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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2015‒12‒12
twenty papers chosen by |
| By: | C. D. Pérez-Blanco (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici); C. M. Gómez (University of Alcalá de Henares, Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Water Technologies (IMDEA-Water) and University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | A stable agricultural income is often regarded as a way to achieve a better environmental performance in this sector. However, conventional income stabilization tools have been showing recently signs of exhaustion. Under this critical juncture, EU institutions have encouraged the expansion of agricultural insurance. With different degrees of public support, insurance systems against several risks have been successfully developed across the EU and have adopted increasingly comprehensive forms. Eventually, EU institutions have started to assess the development of a comprehensive income insurance framework. Income insurance covers a wider variety of risks and has higher costs than conventional single risk or combined insurance. This demands an in depth knowledge of farmers’ Willingness To Pay (WTP) for this product. The following pages present a methodology that calculates the WTP for different degrees of income protection using a Revealed Preferences Model and the Certainty Equivalent theory. The methodology is applied in a drought prone area in southeastern Spain. Results show that WTP for income insurance in this area is higher than observed insurance premiums. This may play in favor of the development of sustainable income insurance systems, though additional evidence is required. |
| Keywords: | Insurance, Income, Agriculture, Certainty Equivalent, Revealed Preference Models |
| JEL: | Q14 Q17 Q18 Q20 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.43&r=agr |
| By: | Yonky Indrajaya (Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Wageningen University (The Netherlands)); Edwin van der Werf (Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Wageningen University (The Netherlands) and CESifo (Germany)); Hans-Peter Weikard (Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Wageningen University (The Netherlands)); Frits Mohren (Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University (The Netherlands)); Ekko C. van Ierland (Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Wageningen University (The Netherlands)) |
| Abstract: | We study the potential of tropical multi-age multi-species forests for sequestering carbon in response to financial incentives from REDD+. The use of reduced impact logging techniques (RIL) allows a forest owner to apply for carbon credits whereas the use of conventional logging techniques (CL) does not. This paper is the first to develop a Hartman model with selective cutting in this setting that takes additionality of carbon sequestration explicitly into account. We apply the model using data for Kalimantan, Indonesia. RIL leads to less damages on the residual stand than CL and has lower variable but higher fixed costs. We find that a system of carbon credits through REDD+ has a large potential for carbon storage. Interestingly, awarding carbon credits to carbon stored in end-use wood products does not increase the amount of carbon stored and reduces Land Expectation Value. We also observe that the level of the carbon price at which it becomes optimal not to harvest depends on the interpretation of the steady state model. |
| Keywords: | REDD+, Carbon Credits, Carbon Sequestration, Sustainable Forest Management, Reduced Impact Logging, Optimal Forest Management, Carbon Price |
| JEL: | Q2 Q23 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.81&r=agr |
| By: | Luigi Russi (Institute for the study of Political Economy and Law (IPEL), International University College of Turin); Tomaso Ferrando |
| Abstract: | This paper deciphers the formatting of farming into an asset by tracking the modalities by which financial calculation is enabled across different sites of agency. The first focus of our analysis are commodity futures markets, which have witnessed a double spike in prices in 2008 and in 2012. In the paper, we look at these hikes as the outcome of endogenous dynamics, caused by the changing makeup of market participants after 2000, which turned futures markets into resources for hedging commodity index-linked derivative products. We subsequently analyse the increasing reliance on financial actors placed by public development agencies that channel funds through private equity initiatives to acquire and invest in farmland. To complete our analysis, we finally set our contribution alongside the alternative represented by food-sovereignty, which offers the promise of heeding to the needs engendered from within the peasant milieu, as opposed to subjugating it to extrinsic quantitative metrics. |
| Keywords: | futures, commodities, speculation, rural sociology, human geography, land grabbing, public-private partnership, commons, social justice, political economy of development |
| JEL: | O13 O16 P16 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iuc:rpaper:0001&r=agr |
| By: | Glyn Wittwer |
