the transport sector. The study, including first surveys, was launched in 2003 under the Tocantins Sustainable Regional Development Project. The paper highlights the context that led to the project?s design, which included an impact evaluation of the works envisaged under the project. The paper also highlights some of the main challenges faced by this impact evaluation and how these challenges were addressed for the present study. It then provides details about the data collected during the surveys and the key relevant characteristics of the population targeted by the surveys. It discusses the possible estimation methods envisioned to undertake the study and provides the main results of the assessment based on these methods. The analysis shows that improved rural roads changed people?s transport modal choice. People used more public buses and individual motorized vehicles after the rural road improvements. The paper also finds that the project increased school attendance, particularly for girls. Although the evidence is relatively weak in statistical terms, it indicates that the project contributed to increasing agricultural jobs and household income in certain regions. |
| Keywords: | Regional Economic Development,Roads and Highways Performance,Regional Rural Development,Rural Roads&Transport,Transport Economics Policy&Planning |
| Date: | 2015–04–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7249&r=agr |
| By: | Quamrul Ashraf (Williams College); Stelios Michalopoulos (Brown University) |
| Abstract: | This research examines the climatic origins of the diffusion of Neolithic agriculture across countries and archaeological sites. The theory suggests that a foraging society's history of climatic shocks shaped the timing of its adoption of farming. Specifically, as long as climatic disturbances did not lead to a collapse of the underlying resource base, the rate at which hunter-gatherers were climatically propelled to experiment with their habitats determined the accumulation of tacit knowledge complementary to farming. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, the empirical investigation demonstrates that, conditional on biogeographic endowments, climatic volatility has a hump-shaped effect on the timing of the adoption of agriculture. |
| Keywords: | Hunting and gathering, agriculture, Neolithic Revolution, climatic volatility, Broad Spectrum Revolution, technological progress |
| JEL: | N50 O11 O13 O31 O33 O44 O57 Q56 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2015-07&r=agr |
| By: | Francesco Bosello (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici and Università degli Studi di Milano); Elisa Delpiazzo (Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici); Fabio Eboli (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici) |
| Abstract: | The present research has been developed within the EU FP7 VECTORS project (http://www.marine-vectors.eu/). The main scope of the project (2011-2015) has been to evaluate, from a multilateral perspective, drivers, pressures and vectors of changes in marine life of three main European seas (Baltic, Western Mediterranean, North), the mechanisms by which they do so and the impacts that they have on ecosystem structures and functioning as well as on economic activities and wellbeing. This paper describes the methodology, data elaboration and main results of a modelling exercise aiming to assess the economic effect of future changes in the EU marine ecosystem in the medium term (2030). We focus on those changes potentially affecting the fishing and the tourism sectors in two different IPCC SRES scenarios, the A2 and B1, varying in the future trends of population, GDP, prices, as well as the overall impact on environment. Sector-specific economic impacts are channeled through increases in fishing effort, due to lower availability of commercial fish species, and decrease in tourism demand following deterioration of marine ecosystem quality. Impacts on EU coastal countries Gross Domestic Product are negative and larger when the tourism sector is affected. This is explained by the much higher contribution of tourism than fishery in the production of value added. Negative impacts are also larger in the A2 than in the B1 scenario. The largest GDP losses due to adverse impacts on fishery are experienced by Spain (-0.13%), those related to tourism by Italy (almost -1%). Percent changes in sectoral production are notably larger than GDP ones: the largest contraction in fish sector production occurs in France (-24.7%). Notable decrease in coastal tourism demand occurs in Spain and the Netherlands. In general the Western Mediterranean is the most adversely affected region, whereas the Baltic Sea denotes a particular vulnerability to losses in tourism value added compared to the BAU. North Sea countries experience smaller losses. |
| Keywords: | Impact Assessment, Computable General Equilibrium, Fisheries, Tourism, Marine Ecosystem |
| JEL: | C68 D58 L83 Q22 Q57 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.22&r=agr |
| By: | ZhongXiang Zhang (College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin and School of Economics, Fudan University, Shanghai (China)) |
| Abstract: | Putting a price on carbon is considered a crucial step for China’s endeavor of harnessing the market forces to reduce its energy consumption and carbon emissions. Indeed, aligned with China’s grand experiment with low-carbon provinces and low-carbon cities in six provinces and thirty-six cities, the Chinese central government has approved the seven pilot carbon trading schemes. These pilot trading schemes have features in common, but vary considerably in their approach to issues such as the coverage of sectors, allocation of allowances, price uncertainty and market stabilization, potential market power of dominated players, use of offsets, and enforcement and compliance. This article explains why China turns to market forces and opts for emissions trading, rather than carbon or environmental taxes at least initially, discusses the five pilot trading schemes that have to comply with their emissions obligations by June 2014, and examines a wide range of design, implementation, enforcement and compliance issues related to China’s carbon trading pilots and their first-year performance. The article ends with drawing some lessons learned and discussing the options to evolve regional pilot carbon trading schemes into a nationwide carbon trading scheme. |
| Keywords: | Pilot Carbon Trading Schemes, Low-carbon Development, Environmental Taxes, Market Stabilization Mechanism, Carbon Offsets, Enforcement and Compliance, China |
| JEL: | H23 O13 P28 Q43 Q48 Q52 Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.19&r=agr |
| By: | Hermann, Daniel; Mußhoff, Oliver; Rüther, Dörte |
| Abstract: | The discount rate is of great importance for all decisions in an intertemporal context, such as the decision of how much a society invests in environmental preservation, or the financial decisionmaking on the individual level. This study experimentally investigates the time preferences of farmers by comparing two different methods: One method is based on the measurement of time preference and risk attitude that are elicited in two parts of an experiment. Afterwards, the discount rate is adjusted using the risk attitude. The other method uses a one-parameter approach without the necessity of separately eliciting the individual risk attitude and without an assumption regarding the form of the utility function. The results reveal that, contrary to previous research, the ascertained discount rates of both methods are different. Furthermore, only the method based on the measurement of time preference and risk attitude separately reveals sensitivities regarding the prospective payout. |
| Keywords: | discount rate,experimental economics,intertemporal decision making,magnitude effect,risk attitude |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:daredp:1506&r=agr |