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on Environmental Economics |
| By: | Rosendahl, Knut Einar; Strand, Jon |
| Abstract: | This paper studies interactions between a"policy bloc's"emissions quota market and an offset market where emissions offsets can be purchased from a non-policy"fringe"of countries (such as for the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol). Policy-bloc firms enjoy free quota allocations, updated according to either past emissions or past outputs. Both overall abatement and the allocation of given abatement between the policy bloc and the fringe are then inefficient. When the policy-bloc quota and offset markets are fully integrated, firms buying offsets from the fringe, and all quotas and offsets, must be traded at a single price; the policy bloc will either not constrain the offset market whatsoever, or ban offsets completely. These cases occur when free allocation of quotas is less (very) generous, and the offset market delivers large (small) quota amounts. Governments of policy countries would instead prefer to buy offsets directly from the fringe at a price below the policy-bloc quota price. The offset price is then below the marginal damage cost of emissions and the quota price in the policy bloc is above the marginal damage cost. This is also inefficient as the policy bloc, acting as a monopsonist, purchases too few offsets from the fringe. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change Economics,Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Markets and Market Access,Energy Production and Transportation,Carbon Policy and Trading |
| Date: | 2012–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6281&r=env |
| By: | Matthias Weitzel; Joydeep Ghosh; Sonja Peterson; Basanta K. Pradhan |
| Abstract: | In order to reach the two degree target it is necessary to control CO2 emissions also in fast growing emerging economies such as India. The question is how the Indian economy would be affected by e.g. including the country into an international climate regime. Existing analyses with either a global model or a single country computable general equilibrium model miss important aspects such as distributional issues or international repercussions. By soft-linking models of these two classes, we provide a more detailed view on these issues. In particular, we analyze different options of transferring revenues from domestic carbon taxes and international transfers to different household types and how different assumptions on exchange rates affect transfer payments. We also show effects stemming from international price repercussions. Our analysis focusses on how these transmission channels affect welfare of nine different household types |
| Keywords: | Computable General Equilibrium Model, International Climate Policy, India |
| JEL: | C68 O53 Q54 Q56 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1810&r=env |
| By: | Heindl, Peter; Lutz, Benjamin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the management practices of German firms with obligations under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) based on six structured in-depth interviews with managers of firms from different industries and based on survey data. The paper sheds light on management and trading practices, abatement behaviour, and the impact of the EU ETS on long-term decisions, such as investment decisions or innovative capacity. The aim is to provide information on firm-internal management processes related to the EU ETS and to strengthen intuition for microeconomic consequences of greenhouse gas regulation in a cap-and-trade scheme. The analysis reveals that management practices in the EU ETS are mainly driven by emission levels, firm size, pre-existing management structures and production patterns. While larger emitters (about 100,000 tCO2 per year or larger) are perfectly capable to carry out all relevant tasks, smaller emitters behave more passively due to transaction costs and lower expected return of transactions. Our analysis suggests that institutional responds to regulation should be taken into account for the design of greenhouse gas regulation. -- |
| Keywords: | Carbon Management,Emissions Trading,EU ETS |
| JEL: | L60 Q50 M11 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:12079&r=env |
| By: | Marc Baudry; Masha Maslianskaia-Pautrel |
| Abstract: | The article highlights the role of heterogeneity in the formation of hedonic prices. The article distinguishes between continuous and groupwise heterogeneity. The distinction helps understanding two important points. First, the analysis of market equilibrium with groupwise heterogeneity makes explicit the role of participation and incentives compatibility constraints for groups of buyers. The case of continuous heterogeneity may be thought of as a limit case of groupwise heterogeneity when the number of groups goes to infinity and their masses go to zero. The hedonic price curve is then obtained as the solution of a differential equation resulting from a market clearing condition. Second, the article outlines that submarkets emerge from market equilibrium only in the case of groupwise heterogeneity. The existence of submarkets means that the hedonic price function is continuous but the implicit price of characteristics is discontinuous at endogenous threshold values separating submarkets. Major implications for the valuation of environmental quality follow on. Based on numerical simulations, the article gives some insights into the way significant biases and drawbacks in the estimation of the implicit price of environmental quality can arise if the usual two steps procedure is implemented. |
| Keywords: | Environmental valuation, discrete heterogeneity, hedonicmodeling, vertical differentiation |
| JEL: | R21 R31 Q51 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2012-45&r=env |
| By: | Dubrocard, Anne; Prombo, Michel |
| Abstract: | The study results presented here are derived from a process whose purpose was the initial deployment and use of the data envelopment analysis techniques and linear programming in R environment to verify the feasibility of transferring tools supporting analyzes conducted after the project Luxklems. The results and their theoretical subtended are presented in brief but show the possibilities and flexibility offered by the R environment to treat optimization problems. The focus is on the evolution of the Malmquist index when considering the undesirable outputs and also seeks to compare the results with and without consideration of environmental performance in in theoretical and empirical exercise covering 15 European countries and the United States. This approach uses for purposes of calculation, the strengths of the R language and some packages dealing with linear programming and directional distance functions. Thus, programs have been developed and adapted to extend the measurement of total factor productivity and its components - technical progress and technical efficiency – to take in account the environmental performance by minimizing infeasibility problems encountered in the usual approaches using Malmquist indices. Indeed, faced with the need to take into account the effects of production on the environment and more generally the urgency to find the path of sustainable development, many attempts have been made to reinforce measures productivity growth including the negative impact of pollution that the production of goods and services generates. |