| Abstract: | California has suffered a four year drought that has imposed severe stress on the state's water resources. Irrigators and urban users have both been affected by unprecedented water restrictions. How should California allocate water? The state has long-standing water allocation issues, as economic mechanisms historically have played little or no role in allocation. USAGE-TERM is a multi-regional CGE model that represents 12 key irrigation counties in California as separate economies. Water trading between irrigators would help California cope with drought. In particular, sales of water from annual crops grower to perennial producers may lower the costs of maintaining plantations, given the high fixed costs arising from the alternative action of drilling new wells. Diverting substantial volumes of irrigation water from plantations to urban users may not be consistent with welfare maximisation. |
| Keywords: | Drought impacts, regional CGE modelling, water trading |
| JEL: | C54 Q11 Q15 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cop:wpaper:g-258&r=agr |
| By: | - (Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) United Nations) |
| Abstract: | The current global development style is not sustainable considering its simultaneous impact on economic, social and environmental conditions, as reflected fully in the climate change challenge. Climate change, which is being brought about essentially by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, is already discernible in such phenomena as a rise in average global temperatures, alterations in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, the shrinking cryosphere and changes in the pattern of extreme weather events (IPCC, 2013). There is evidence that the mean global temperature rose by 0.85°C over the period from 1880 to 2012 and, in the most probable scenarios, the average is projected to climb by between 1°C and 3.7°C during this century, with the increase amounting to between 1°C and 2°C by 2050. Some extreme regional scenarios predict even higher temperature rises. To date insufficient progress has been made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to stabilize climate conditions, and the effects of climate change that are expected to arise during this century therefore appear to be increasingly unavoidable. The only possible solution to climate change entails a global agreement in which all countries take part. |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col093:37056&r=agr |
| By: | Michael Jakob (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Chang and Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Impact Research); Claudine Chen (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change); Sabine Fuss (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change); Annika Marxen (Technical University Berlin and Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change); Narasimha Rao (International Institute of Systems Analysis); Ottmar Edenhofer (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Impact Research and Technical University Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Introducing a price on greenhouse gas emissions would not only contribute to reducing the risk of dangerous anthropogenic climate change, but would also generate substantial public revenues. Some of these revenues could be used to cover investment needs for infrastructure providing access to water, sanitation, electricity, telecommunications and transport. In this way, emission pricing could promote sustainable socio-economic development by safeguarding the stability of natural systems which constitute the material basis of economies while at the same time providing public goods that are essential for human well- being. An analysis of several climate scenarios with different stabilization targets and technological assumptions reveals that emission pricing has a substantial potential to close existing access gaps. |
| Keywords: | Q31, H54 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.94&r=agr |
| By: | Massimo Tavoni (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Politecnico di Milano); Detlef van Vuuren (PBL and Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | Carbon budgets have emerged as a robust metric of warming, but little is known about the usefulness of regional carbon budgets as indicators of policy. This article explores the potential of regional carbon budgets to inform climate policy. Using the large database of scenarios from IPCC AR5 WGIII, we show that regional budgets are important metrics of the long term contribution to climate change and the effort required to mitigate it. However, their value appears to be more limited for informing short term courses of actions, and for predicting the economic consequences of emission reduction policies. |
| Keywords: | Carbon Budgets, Climate Policy, IPCC |
| JEL: | Q54 Q40 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.71&r=agr |
| By: | Susan P. Walker; Christine Powell; Susan M. Chang; Helen Baker-Henningham; Sally Grantham-McGregor; Marcos Vera-Hernández; Florencia López Bóo |
| Abstract: | Integrating early childhood interventions with health and nutrition services has been recommended, however there is limited information on interventions that are effective and feasible for delivery through health services. In this trial we developed and evaluated a parenting program that could be integrated into primary health center visits. |
