|
on Environmental Economics |
| By: | Luke G. Fitzpatrick (Department of Economics, University of Miami); David L. Kelly (Department of Economics, University of Miami) |
| Abstract: | We study stabilization targets: common environmental policy recommendations that specify a maximum probability of an environmental variable exceeding a fixed target (e.g. limit climate change to at most 2°C above preindustrial). Previous work generally considers stabilization targets under certainty equivalence. Using an integrated assessment model with uncertainty about the sensitivity of the temperature to greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations (the climate sensitivity), learning, and random weather shocks, we calculate the optimal GHG emissions policy with and without stabilization targets. We characterize the range of feasible targets and show that in general, climate change has too much uncertainty and inertia to be controlled with the precision implied by stabilization targets. We find that uncertainty exacerbates the welfare cost of stabilization targets. First, the targets are inflexible and do not adjust to new information about the climate system. Second, the target forces the emissions policy to overreact to transient shocks. These effects are present only in a model with uncertainty. Total welfare costs in the baseline model are 4.7%, which is 66% higher than the welfare cost under certainty. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, Stabilization Targets, Probabilistic Stabilization Targets, Uncertainty, Learning Publication Status: Under Review |
| JEL: | Q54 Q58 O44 |
| Date: | 2015–02–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mia:wpaper:2015-03&r=env |
| By: | Schöb, Ronnie; Aronsson, Thomas |
| Abstract: | Economic models of climate policy (or policies to combat other environmental problems) typically neglect psychological adaptation to changing life circumstances. People may adapt or become more sensitive, to different degrees, to a deteriorated environment. The present paper addresses these issues in a simple model of tax policy to combat climate change and elaborates on the consequences for optimal climate policies. Furthermore, it argues from a normative point of view that psychological adaptation needs to be taken into account by a pure welfarist government, which aims at internalizing an intertemporal externality. |
| JEL: | D03 D61 H21 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100287&r=env |
| By: | Ziegler, Andreas; Schwirplies, Claudia |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the determinants of voluntary individual carbon offsetting, i.e. the financial compensation of emissions from energy use. In contrast to former studies in this field, we particularly consider a comprehensive set of factors that are discussed in the context of voluntary contributions to public goods, such as psychological motives or social norms. The empirical analysis is based on unique data from representative surveys among more than 2000 citizens from Germany and the United States. These data reveal a higher extent of the past purchase of carbon offsets in the United States. In both countries, our micro-econometric analysis with discrete choice models indicates a strong positive correlation between the perceived contribution of this offsetting mechanism to climate protection and both actual carbon offsetting in the past and the planned purchase of carbon offsets in the future. In Germany, psychological motives such as the feeling of warm glow play an additional important role, while in the Unites States social motives such as expectations from the society are of a high relevance. Interestingly, a high environmental preference (measured by the membership in an environmental organization and the identification with green politics) is significantly correlated with already purchased carbon offsets in the United States, but not in Germany. These results suggest that not only the whole society in Germany has a lower average acceptance of carbon offsetting, but also that environmentally conscious people in this country obviously did not consider carbon offsetting as a measure to avoid further anthropogenic global warming so far. |
| JEL: | Q54 Q58 H41 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100422&r=env |
| By: | Hille, Erik |
| Abstract: | Given the ambiguous empirical results of previous research, this paper tests whether support for a climate policy induced pollution haven effect and the pollution haven hypothesis can be found. Unlike the majority of previous studies, the analysis is based on international panel data and includes several methodological novelties: By arguing that trade flows of dirty goods to less polluting sectors may also be influenced by changes in policy stringency, trade information on primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors are included. In order to clearly differentiate between dirty sectors and sectors with high pollution abatement costs, separate measures for pollution intensity and policy stringency are implemented. For the latter an internationally comparable, sector-specific measure of climate policy stringency is derived using a shadow price approach. Endogeneity between a country s trade openness and its trade flows is addressed by estimating a gravity-based instrumental variable. The results provide evidence for a stronger pollution haven effect regarding carbon dioxide intensive and emission relevant energy intensive sectors. However, the impact of climate policy on polluting sectors seems to be rather limited as a distinct pollution haven effect for gross energy intensive sectors cannot be found. Similarly, no support for the stronger pollution haven hypothesis is revealed. |