| Keywords: | Environmental performance; Data envelopment analysis (DEA); Undesirable output;Return to scale;Sequential Malmquist-Luenberger index; Malmquist-Luenberger index |
| JEL: | C14 Q5 C61 |
| Date: | 2012–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:41456&r=env |
| By: | Yalew, Amsalu Woldie |
| Abstract: | There is non-changing behavior of residents in cooperating and contributing for improved solid waste management in spite of increasing provision of solid waste management services in many urban areas. This paper starts from a hypothesis that institutional factors (interventions) are missing. We considered the case of issuing laws and creating awareness about the health and economic burdens due to improper waste management. We applied a paired-t test to test our hypothesis. We find that institutional factors, creating awareness and introducing rules, significantly increase household’s willingness to pay for improved solid waste management services. We find also increasing awareness is more influential than issuing laws. The findings do have important policy implications in reducing not only solid waste management problems but also many other environmental problems in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Solid waste management; Rules; Awareness; experimental research; t-test |
| JEL: | Q53 |
| Date: | 2012–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:42894&r=env |
| By: | Boukary OUEDRAOGO (Université Ouaga II - Burkina Faso) |
| Abstract: | This article uses survey data streams on timber and non-timber forest products out of the forest of Gonsé to highlight the importance of human pressure on the peri-urban forest of Gonsé, located 35 km from Ouagadougou, the country’s capital city. A literature review on drivers of deforestation in the world and specifically in Burkina Faso, can retain the use of the timber resource to energy goals as the main driver of deforestation in Burkina Faso, and of course in this case, as the mainspring of forest resources’ depletion in Gonsé. A descriptive approach not only allows quantifying the volume of wood energy out of the forest, but also shows the importance of fraudulent harvesting of fuelwood from this forest. Thus, it was found that 30% and 22% of firewood and charcoal harvesting in this forest are insidiously sent to the neighboring villages and to the city of Ouagadougou between 18 pm and 6 am. Thus, this paper recounts how the anthropogenic pressure on forest resources will bring the government to change the status of the classified forest of Gonsé into another one called \"classified forest and partial wildlife reserves of Gonsé\" by Decree adopted on 4th July of 2007 by the Council of Ministers. |
| Keywords: | Anthropogenic pressure, Fuelwood, Forest of Gonsé, Burkina Faso |
| JEL: | Q21 Q23 Q28 Q41 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2012-27&r=env |
| By: | Metaxas, Theodore; Tsavdaridou, Maria |
| Abstract: | Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become one of the most widespread business topics among the academic community. Various issues like environmental pollution, economic crisis, corruption, poverty are of major importance these days and besides governments and politicians’ responsibility it is obvious that corporations are also part of these problems. In Europe the last 15 years, governments, NGOs, small and large enterprises are making an effort to establish in their business CSR strategies so as to become more competitive and innovative in the global market. The research presents the way 8 Greek companies from the metallurgy sector publish CSR activities and which dimensions of CSR are more common among Greek companies. The companies were selected according to a study of ICAP Group about CSR and Leading Employers in Greece. The findings reveal how Greek companies during the economic crisis make their effort to be more active especially on environmental issues, human resources, health and safety and contribution to local communities. The results of their efforts are controversial as far as their CSR strategy concerns. |
| Keywords: | CSR; metallurgy sector; content analysis; Greece |
| JEL: | M14 M12 M10 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:42789&r=env |
| By: | Georgy Idrisov (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy); Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the analysis of the consequences of the abolition of export duties on crude oil and petroleum products as a necessary measure to create incentives to improve energy efficiency of the Russian economy and the elimination of underdevelopment caused by the unprecedented long-term subsidies to inefficient Russian oil refining. The authors consider three possible scenarios for the abolition of export duties on crude oil and domestic market and the conservation of tax revenues at a constant level. |
| Keywords: | resource rent, oil refining, export duty on crude oil and petroleum products, energy efficiency of the Russian economy |
| JEL: | L71 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gai:wpaper:0042&r=env |
| By: | Matthew T. Holt (University of Alabama, Department of Economics, Finance & Legal Studies); Timo Teräsvirta (Aarhus University, Department of Economics and Management and CREATES) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines trends in annual temperature data for the northern and southern hemisphere (1850-2010) by using variants of the shifting-mean autoregressive (SM-AR) model of González and Teräsvirta (2008). Univariate models are first fitted to each series by using the so called QuickShift methodology. Full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimates of a bivariate system of temperature equations are then obtained. The system is then used to perform formal tests of co-system in the hemispheric series. The results show there is evidence of co-shifting in the temperature data, most notably since the early 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Co-breaking, Co-shifting, Hemispheric surface temperatures, Vector nonlinear model, Structural change, Shifting-mean vector autoregression |
| JEL: | C22 C32 C52 C53 Q54 |
| Date: | 2012–11–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2012-54&r=env |