| Keywords: | Child development, Wages, Development Banks, Evaluation, Labor markets, child development, parenting interventions, home visits, primary care health service, cost-benefit, Caribbean. |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:91816&r=agr |
| By: | Delavane B. Diaz (Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, USA) |
| Abstract: | Greenhouse gas policies confront the trade-off between the costs of reducing emissions and the benefits of avoided climate change. The risk of uncertain and potentially irreversible catastrophes is an important issue related to the latter, and one that has not yet been well incorporated into economic models for climate change policy analysis. This paper demonstrates a multistage stochastic programming framework for catastrophe modeling with endogenous uncertainty, applied to a benchmark integrated assessment model. This study moves beyond recent catastrophe or tipping point studies with arbitrary risk, instead investigating the specific threat of the uncertain collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), characterized in accordance with recent expert elicitations, empirical results, and physical relationships. The stochastic DICE-WAIS model introduced here informs risk management strategies that balance uncertain future climate change impacts with the costs of mitigation investments today. This work finds that accounting for the consequences of the possible WAIS collapse in a stochastic setting with endogenous uncertainty leads to more stringent climate policy recommendations (increasing the CO2 control rate by an additional 4% of global emissions and raising the social cost of carbon by $10), reflecting the need to hedge against uncertainties with downside risk as well as pursue precautionary mitigation. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change Policy, Sea Level Rise, Ice Sheet Collapse, Endogenous Uncertainty, Stochastic Optimization, Greenhouse Gas Mitigation, Risk Management |
| JEL: | C61 D61 D81 H23 Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.64&r=agr |
| By: | Milan Šcasný (Charles University in Prague, Environment Center); Emanuele Massetti (Georgia Institute of Technology, CESIfo and FEEM); Jan Melichar (Charles University in Prague, Environment Center); Samuel Carrara (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents estimates of the economic benefit of air quality improvements in Europe that occur as a side effect of GHG emission reductions. We consider three climate policy scenarios that reach radiative forcing levels in 2100 of three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). These targets are achieved by introducing a global uniform tax on all GHG emissions in the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH, assuming both full as well as limited technological flexibility. The resulting consumption patterns of fossil fuels are used to estimate the physical impacts and the economic benefits of pollution reductions on human health and on key assets by implementing the most advanced version of the ExternE methodology with its Impact Pathway Analysis. We find that the mitigation scenario compatible with +2°C reduces total pollution costs in Europe by 76%. Discounted ancillary benefits are more than €2.5 trillion between 2015 and 2100. The monetary value of reduced pollution is equal to €22 per abated ton of CO2 in Europe. Less strict climate policy scenarios generate overall smaller, but still considerable, local benefits (14 € or 18 € per abated ton of CO2). Without discounting, the ancillary benefits are in a range of €36 to €50 per ton of CO2 abated. Cumulative ancillary benefits exceed the cumulative additional cost of electricity generation in Europe. Each European country alone would be better off if the mitigation policy was implemented, although the local benefits in absolute terms vary significantly across the countries. We can identify the relative losers and winners of ancillary benefits in Europe. In particular, we find that large European countries contribute to as much as they benefit from ancillary benefits. The scenarios with limited technology flexibility do deliver results that are similar to the full technology flexibility scenario. |
| Keywords: | Ancillary benefits, External costs, Climate change mitigation, Integrated Assessment Models, ExternE, Impact Pathway Analysis |
| JEL: | Q47 Q51 Q53 Q54 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.84&r=agr |
| By: | Arango , Carlos (Bank of Canada); Bouhdaoui, Yassine (Vrije Universiteit Brussel); Bounie , David (Telecom ParisTech, Economics and Social Sciences); Eschelbach, Martina (Deutsche Bundesbank); Hernandez , Lola (De Nederlandsche Bank) |
| Abstract: | Despite various payment innovations, today, cash is still heavily used to pay for low-value purchases. This paper proposes a simulation model based on two optimal cash management and payment policies in the payments economics literature to explain cash usage. First, cash is preferred to other payment instruments whenever consumers have enough balances at hand. Second, it is optimal for consumers to hold a stock of cash for precautionary reasons. Exploiting survey payment diaries from Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands, the results of the simulations show that both optimal policies are well suited to understand the high shares of low-value cash payments in Canada, France and Germany. Yet, they do not perform as well in the case of the Netherlands, overestimating the share of low-value cash payments. We discuss how the differences in payment markets across countries may explain the limitations of the two optimal policies. |
