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on Environmental Economics |
| By: | Sikdar, Shiva; Lapan, Harvey E. |
| Abstract: | We analyze the effects of free trade on environmental policies in a strategic setting with transboundary pollution. Trade liberalization can result in a race to the bottom in environmental outcomes, making both countries worse off. With command and control policies (quotas), there is no race to the bottom. However, with internationally tradable permits, unless pollution is a pure global public bad, there is a race to the bottom in environmental policy. In our model carbon leakage alone, and not a terms of trade motive, drives countries to relax domestic environmental policy. Quantity-based tools strictly welfare-dominate price-based tools under free trade. |
| Keywords: | Free trade; Transboundary pollution; Environmental policy; Carbon leakage; Race to the bottom |
| JEL: | D6 F1 H2 Q5 |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12931&r=env |
| By: | Kevin Gallagher; Strom Thacker |
| Abstract: | This Working Paper considers the role of democracy in environmental quality and the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Some studies in the EKC literature have examined the extent to which democratic nations are more or less apt to have improving environmental conditions, but they have drawn from static measures of a nation’s current regime. In this paper the authors examine panel data from 1960 to 2001 and analyze the extent to which both the current level and the stock of a country’s democracy have significant and independent effects on a nation’s sulfur and carbon dioxide emissions.While they find no evidence for the short-run effect of the current level of democracy, they do find strong evidence that long-term democracy stock helps lower sulfur and carbon dioxide emissions. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Kuznets Curve; political economy of environment; sulfur emissions; carbon dioxide emissions; democracy; democracy stock; democracy and environment |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uma:periwp:wp164&r=env |
| By: | Cantono Simona (University of Turin) |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:200805&r=env |
| By: | Markus Groth (Centre for Sustainability Management, Leuphana University of Lüneburg) |
| Abstract: | The European Union’s Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development has introduced promising changes in rewarding farmers by the implementation of conservation auctions and granting farmers’ transaction costs. The paper therefore deals with the evaluation of private transaction costs within a case study using repeated auctions to reward plant biodiversity. Based on a review of the current literature the paper develops a specific definition of transaction costs as well as a methodology to measure and calculate the farmers’ private transaction costs. The case study enfolds two field experiment auctions and two corresponding surveys. The transaction costs are measured by the use of written questionnaires and will be discussed both as a first reference value of farmers’ transaction costs as well as compared to the individual payments within the case study auctions in order to investigate the real-life performance of this specific application of repeated conservation auctions in biodiversity protection efforts. |
| Keywords: | agri-environmental policy, biodiversity conservation auctions, transaction costs, ecological services, plant biodiversity, experimental economics, EAFRD-Regulation |
| JEL: | C93 D44 D82 H41 L14 Q24 Q28 Q57 R52 |
| Date: | 2008–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lue:wpaper:84&r=env |
| By: | Pessoa, Argentino |
| Abstract: | The present paper deals with the role of political authorities and institutions in explaining growth failures. We aim to search answers for three related questions: is there a natural resources curse? Are all types of natural resources exposed to a curse? Can good institutions, measured by a single indicator, avoid this “curse”? Although the estimates presented are supportive of negative relation between growth and relative resources abundance, and of the idea that good institutions enhance growth, our investigation do not demonstrated that if the curse exists it only appears in countries with inferior institutions. So, the key conclusion is that there is no justification for the pessimistic conviction that certain countries will remain caught up in a low growth trap constrained with institutions that impede their growth. At the international level, the main policy implication is that, the support to countries with a high share of natural resources in its exports should be directed towards improving specific areas of control fault, such as public budget and improving organizational systems, rather than imposing on aid-recipient countries wide-ranging global governance measures, that are usually measured by a cross-section general used, but subjective, index. |
| Keywords: | economic growth; institutions; natural resources curse; resource dependence; rent seeking |
| JEL: | Q32 O47 O13 Q33 |
| Date: | 2008–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:8640&r=env |
| By: | Catherine M. Chambers; Paul E. Chambers; John R. Crooker; John C. Whitehead |
| Abstract: | In this paper we develop a model of population dynamics using the Shannon entropy index, a measure of diversity that allows for global and specific population shocks. We model the effects of increasing the number of parcels on biodiversity, varying the number of spatially diverse parcels to capture risk diversification. We discuss the concepts of stochastic dominance as a means of project selection, in order to model biodiversity returns and risks. Using a Monte Carlo simulation we find that stochastic dominance may be a useful theoretical construct for project selecitons but it is unable to rank every case. Key Words: Stochastic Dominance, Entropy, Biodiversity Management |
| JEL: | Q24 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:08-08&r=env |
| By: | Catherine M. Chambers (University of Central Missouri); Paul E. Chambers (University of Central Missouri); John C. Whitehead (Appalachian State University); |
| Abstract: | We conduct several analyses to examine the link between threatened and endangered species listings and macroeconomic activity. Preliminary tests using ordinary least squares are run on both time series data on the national level and cross sectional data at the state level. The analysis is then extended using vector autoregressive (VAR) techniques. VAR results, impulse response functions and variance decompositions are reported to shed more light on the causal relationships between threatened and endangered species, GDP and population. Our results indicate that there is little or no empirical evidence that GDP growth rates lead to changes in the number of threatened and endangered species listings. |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umn:wpaper:0801&r=env |
| By: | Amoako-Tuffour, Joe; Martınez-Espineira, Roberto |
| Abstract: | Using count data models that account for zero-truncation, overdispersion, and endogenous stratification, this paper estimates the value of access to recreational parks. The focus is on the valuation of the opportunity cost of travel time within the cost of the trip and its effects on estimated consumer surplus. The fraction of hourly earnings that corresponds to the opportunity cost of travel time is endogenously estimated as a function of visitor characteristics, rather than fixed exogenously. We find that the relevant opportunity cost of time for most visitors represents a smaller fraction of their wage rate than commonly assumed previously. |
| Keywords: | value of time; endogenous stratification; on-site sampling; overdispersion; recreation demand; travel cost method |
| JEL: | Q00 Q51 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:8573&r=env |
| By: | Christopher Azevedo (University of Central Missouri); John R. Crooker (University of Central Missouri); Brian Pattiz (Iowa State University) |
| Abstract: | Bid design is an important component of the nonmarket valuation process. To date, no research has been done on the possible effects of using round dollar amounts. It seems reasonable to believe that respondents may respond to round dollar amounts differently than they would respond to bids that include both dollar and cent amounts. One possibility is that the respondent may infer that the dollar/cent bids are more precise estimates of the true cost than the round dollar amount, and therefore put more thought into their response to survey questions. In order to explore this idea, we test whether the use of a precise versus imprecise bid design influences respondent’s willingness to pay. In particular, our sample of survey recipients was stratified into two groups based on whether they were presented with imprecise or precise bids (round dollar bids or dollar/cent bids). Precise bids were generated by adding or subtracting a randomly-drawn number of cents (between -200 and +200 cents) to each of the imprecise bid levels. We explore this issue in the context of a valuation project concerned with The Battle of Lexington State Historic Site in Lexington, MO. |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umn:wpaper:0804&r=env |
| By: | José A. Filipe; Manuel A. Ferreira; Manuel Coelho |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp242008&r=env |