| JEL: | F18 Q54 D24 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100551&r=env |
| By: | Paul David (Stanford University); Adriaan van Zon (SBE Maastricht University and United Nations University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the requirements for a social welfare-optimized transition path toward a carbon-free economy, focusing particularly on the deployment of low-carbon technologies, and the roles of engineering upgrading of extant facilities, and directed R&D to enhancing their productivity. The goal in each case is to achieve timely supply-side transformations in the global production regime that will avert catastrophic climate instability, and do so in a manner that minimizes the social welfare costs of stabilizing the level of the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG). This "planning-model" approach departs from conventional IAM exercises by dispensing with the need to make (generally dubious) assumptions about the macro-level consequences of behaviors of economic and political actors in response to market incentives and specific public policy instruments, such as a carbon tax. It shifts attention instead to the need for empirical research on critical technical parameters, and problems of inter-temporal coordination of investment and capacity utilization that will be required to achieve a timely, welfare-optimizing transition. A suite of heuristic integrated models is described, in which global macroeconomic growth is constrained by geophysical system with climate feedbacks, including extreme weather damages from global warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions, and the threshold level GHG concentration beyond which the climate system will be "tipped into" catastrophic runaway warming. A variety of technological options are identified, each comprising an array of specific techniques that share a distinctive instrumental role in controlling the concentration level of atmospheric CO2. The development of low-carbon technologies through investment in R&D, and their deployment embodied in new physical capital formation, is explicitly modeled; as is the implementation of known engineering techniques to "upgrade" existing fossil-fueled production facilities. The social-welfare efficient exercise of the available technological options is shown to involve sequencing different investment and production activities in separate temporal "phases" that together form a transition path to a sustainable low-carbon economy— one in which gross CO2-emissions do not exceed the Earth’s “natural” abatement capacity. Parametric variations of the "tipping point" constraint in these models will permit exploration of the corresponding modification in the required sequencing and durations of investment and production in the phases that form the optimal transition path. The preliminary solutions (using mufti-phase optimal control methods) expose important dynamic complementarities among technological options that are often presented as substitutes by current climate policy discussions. |
| Keywords: | global warming, tipping points, catastrophic climate instability, technology fix options, R&D investments, capital-embodied innovations, optimal sequencing, IAM and DIRAM policy design approaches, multi-phase optimal control, sustainable endogenous growth |
| JEL: | Q54 Q55 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sip:dpaper:15-003&r=env |
| By: | Anis Omri; Saida Daly; Anissa Chaibi; Christophe Rault |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between financial development, CO2 emissions, trade and economic growth using simultaneous-equation panel data models for a panel of 12 MENA countries over the period 1990-2011. Our results indicate that there is evidence of bidirectional causality between CO2 emissions and economic growth. Economic growth and trade openness are interrelated i.e. bidirectional causality. Feedback hypothesis is validated between trade openness and financial development. Neutrality hypothesis is identified between CO2 emissions and financial development. Unidirectional causality running from financial development to economic growth and from trade openness to CO2 emissions is identified. Our empirical results also verified the existence of environmental Kuznets curve. These empirical insights are of particular interest to policymakers as they help build sound economic policies to sustain economic development and to improve the environmental quality. |
| Keywords: | Financial development, CO2 emissions, Trade, Economic growth, Simultaneous-equation models. |
| Date: | 2015–02–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2015-622&r=env |