| Keywords: | cash management; payment choices; international comparison |
| JEL: | C61 E41 E47 |
| Date: | 2015–11–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofrdp:2015_022&r=agr |
| By: | Pedro Martel; Carlos E. Ludeña; Alejandro Nin Pratt; César Falconi |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the performance of Latin America and the Caribbean's agriculture between 1980 and 2012 looking at the contribution of inputs, and total factor productivity (TFP) to growth in output per worker. A growth accounting approach that goes along the lines of neoclassical growth accounting combined with Data Envelopment Analysis, allows us to measure TFP growth using output and input indices and also to decompose this growth into contributions of technical change and changes in technical efficiency. Our findings show that between 1980 and 2012, regional agricultural output per worker and TFP increased 82 and 45 percent, respectively, reducing the difference between TFP in LAC and in OECD countries. This improved performance of agriculture was the result of fast growth in the use of fertilizer, increases in land productivity, and growth in the use of capital that expanded cultivated area per worker. Higher productivity of the animal stock, fast growth in the use of feed and in the number of animals per worker, have increased the share of livestock in total output and also contributed significantly to the improved performance of agriculture. Observed growth patterns at the country level suggest that countries that increased input per worker have increased TFP at a higher rate than countries with limited access to capital and land. As a result of these growth patterns, the improved performance in the region has amplified differences in labor productivity between countries. Growing differences in labor productivity and the fact that the favorable shock in commodity prices that benefited LAC's agriculture in recent years has apparently ran its course, raise concerns for the future. |
| Keywords: | Economic Development & Growth, Productivity, Agricultural productivity, Agricultural Policy, Caribbean, Latin America, Agriculture |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:91817&r=agr |
| By: | Olivier Durand-Lasserve (OECD Environmental Directorate, France); Lorenza Campagnolo (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Italy); Jean Chateau (OECD Environmental Directorate, France); Rob Dellink (OECD Environmental Directorate, France) |
| Abstract: | This report develops an analytical framework that assesses the macroeconomic, environmental and distributional consequences of energy subsidy reforms. The framework is applied to the case of Indonesia to study the consequences in this country of a gradual phase out of all energy consumption subsidies between 2012 and 2020. The energy subsidy estimates used as inputs to this modelling analysis are those calculated by the International Energy Agency, using a synthetic indicator known as “price gaps”. The analysis relies on simulations made with an extended version of the OECD’s ENV-Linkages model. The phase out of energy consumption subsidies was simulated under three stylised redistribution schemes: direct payment on a per household basis, support to labour incomes, and subsidies on food products. The modelling results in this report indicate that if Indonesia were to remove its fossil fuel and electricity consumption subsidies, it would record real GDP gains of 0.4% to 0.7% in 2020, according to the redistribution scheme envisaged. The redistribution through direct payment on a per household basis performs best in terms of GDP gains. The aggregate gains for consumers in terms of welfare are higher, ranging from 0.8% to 1.6% in 2020. Both GDP and welfare gains arise from a more efficient allocation of resources across sectors resulting from phasing out energy subsidies. Meanwhile, a redistribution scheme through food subsidies tends to create other inefficiencies. The simulations show that the redistribution scheme ultimately matters in determining the overall distributional performance of the reform. Cash transfers, and to a lesser extent food subsidies, can make the reform more attractive for poorer households and reduce poverty. Mechanisms that compensate households via payments proportional to labour income are, on the contrary, more beneficial to higher income households and increase poverty. This is because households with informal labour earnings, which are not eligible for these payments, are more represented among the poor. The analysis also shows that phasing out energy subsidies is projected to reduce Indonesian CO2 emissions from fuel combustion by 10.8% to 12.6% and GHG emissions by 7.9% to 8.3%, in 2020 in the various scenarios, with respect to the baseline. These emission reductions exclude emissions from deforestation, which are large but highly uncertain and for which the model cannot make reliable projections. |
| Keywords: | Computable General Equilibrium Model, Households’ Heterogeneity, Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reforms, Distributional Impacts, Indonesia |
| JEL: | C68 H23 O53 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.68&r=agr |
