|
on Environmental Economics |
| By: | ISHIKAWA Jota; OKUBO Toshihiro |
| Abstract: | This paper studies greenhouse-gas (GHG) emission controls in the presence of carbon leakage through international firm relocation. The Kyoto Protocol requires developed countries to reduce GHG emissions by a certain amount. Comparing emission quotas with emission taxes, we show that taxes coupled with lower trade costs facilitate more firm relocations than quotas do, causing more international carbon leakage. Thus, if a country is concerned about global emissions, emission quotas would be adopted to mitigate the carbon leakage. Firm relocation entails a trade-off between trade liberalization and emission regulations. Emission regulations may be hampered by trade liberalization, and vice versa. |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:09008&r=env |
| By: | Jerome Dumortier; Dermot J. Hayes (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD); Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI)) |
| Abstract: | The Greenhouse Gases from Agriculture Simulation Model (GreenAgSiM) presented in this paper aims to quantify emissions from agricultural activity on a global scale. The model takes emissions into account that are directly attributable to agricultural production, such as enteric fermentation (methane), manure management (methane and nitrous oxide), and agricultural soil management (nitrous oxide). Furthermore, carbon stock differences from land-use change (carbon dioxide) induced by agriculture are included in the model. The model will provide policy makers with information about the greenhouse gas implications of policy changes. |
| Keywords: | agriculture, greenhouse gas emissions, land-use change, methane, nitrous oxide, soil carbon. |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ias:cpaper:09-wp490&r=env |
| By: | Dumortier, Jerome; Hayes, Dermot J. |
| Abstract: | The Greenhouse Gases from Agriculture Simulation Model (GreenAgSiM) presented in this paper aims to quantify emissions from agricultural activity on a global scale. The model takes emissions into account that are directly attributable to agricultural production, such as enteric fermentation (methane), manure management (methane and nitrous oxide), and agricultural soil management (nitrous oxide). Furthermore, carbon stock differences from land-use change (carbon dioxide) induced by agriculture are included in the model. The model will provide policy makers with information about the greenhouse gas implications of policy changes. |
| Keywords: | agriculture, greenhouse gas emissions, land-use change, methane, nitrous oxide, soil carbon. |
| Date: | 2009–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:13063&r=env |
| By: | Sanjay Vashist |
| Abstract: | This paper on the CBDR deals with these issues of equity, development and climate change in a holistic way to address the problem from the global south perspective keeping the South Asian requirements in particular. [Working paper No. 10] |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), Adaptation, Mitigation, Kyoto Protocol, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol, United Nations Framework, UNFCCC |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:1902&r=env |
| By: | Tol, Richard S. J. (ESRI); Commins, Nicola (ESRI); Crilly, Niamh (ESRI); Lyons, Sean (ESRI); Morgenroth, Edgar (ESRI) |
| Abstract: | Existing environmental accounts for the Republic of Ireland are at the national level. This is fine for continental and global environmental problems, but information at a finer spatial scale is needed for local environmental problems. Furthermore, the impact of environmental policy may differ across space. We therefore construct regional estimates of the environmental pressures posed by Irish households and the environmental problems faced by them. The basic unit of analysis is the electoral district, and the prime data source is the CSO?s Small Area Statistics, a product of the Census. We use the results of classifying regressions of the Household Budget Survey to impute domestic energy use. We use engineering relations to impute transport fuel use, and secondary data on household behaviour to impute waste arisings. We use EPA data on drinking water use and quality per county. The results show marked regional differences. Electricity use and waste arisings are higher in the East and in the cities and towns. Transport fuel use is highest in the commuter belts around the cities and towns. Other energy is relatively uniform. There is no clear pattern in estimated drinking water use, which may be due to data quality. Drinking water quality is poor across much of the country, but different counties suffer from different problems. The regional estimates are constructed using data in the public domain. However, various government agencies hold data that would allow for the construction of more detailed, more accurate, and more extensive regional environmental accounts. |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp293&r=env |
| By: | Bachev, Hrabrin |
| Abstract: | In this paper we incorporate the interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Behavioral and Political Sciences), and suggest a framework for analyzing the mechanisms of governance of sustainable development. The agricultural sector is used to illustrate the approach, test the framework, and support with examples. Firstly, we discuss the modern concepts and the economics of sustainability. Secondly, we present a new framework for analysis and improvement of the governance of sustainable development. This new approach takes into account the role of specific institutional environment; and the behavioral characteristics of individual agents; and the transaction costs associated with the various forms of governance; and the critical factors of economic activity and exchanges; and the comparative efficiency of market, private, public and hybrid modes; and the potential of production structures for adaptation; and the comparative efficiency of alternative modes for public