| By: | Edward B. Barbier (Department of Economics & Finance, University of Wyoming, USA); Mikolaj Czajkowski (Department of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Nick Hanley (Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St. Andrews) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores both theoretically and empirically whether or not the willingness to pay (WTP) for pollution control varies with income. Our model indicates that the income elasticity of the marginal WTP for pollution reduction is only constant under very restrictive conditions, which are not necessary for an environmental Kuznets curve relationship between pollution and income. Our empirical analysis tests the null hypothesis that the elasticity of the WTP for pollution control with respect to income is constant, employing a multi-country contingent valuation study of eutrophication reduction in the Baltic Sea. Our findings reject this hypothesis, and estimate an income elasticity of the WTP for eutrophication control of 0.1-0.2 for low-income respondents and 0.6 - 0.7 for high-income respondents. Thus, our empirical results suggest that the elasticity is not constant and always less than one. |
| Keywords: | Baltic Sea, benefit transfer, environmental Kuznets curve, eutrophication, income elasticity of willingness to pay, non-market valuation. |
| JEL: | Q51 Q53 Q56 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sss:wpaper:2015-04&r=env |
| By: | Dorothée Brécard (Université de Toulon, LÉAD) |
| Abstract: | How does consumer misperception of competing eco-labels affect environmental and economic efficiency of eco-labels? This article provides a theoretical insight into this issue by using a double-differentiation model, where three products are potentially in competition: an unlabeled product and two eco-labeled products of medium and high environmental qualities (with distinct labels). We compare the case of perfect information, where consumers can perfectly assess the environmental quality of the three products, and the case of imperfect information, where consumers cannot fully assess the environmental quality associated with each label while perceiving all eco-labels as a sign of high environmental quality and each label as a particular variety of a product. We show that consumer confusion can affect the market structure by weakening the firm that provides the greenest product. Paradoxically, consumer misperception is not always detrimental to social welfare because, when th e perceived quality of both eco-labeled products is relatively high, it can improve the quality of the environment and raise global profits and consumer surplus. Moreover, although firms would harmonize their demanding eco-labeling criteria if they face full-informed consumers, they turn to greenwashing when they know the way the consumers form their belief on environmental quality. Finally, we show that an NGO faced with consumer misperception will require less stringent standard than in the perfect information case, while conclusions on the regulator eco-labeling strategy are not clear-cut. |
| Keywords: | Eco-label, environmental quality, green consumer, product differentiation |
| JEL: | D11 D62 D83 L15 Q58 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fae:wpaper:2015.01&r=env |
| By: | Laure Kuhfuss (Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St. Andrews); Julie Subervie (INRA, UMR 1135 LAMETA, F-34000 Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | Agri-environmental schemes (AES) are a central component of the environmental policy of the European Union. Despite widespread interest and investment in AESs, few of these pro-grams have been carefully evaluated and doubts are often expressed about the effectiveness of voluntary programs. The purpose of this article is to estimate the additional effects of AESs targeting nonpoint source pollution from pesticides, focusing on one emblematic case study: herbicide use in vineyards. We use original data collected from winegrowers participating in AESs in the south of France, and we use exogenous variation in the timing of the implementation of the AESs as a natural experiment. We show that the quantity of herbicides used by participants in the program in 2012 was around 30% below what they would have used without the program, while the impact was significantly higher in 2011 - around 50% - presumably because of higher weed pressure. Although significant, these impacts remain smaller than what had been expected by policy makers. Focusing on the “zero herbicide between the vine rows” option, which is both the most often chosen as well as the least stringent among the measures, we moreover show the presence of windfall effects. Simple extrapolation of these results suggests that this level of effectiveness may not be sufficient to ensure water quality in the watersheds targeted by the AES. |
| Keywords: | Agri-environmental scheme, water quality, nonpoint source pollution, herbicides, pesticides, natural experiment. |
| JEL: | Q15 Q18 Q25 Q28 Q53 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sss:wpaper:2015-05&r=env |
| By: | Ackah, Ishmael |
| Abstract: | There have been increased attention on how man’s activities affect the environment negatively especially in developed countries. However, there are countless number of activities such as charcoal production and electricity generation from oil in developing countries that have potential carbon related social cost. In this study, the Arrellano Bond dynamic panel generalised method of moments is applied to estimate the relationship between social cost of carbon emissions and electricity generation from oil sources, GDP, charcoal consumption, energy resource depletion and population in oil producing African countries. The findings suggest the predictors have either positive or negative effect on the social cost of carbon emissions. The study recommends in order combat global warming, there should be efficient and modernised charcoal production and electricity production from non-fossil sources. |