| By: | Achim Hagen (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany); Klaus Eisenack (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether global cooperation for emission abatement can be improved if asymmetric countries can sign different parallel environmental agreements. The analysis assumes a two-stage game theoretical model. Conditions for self-enforcing sets of agreements and the resulting total emission abatement are determined. We allow for multiple coalitions with multiple types of asymmetric countries. We then analyze the effect of multiple coalitions for the case of increasing marginal costs of abatement as well as for decreasing marginal benefits of abatement more generally. The results are sensitive to the assumptions on the benefits from abatement. For constant marginal benefits, the possibility of multiple agreements increases the number of cooperating countries and total abatement (compared to the standard case with a single agreement). For decreasing marginal benefits, total emissions are independent of the number of admitted agreements. The paper thus contributes to the emerging discussion on the scope and limits of climate clubs. |
| Keywords: | Multiple International Environmental Agreements, Coalition Formation |
| JEL: | Q54 C72 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.58&r=agr |
| By: | Sushanta Kumar Mahapatra (University of Bologna, Italy and Amrita University, India); Keshab Chandra Ratha (Sambalpur University, India) |
| Abstract: | Brahmaputra river basin is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world subject to combined effects of glacier melt, extreme monsoon rainfall and sea level rise. Water is emerging as a new possible irritant between China and India. For India, Water of Brahmaputra constitutes a major lifeline for people of Tibet and North Eastern states. The building of dams and diversion projects in Tibet by China is a matter of grave concern for lower riparian states. For China, it is having hidden inclination to create employment potentials for more than millions of people by making Brahmaputra diversion project forward. The requirement of fresh water as the pollution grows and population rise has forced China to have the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River project. The objective of this paper is to focus the reaction of both people on the water diversion issue, disastrous ecological consequences and the urgent necessity for having a water treaty between Asian giants. It also examines the hegemonic tendencies of China on Brahmaputra River & exercise of power for economic gains and outcomes. The policies China takes on trans- Boundary Rivers are not symptom of peaceful nature of its rise. In addition, it establishes the fact that sharing of information, ecosystem-friendly policies, thought and mutual understanding will dispel the suspicion and develop trust between two countries, creating an enabling environment for better management of Brahmaputra River. |
| Keywords: | Water Governance, Trans-Boundary, River Dispute, India, China |
| JEL: | H79 L95 Q28 K33 N50 Q25 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.46&r=agr |
| By: | Francesco Bosello (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMCC) and Università degli Studi di Milano); Shouro Dasgupta (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia and Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMCC)) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the determinants of climate related disasters and attempts to estimate the presence of adaptive capacity in terms of per capita income and population density elasticities. We find evidence of adaptive capacity in a “weak” form both in terms of income and population density elasticities over our entire sample. That is, damages are in fact increasing with income and population, but less than proportionally. There is also evidence of countries improving their adaptive capacity over the long run, but of maladaptation occurring in the short run. Repeating the analysis splitting the sample by per-capita income levels, we find that higher income countries show adaptive capacity in a “strong form”, i.e. damages decrease with GDP, while lower income countries highlight exactly the opposite behavior. Finally, using Granger causality tests for panel data, we find evidence of increase in GDP per capita Granger causing climate related damages for lower income countries, but not in higher income countries. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change Damages, Adaptation, Panel Granger Causality |
| JEL: | C19 Q54 Q56 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.97&r=agr |
| By: | Adam N. Walker (Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands); Hans-Peter Weikard (Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands); Andries Richter (Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands and Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), The Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Risk of stock collapse is a genuine motivation for cooperative fisheries management. We analyse the effect of an endogenously determined risk of stock collapse on the incentives to cooperate in a Great Fish War model. We establish that equilibrium harvest strategies are non-linear in stock and find that Grand Coalitions can be stable for any number of players if free-riding results in a total depletion of the fish stock. The results thus show conditions under which a Great Fish War becomes a Great Fish Pact. However, this conclusion no longer holds upon dropping the standard assumption that payoffs are evaluated in steady states. If payoffs in the transition between steady states are included, the increased incentives to deviate offset the increased benefits from cooperation due to the presence of endogenous risk and the Great Fish Pact returns to being a Great Fish War. |