intervention. Finally, we identify specific modes for environmental governance in Bulgarian agriculture; and access the efficiency of market, private and public modes; and estimate the prospects for evolution of environmental governance in the conditions of EU CAP implementation. Agrarian development is associated with specific (different from other European states) environmental challenges such as degradation and contamination of farmland, pollution of surface and ground waters, loss of biodiversity, significant greenhouse gas emissions etc. That is a result of the specific institutional and governing structure evolving in the sector during the past 20 years. Implementation of the common EU policies will have unlike results in “Bulgarian” conditions enlarging income, technological, social and environmental discrepancy between different farms, sub-sectors and regions. Dominating subsistence farming, production cooperatives, small-scale commercial farms, and large business firms will be highly sustainable in years to come. |
| Keywords: | mechanisms of governance; sustainable development; institutions; market; private; public and hybrid modes of governance; transaction costs; agrarian sustainability; environmental governance; Bulgaria |
| JEL: | D02 O13 Q01 Q12 Q18 L14 D23 O17 Q13 Q56 L22 |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14947&r=env |
| By: | Baldursson, Fridrik M.; von der Fehr, Nils-Henrik M. |
| Abstract: | We consider an industry with firms that produce a final good emitting pollution to different degree as a side effect. Pollution is regulated by a tradable quota system where some quotas may have been allocated at the outset, i.e. before the quota market is opened. We study how volatility in quota price affects firm behaviour, taking into account the impact of quota price on final-good price. The impact on the individual firm differs depending on how polluting it is - whether it is `clean' or `dirty'- and whether it has been allocated quotas at the outset. In the absence of long-term or forward contracting, the optimal initial quota allocation turns out to resemble a grandfathering regime: clean firms are allocated no quotas - dirty firms are allocated quotas for a part of their emissions.With forward contracts and in the absence of wealth effects initial quota allocation has no effect on firm behaviour. |
| Keywords: | regulation; effluent taxes; tradable quotas; uncertainty; risk aversion; environmental management |
| JEL: | Q38 D81 L51 Q28 D9 H23 |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14994&r=env |
| By: | Videh Upadhyay |
| Abstract: | The Study aims at reviewing legal, policy and institutional provisions for the management of natural resources-water and forest in the State of Uttaranchal with a special focus on how the laws actually operate in the field. |
| Keywords: | resource, wasteland, natural resource management, revenue department, UTTARANCHAL, water forest management, law, policy, |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:1908&r=env |
| By: | Tol, Richard S. J. (ESRI) |
| Abstract: | The EU has proposed four flexibility mechanisms for the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2013-2020: (1) the Emissions Trade Scheme (ETS), a permit market between selected companies; (2) trade in non-ETS allotments between Member States; (3) the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to purchase offsets in developing countries; and (4) trade in CDM warrants between Member States. This paper shows that aggregate abatement costs fall as flexibility increases. However, limited flexibility creates rents so that increasing flexibility raises costs in some Member States. Costs are reduced more by the CDM than by non-ETS trade. The CDM warrants market reduces costs by a small amount only; market power is a real issue. However, the warrants market is obsolete in case there is non-ETS trade. The CDM leads to price convergence between the ETS and non-ETS market. There would be one price for carbon in the European Union if the proposed limits on CDM access are relaxed slightly |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp290&r=env |
| By: | Gorecki, Paul (ESRI); Lyons, Sean (ESRI); Tol, Richard S. J. (ESRI) |
| Abstract: | Under 2013 to 2020 European Union proposals for CO2 emission reduction, a Member State can transfer to another Member State ?part? of their allowed emission allocation in the non-Emission Trading Sector (?ETS?). The paper addresses three questions in relation to these Transfer Emission Units or TEUs. First, what mechanism should be used to facilitate the exchange of TEUs? The preferred mechanism is a uniform price auction, preferably EU-wide. Second, what ?part? of the non-ETS emission limit of a Member State should be classed as TEUs ? 10%, 20% or no limit? The proportion of the non-ETS emission limit that should be traded should be maximised. Third, who should realise the value of TEUs ? the State, existing polluters? The value of TEUs should accrue to the State. |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp292&r=env |
| By: | Pilon, André Francisco |
| Abstract: | Quality of life, natural and man-made environments, physical, social and mental well-being are currently undermined by all sorts of hazards and injuries; political, economical, social and cultural disarray normalise atrocious behaviours and violence throughout the world. Considering the multiple problems of difficult settlement or solution in our times, current environmental, social, cultural, educational, political and economic policies and practices are examined in view of new paradigms of growth, power, wealth, work and freedom. A multidimensional ecosystemic approach and planning model integrate into a dynamic configuration four dimensions of being-in-the- world (intimate, interactive, social and biophysical), as they induce the events (deficits and assets), cope with consequences (desired or undesired) and reorganise for change. |
| Keywords: | education; culture; public policies; environment; ecosystems |
| JEL: | Q56 H75 I28 Z13 |