| Keywords: | charcoal production, electricity generation from oil sources, economic growth, energy resource depletion, energy, carbon emissions, Africa |
| JEL: | Q2 Q23 Q4 Q42 Q43 Q5 Q53 Q54 |
| Date: | 2015–02–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:62181&r=env |
| By: | Pittel, Karen; Röpke, Luise |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes resource policies in an economy in which renewable and fossil resources are realistically assumed to be essential inputs to production. Also realistically, the two types of resources are imperfect substitutes whose degree of substitutability can, however, increase over time. The focus of the - analytical as well as numerical - analysis is on the impact of this rising substitutability on the extraction of the exhaustible resource. This is especially interesting in a setting in which the use of the fossil resource induces a market failure, e.g., in the form of an environmental externality (of which climate change is the most prominent example), and in which policies are introduced to internalize this market failure. It is shown that policies which aim to slow down resource extraction but whose design is determined from political rather than optimality considerations are likely to result in even faster resource extraction. We show that this effect - often labeled a Green Paradox - can be accompanied by extraction-increasing effects of rising substitutability. More specifically, we find two types of flexibility effects that have opposing effects on the extraction path. The first effect speeds up extraction due to the expectation of higher flexibility in the future. This effect arises independently of whether the increase in substitutability is due to exogenous technological change or is endogenously driven. The second effect slows down extraction and arises when substitutability increases endogenously in accord with a changing input mix. Our results have several important implications for the design of policy measures. Specifically, a policy measure that induces flexibility-increasing technological progress must take into consideration the supply-side effects that result from the anticipation of increasing flexibility. The model also shows that for a policy to be effective, not only must flexibility effects be taken into account but the specific type of flexibility effect is also important. |
| JEL: | Q32 O44 O30 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100321&r=env |
| By: | Laure Kuhfuss; Julie Subervie |
| Abstract: | Agri-environmental schemes (AES) are a central component of the environmental policy of the European Union. Despite widespread interest and investment in AESs, few of these programs have been carefully evaluated and doubts are often expressed about the effectiveness of voluntary programs. The purpose of this article is to estimate the additional effects of AESs targeting nonpoint source pollution from pesticides, focusing on one emblematic case study: herbicide use in vineyards. We use original data collected from winegrowers participating in AESs in the south of France, and we use exogenous variation in the timing of the implementation of the AESs as a natural experiment. We show that the quantity of herbicides used by participants in the program in 2012 was around 30% below what they would have used without the program, while the impact was significantly higher in 2011 - around 50% - presumably be - cause of higher weed pressure [...] |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lam:wpaper:15-02&r=env |
| By: | Chinowsky, Paul S.; Schweikert, Amy E.; Strzepek, Niko L. |
| Abstract: | The Development under Climate Change research effort provides a basis for determining quantitative impacts on infrastructure from climate change. This paper provides results of an analysis of sea level rise impacts on road infrastructure in Vietnam. The s |
| Keywords: | Infrastructure, climate, vulnerability, resilience, adaptation |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-148&r=env |
| By: | Löschel, Andreas; Pothen, Frank; Schymura, Michael |
| Abstract: | One of the most promising ways of meeting climate policy targets is improving energy efficiency, i.e. reducing the amount of scarce and polluting resources needed to produce a given quantity of output. This study undertakes an empirical exercise using the World Input-Output Database (WIOD), a harmonized dataset comprising time-series of input-output tables along with environmental satellite accounts and socioeconomic information. The paper consists of two parts. In the first part we begin with an aggregated picture of EU27 energy intensity and its evolution between 1995 and 2009. Then we dig deeper and introduce sectoral detail to identify the economic changes that occurred during the same period. Finally, we disaggregate the EU27 into countries for regional analysis and perform a sectoral disaggregation for a fine-grained picture of energy intensity in Europe. In the second part of the study we take our findings from index decomposition analysis and subject them to panel estimations. The objective is to control for factors that may have shaped the evolution of energy intensity in the European Union. In particular, we investigate the impact of technological change, structural change, trade, environmental regulation and country-specific characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Environmental and Climate Economics,Energy Intensity,Index Decomposition |