| Keywords: | Coalition Stability, Dynamic Games, Endogenous Risk, Fish Stock Collapse, Fish War, Renewable Resource Exploitation |
| JEL: | C72 C73 Q22 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.60&r=agr |
| By: | Niel Gardner, Devon O.; Alleyne, Dillon; Gomes, Charmaine (Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) United Nations) |
| Abstract: | Guyana, like many CARICOM countries continues to depend on imported oil that fuels the electricity and transport sectors. Simultaneously, the high level of expenditure on oil reduces the financial resources available to invest in social development, environmental protection, adaptation to climate change and improving food security. The electricity sector in Guyana, in particular, offers significant opportunities for achieving reductions in fossil imports. However, fiscal and regulatory barriers to energy efficiency and renewable energy use are apparent in Guyana. This document seeks to identify these barriers and propose strategies that may be utilised to remove them. Consultations were held with experts from the energy agency as well as the ministries of finance and utilities in order to obtain data and information that will inform the analysis. It was found that an increasing demand for reliable, cost effective, accurately priced energy supplies is a major challenge to sustainable economic development in Guyana and the country experiences difficulties in accessing capital especially for smaller firms and lower to middle income households. The limited knowledge of the technical risks associated with renewable energy and energy efficiency projects limit local investments and opportunities for foreign capital and are affected by high transaction costs. Furthermore, the strategic removal of energy subsidies continue to undermine the economic case for improved energy efficiency and increased renewable energy use. Planning for renewable energy use within the Guyana energy sector remains wedded to utility scale hydropower replacement of fossil based thermal generation, as well as remote solar PV systems. However, the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is indicative of other cost effective options. The substantive goal of the Government of Guyana should be related to the creation of a country in which there is equitable availability of energy intensive goods and services to its people that harmonizes economic growth, social progress and environmental stewardship. |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col033:35913&r=agr |
| By: | Cristina Cattaneo (FEEM and CMCC); Giovanni Peri (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence, rural incomes will change, and with them the incentives for people to remain in rural areas. Using data from 116 countries between 1960 and 2000, we analyze the effect of differential warming trends across countries on the probability of either migrating out of the country or from rural to urban areas. We find that higher temperatures increased migration rates to urban areas and other countries in middle income economies. In poor countries, higher temperatures reduced the probability of migration to cities or to other countries, consistent with the presence of severe liquidity constraints. In middle-income countries, migration represents an important margin of adjustment to global warming, potentially contributing to structural change and even increasing income per worker. Such a mechanism, however, does not seem to work in poor economies. |
| Keywords: | Global Warming, Emigration, Rural-Urban Migration, Agricultural Productivity |
| JEL: | F22 Q54 O13 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2015.87&r=agr |
| By: | Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt; Daniel P. McMillen |
| Abstract: | We analyze the determinants of building heights in Chicago by combining a micro-geographic data set on tall buildings with a unique panel of land prices covering 140 years. Consistent with the predictions of classic urban economics models, we find that developers respond to increasing land prices by increasing density, i.e. building taller. In 2000, the elasticity of height with respect of land price was about 45% for tall commercial buildings and 30% for tall residential buildings. As expected given significant improvement in construction technology over time, we find that the height elasticity approximately doubled over the last 100 years. We find evidence for dissipative height competition within cities, as excessively tall buildings are significantly less likely to be constructed near to each other than other buildings. Proximity to scenic amenities creates an extra incentive to outrival competitors, particularly in the residential market. |
| Keywords: | Chicago; density; height; land value; skyscraper |
| JEL: | R20 R30 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:64622&r=agr |