| Date: | 2009–04–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14932&r=env |
| By: | Djamel Kirat (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I); Ibrahim Ahamada (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris) |
| Abstract: | In order to comply with their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, France and Germany participate to the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) which concerns predominantly electricity generation sectors. In this paper we seek to know if the EU ETS gives appropriate economic incentives for an e¢ cient and strong system in line with Kyoto commitments. Because if so electricity producers in these countries should include the price of carbon in their costs functions. After identifying the di¤erent sub periods of the EU ETS during its pilot phase (2005-2007), we model the prices of various electricity contracts and look at their volatilities around their fundamentals while evaluating the correlation between the electricity prices in the two countries. We finnd that electricity producers in both countries were constrained to include the carbon price in their cost functions during the rst two years of operation of the EU ETS. During this period, German electricity producers were more constrained than their French counterparts and the inclusion of the carbon price in the cost function of electricity generation has been so much more stable in Germany than in France. Furthermore, the European market for emission allowances has increased the market power of the historical French electricity producer and has greatly contributed to the partial alignment of the wholesale price of electricity in France with those of Germany. . |
| Keywords: | Carbon Emission Trading, Multivariate GARCH models, Structural break, Non Parametric Approach, Energy prices. |
| Date: | 2009–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-00378317_v1&r=env |
| By: | Juan Pablo Montero (Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.); Matti Liski. |
| Abstract: | It has been long recognized that an exhaustible-resource monopsonist faces a commitment problem similar to that of a durable-good monopolist. Indeed, H¨orner and Kamien (2004) demonstrate that the two problems are formally equivalent under full commitment. We show that there is no such equivalence in the absence of commitment. The existence of a choke price at which the monopsonist adopts the substitute (backstop) supply divides the surplus between the buyer and the sellers in a way that is unique to the resource model. Resource sellers receive a surplus share independently of their cost heterogeneity; a result in sharp contrast with the durable-good monopoly logic. The resource buyer can distort the equilibrium through delayed purchases, but the Coase conjecture arises under extreme patience (zero discount rate). |
| Keywords: | durable goods, exhaustible resources, Coase conjecture |
| JEL: | D42 L12 Q30 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ioe:doctra:351&r=env |
| By: | Jagers, Sverker C. (Department of Political Science, Göteborg University); Löfgren, Åsa (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Stripple, Johannes (Department of Political Science, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | The idea of Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs) was presented by the British Environment Secretary David Miliband in 2006. Although no state is seriously developing proposals for them, they have been heavily debated within academia, NGOs and policy making circles. PCAs can be seen as a logical extension of market efficiency underpinning emissions trading schemes, so far only applied at the firm level, to individuals. The purpose of this paper is to analyse some critical aspects of the public’s support for a PCA scheme. We focus on the relations between attitude towards a PCA scheme and trust in politicians, perceived fairness and ideology, respectively. We also analyse the relation between the respective attitudes towards an increase in the current tax rate and towards an implementation of a PCA scheme. We base our study on a mail questionnaire sent out to a random, representative sample in Sweden.<p> |
| Keywords: | personal carbon allowances; attitudes; trust; fairness; ideology |
| JEL: | Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2009–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0360&r=env |
| By: | Corinne Berneman; Paul Lanoie (IEA, HEC Montréal); Sylvain Plouffe; Marie-France Vernier |
| Abstract: | L’éco-conception est un processus d’intégration des aspects environnementaux dans la conception et le développement de produits (biens et services) qui a pour objectif la réduction des impacts environnementaux des produits tout au long de leur cycle de vie. Pour en faire la promotion, il importe de savoir si la démarche d’éco-conception est rentable pour l’entreprise. Très peu de travaux ont été réalisés sur le sujet. Nous tentons de combler cette lacune en examinant systématiquement, au moyen d’entrevues semi-structurées, les impacts commerciaux de 30 expériences d’éco-conception, 15 en France et 15 au Québec (Canada). Entre autres, nos résultats montrent que, dans 28 cas sur 30, l’éco-conception a contribué à augmenter en termes absolus les profits de l’entreprise; dans les deux autres cas, l’impact a été neutre. De plus, dans 11 cas sur 30, la marge bénéficiaire du produit éco-conçu s’avère supérieure à celle d’un produit conçu de façon traditionnelle. Nous constatons aussi, de façon générale, que les cas français semblent un peu plus rentables que les cas québécois. Enfin, nous avons étudié d’autres retombées positives pour les entreprises s’adonnant à l’éco-conception, mais plus difficiles à chiffrer, comme une meilleure créativité ou une plus grande mobilisation de la main-d’œuvre. Plusieurs des entreprises de notre échantillon ont pu bénéficier de telles retombées suite à leur démarche d’éco-conception. |
| Keywords: | éco-conception, analyse de cycle de vie, rentabilité |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iea:carech:0903&r=env |