| JEL: | Q0 Q50 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cawmdp:79&r=env |
| By: | Saraly Andrade de Sa; Julien Daubanes |
| Abstract: | Demand for oil is very price inelastic. Facing such demand, an extractive cartell induces the highest price that does not destroy its demand, unlike the conventional Hotelling analysis: the cartel tolerates ordinary substitutes to its oil but deters high-potential ones. Limit-pricing equilibria of non-renewable-resource markets sharply differ from usual Hotelling outcomes. Resource taxes have no effect on current extraction; extraction may only be reduced by supporting its ordinary substitutes. The carbon tax applies to oil and also penalizes its ordinary (carbon) substitutes, inducing the cartel to increase current oil production. The carbon tax further affects ultimately-abandoned oil reserves ambiguously. |
| Keywords: | Carbon tax, Limit pricing, Non-renewable resources, Monopoly, Demand inelasticity, Substitutes subsidies |
| JEL: | Q30 L12 H21 Q42 |
| Date: | 2014–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:oxcarre-research-paper-136&r=env |
| By: | Wagner, Ulrich; Petrick, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal impact of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme on manufacturing firms using comprehensive panel data from the German production census. Semiparametric matching estimators yield robust evidence that the policy caused treated firms to abate one fifth of their CO2 emissions between 2007 and 2010, relative to non-treated fi rms. This reduction was achieved predominantly by improving energy efficiency and by curbing the consumption of natural gas and petroleum products, but not electricity use. We find no evidence that emissions trading lowered employment, turnover or exports of treated fi rms. |
| JEL: | D22 Q54 Q52 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100472&r=env |
| By: | Grant, Jason; Peterson, Everett; Hejazi, Mina; Klein, Kurt |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats14:197162&r=env |
| By: | Asian Development Bank (ADB); (Southeast Asia Department, ADB); ; |
| Abstract: | The Asian Development Bank (ADB) supported the provincial authorities of Quang Nam in Viet Nam to scale up the implementation of payments for forest environmental services (PFES) through a technical assistance financed by the Governments of Sweden and Norway. The project pilot-tested two innovations— the group approach and the use of a geographic information system—to speed up PFES planning and implementation in the province. Starting with five villages in Ma Cooih commune, the initiative expanded to include two more communes in the Song Bung 4 watershed. This publication shares lessons and insights gained from this experience, and with it ADB intends to contribute to developing a robust, affordable, and sustainable process of planning and implementing PFES at the provincial level, thereby helping accelerate its implementation. |
| Keywords: | adb, asian development bank, asdb, asia, pacific, poverty asia, forest management, environmental financing, quang nam, vietnam, forestry economics, vietnam forest administration, watershed vietnam, Ma Cooih commune, Ta Po commune, Cha Val commune, geographic information system vietnam |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:asd:wpaper:rpt146517-2&r=env |
| By: | Rode, Julian; Wittmer, Heidi; Emerton, Lucy; Schröter-Schlaack, Christoph |
| Abstract: | Practitioners in the fields of sustainable development, land management, and biodiversity conservation are increasingly interested in using economic instruments that promise "win-win" solutions for conservation and human livelihoods. However, practitioners often lack guidance for selecting and implementing suitable economic approaches that take the specific local needs and the cultural, legal, and ecological context into account. This paper extracts from the academic debate a series of key aspects to be considered by practitioners who wish to accomplish change of behaviour via economic approaches. The paper then presents a practice-oriented framework for identifying the "ecosystem service opportunities" to conserve biodiversity and improve livelihoods in a specific local setting, and for pre-selecting suitable economic instruments. The framework is illustrated by describing its application in two pilot sites of the ECO-BEST project in Thailand, as part of which it was developed and road-tested. |
| Keywords: | conservation management,ecosystem services,economic instruments,assessment framework |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ufzdps:32015&r=env |
| By: | Miguel, Edward |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats14:197202&r=env |
| By: | Morath, Florian; Elsayyad, May |
| Abstract: | This paper considers investments in cost-reducing technology in the context of contributions to climate protection. Contributions to mitigating climate change are analyzed in a two-period model where later contributions can be based on better information, but delaying the contribution to the public good is costly because of irreversible damages. We show that, when all countries have access to the new technology, countries have an incentive to invest in technology because this can lead to an earlier contribution of other countries and therefore reduce a country's burden of contributing to the public good. Our results provide a rationale for the support of technology sharing initiatives. |
| JEL: | H41 Q52 D83 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100396&r=env |
| By: | Søren Anker Pedersen (Nordic Marine Think Tank); Hans Lassen (Nordic Marine Think Tank); Hans Frost (Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the concepts of marine ecosystem services and their economic valuation in a European fisheries management perspective. We find that the concept is at best cumbersome for advising on how best to regulate fisheries even in an ecosystem context. We propose that operational fisheries management must consider three different types of analysis, the yield of and the effect of fishing on the commercial species, the effects of fishing on habitats and non-commercial species and finally an overall analysis of the combined impact of all human activities on the marine ecosystem. We find that the concept of marine ecosystem services is not helpful for the two first mentioned types of analysis and that a cost-benefit analysis that is implied by the marine ecosystem services concept is inadequate for the third. We argue that the discussion needs to be divided into two: (1) finding the boundaries within which we accept impact on the marine ecosystem and (2) within these boundaries find the optimal fishing pressure, in mathematical terms replacing the unconstrained optimisation implied by the ecosystem services concept with an optimisation with constraints. The constraints are defined as to avoiding social unacceptable solutions. |
| Keywords: | Marine ecosystem services, economic evaluation, fisheries management, ecosystem approach |
| JEL: | Q57 Q58 Q22 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:foi:wpaper:2015_03&r=env |
| By: | Anis Omri; Mohamed Shahbaz; Anissa Chaibi; Christophe Rault |
| Abstract: | The aim of this study is to investigate whether oil consumption, international tourism, environmental quality and political instabilty affect economic growth in 18 MENA countries over the period 1995- 2011using both the static (POLS, FE and RE) and dynamic (Diff-GMM and Sys-GMM) panel data approaches. The empirical results show that the increases in oil consumption and international tourist arrivals are the major drivers of economic growth in MENA countries indicating the presence of energy-led-growth (ELG) and tourism-led-growth (TLG) hypotheses in these countries. We also find that economic growth in MENA countries reacts negatively to the environmental degradation and political instability. These empirical insights are of particular interest to policymakers as they help build sound economic policies to sustain economic development. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, Static and dynamic panel data, MENA countries. |
| Date: | 2015–02–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2015-613&r=env |
| By: | Asjad Naqvi (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria) |
| Abstract: | Economic policy in the EU faces a trilemma of solving three challenges simultaneously - growth, distribution, and the environment. In order to assess policies that address these issues simultaneously, economic models need to account for both sector-sector and sector-environment feedbacks within a single framework. This paper presents a multi-sectoral stock-flow consistent (SFC) macro model where a demand-driven economy consisting of multiple institutional sectors - firms, energy, households, government, and financial - interacts with the environment. The model is calibrated for the EU region and five policy scenarios are evaluated; low consumption, a capital stock damage function, carbon taxes, higher share of renewable energy, and technological shocks to productivity. Policy outcomes are tracked on overall output, unemployment, income and income distributions, energy, and emission levels. Results show that investment in mitigation technologies allows for absolute decoupling and ensures that the above three issues can be solved simultaneously. |
| Keywords: | ecological macroeconomics, stock-grow consistent, growth, distribution, environment, European Union |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwiee:ieep2&r=env |
| By: | Artz, Georgeanne M.; Duncan, Kevin; Hall, Arthur; Orazem, Peter |
| Abstract: | This study submits eleven business climate indexes to tests of their ability to predict relative economic performance on either side of state borders. Our results show that most business climate indexes have no ability to predict relative economic growth regardless of how growth is measured. Some are negatively correlated with relative growth. Many are better at reporting past growth than at predicting the future. In the end, the most predictive business climate index is the Grant Thornton Index which was discontinued in 1989. |
| Keywords: | business climate; economic growth |
| JEL: | O4 R1 |
| Date: | 2014–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:38665&r=env |
| By: | Isabelle CADORET (CREM-CNRS and Condorcet Center, University of Rennes 1, France); Fabio PADOVANO (CREM-CNRS and Condorcet Center, University of Rennes 1, France, Department of Political Sciences, University Roma Tre, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically analyzes how political factors affect the deployment of renewable energy (RE) sources and compares it to other economic, energy and environmental drivers that have received greater attention in the literature so far. The sample encompasses the EU countries bound to attain the target of 20% share of gross final energy consumption by 2020. The panel data analysis shows that lobbying by the agricultural industry negatively affect RE deployment, whereas standard measures of government quality show a positive effect; furthermore left-wing parties promote the deployment of RE more than right wing ones, but this effect is reduced when the governing coalition is highly concentrated. Among the control variables, economic growth shows a positive impact on RE deployment. |
| Keywords: | renewable energy sources, energy policy, quality of government, lobbying, political ideology |
| JEL: | Q28 H54 H87 D72 D73 D78 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2015-01-ccr&r=env |
| By: | Julie Poirier; Nick Johnstone; Ivan Haščič; Jérôme Silva |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an analysis of the effect of international co-authorship of scientific publications on patenting in wind energy technologies. It is found that the number of scientific publications co-authored by researchers in OECD countries has a positive and very significant impact on the number of wind energy innovations patented in OECD countries. However, non-OECD countries produce a greater number of patent filings when their researchers collaborate with OECD countries. This suggests that there exist knowledge spillovers between OECD and non-OECD countries that particularly benefit non-OECD countries. This empirical finding is important because it strengthens the case for international research cooperation between OECD and non-OECD countries in the area of climate mitigation.<BR>On trouvera dans le présent document une analyse de l’incidence que le co-autorat international de publications scientifiques a sur le brevetage des technologies éoliennes. Il apparaît que le nombre de publications scientifiques rédigées conjointement par des chercheurs de la région OCDE a un impact positif et très significatif sur le nombre des innovations brevetées par les pays membres dans le domaine de l’énergie éolienne. Toutefois, on observe également que les pays non membres sont à l’origine d’un plus grand nombre de demandes de brevets lorsque les chercheurs de ces pays collaborent avec des homologues de pays de l’OCDE. Cela laisse penser qu’un transfert indirect de connaissances s’opère entre les pays membres et non membres de l’OCDE, principalement pour le bénéfice de ces derniers. Cette constatation empirique est importante car elle apporte un argument supplémentaire en faveur de la coopération entre chercheurs des pays membres et non membres de l’OCDE dans le domaine de l’atténuation du changement climatique. |
| Keywords: | knowledge spillovers, climate change mitigation, innovation, scientific collaboration, collaboration scientifique, innovation, atténuation du changement climatique, diffusion des connaissances. |
| JEL: | O3 O31 O38 Q4 Q42 Q48 Q55 |
| Date: | 2015–02–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:envaaa:81-en&r=env |
| By: | Xavier Timbeau (OFCE); Lars Anderson (Economic Council of the Labour Movement (ECLM)); Christophe Blot (OFCE); Jérôme Creel (OFCE); Andrew Watt (Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK)) |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7ohupnroai8cvohjenm4cbfehj&r=env |
| By: | Ludewig, Dirk |
| Abstract: | [Ziele der Publikation] Entgegen der schon heute großen und wachsenden Bedeutung der Green Economy und des Green Entrepreneurship in der realen Wirtschaftspraxis, werden diese Bereiche noch immer als eher neu, von der Größe her unbedeutend und exotisch wahrgenommen. Dies gilt in vielen Kreisen der Wirtschaft, in der Politik, in der breiten Öffentlichkeit und nicht zuletzt auch in der Wissenschaft und an den Hochschulen. Hauptziel dieser Publikation ist es, eine umfassende Bestandsaufnahme des Themenfeldes Green Entrepreneurship vorrangig in Deutschland vorzunehmen. Dafür ist es nicht zuletzt für das Verständnis notwendig, den Bereich Green Entrepreneurship in die Green Economy einzuordnen und damit auch dieses Themenfeld darzustellen. Dies ist Nebenziel dieser Publikation. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dwjzhe:6&r=env |
| By: | Saam, Marianne; Papageorgiou, Chris; Schulte, Patrick |
| Abstract: | Recently Acemolgu, Aghion, Bursztyn and Hemous (AER 2012) formulated a model in which a high macroeconomic elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty production represents a crucial condition for green growth. Until now it has never been systematically estimated. Using a novel panel of cross-country sectoral data, we formulate specifications of nested CES production functions that allow to estimate a special case of this parameter: the elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty energy inputs. Contrary to what is expected based on the earlier interfuel substitution literature, we find evidence that this elasticity exceeds one. |
| JEL: | O44 Q54 O47 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100414&r=env |
| By: | Terry L. Anderson (Hoover Institution) |
| Abstract: | This essay argues that the focus of ecology and economics on equilibria and externalities misses the dynamic connection between humans and nature and that there is a better alternative for linking ecology with economics, one that builds on the teachings of Nobel laureates Friedrich Hayek and Ronald Coase. |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hoo:wpaper:15102&r=env |
| By: | Ricardo de Avillez |
| Abstract: | The Canadian forest products sector has had an above-average productivity performance in the 2000-2012 period, driven in particular by the wood product manufacturing subsector. While the forestry and logging subsector has also benefited from strong productivity gains, the productivity performance of the paper manufacturing subsector has been far from impressive, especially in the post-2008 period. This report provides a detailed analysis of output, input and productivity trends in the Canadian forest products sector. It also looks at the key drivers of productivity in the sector, investigating potential barriers to productivity growth and discussing policies that could enable faster growth. Given the increasing role of countries with low-labour costs in several forest product markets, maintaining robust productivity growth is an imperative for the Canadian forest products sector if it wants to remain competitive internationally. In this sense, the report recommends renewed focus on human and physical capital investment, as well as on R&D spending. |
| Keywords: | Productivity, Growth, Forestry, Canada, Research and Development, Capital Intensity, Human Capital, Physical Capital, Wood Product Manufacturing, Paper Manufacuturing, Forest Products Sector |
| JEL: | O13 O30 O51 J00 E23 Q20 D24 J08 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sls:resrep:1401&r=env |
| By: | Asian Development Bank (ADB); (Regional and Sustainable Development Department, ADB); ; |
| Abstract: | This report summarizes the investments in clean energy made by the operations departments of the AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB) in 2013, condensing information from project databases and formal reports in an easy-to-reference format. This report was prepared by ADB’s Clean Energy Program which provides the cohesive agenda that encompasses and guides ADB’s lending and non-lending assistance, initiatives, and plan of action for sustainable growth in Asia and the Pacific. |
| Keywords: | clean energy, energy projects, adb projects, power sector rehabilitation, energy efficiency, solar power, adb operations, investments, sustainable growth, central and west asia department, east asia department, private sector operations department, south asia department, southeast asia department, project summary |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:asd:wpaper:rpt146557-2&r=env |
| By: | Baez, Javier E.; Lucchetti, Leonardo; Genoni, Maria E.; Salazar, Mateo |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the causal consequences of Tropical Storm Agatha (2010) -- the strongest tropical storm ever to strike Guatemala since rainfall records have been kept -- on household welfare. The analysis reveals substantial negative effects, particularly among urban households. Per capita consumption fell by 12.6 percent, raising poverty by 5.5 percentage points (an increase of 18 percent). The negative effects of the shock span other areas of human welfare. Households cut back on food consumption (10 percent or 43 to 108 fewer calories per person per day) and reduced expenditures on basic durables. These effects are related to a drop in income per capita (10 percent), mostly among salaried workers. Adults coped with the shock by increasing their labor supply (on the intensive margin) and simultaneously relying on the labor supply of their children and withdrawing them from school. Impact heterogeneity is associated with the intensity of the shock, food price inflation, and the timing of Agatha with respect to the harvest cycle of the main crops. The results are robust to placebo treatments, household migration, issues of measurement error, and different samples. The negative effects of the storm partly explain the increase in poverty seen in urban Guatemala between 2006 and 2011, which national authorities and analysts previously attributed solely to the collateral effects of the global financial crisis. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Regional Economic Development,Consumption,Climate Change Economics |
| Date: | 2015–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7177&r=env |
| By: | Luciano Pilati; Vasco Boatto |
| Abstract: | This paper formulates a bio-economic model that specifies the sequentiality of allocative choice on a migratory beekeeping farm in discrete form. It is assumed that the modeled farm operates in conditions of certainty and, allocating an apiary to forage sites, produces only two marketable outputs: commercial pollination service and honey. The biological connotation of this model is derived from the fact that the apiary outputs are specified as functions of the number of adult bees active on the pollinated sites. The bio-economic model determines revenues, variable costs, gross income and profits of a migratory beekeeping farm for each sequence of forage sites to be pollinated, i.e. for each practicable sitechronological regime. The bio-economic model allows the existence of jointness in sites to be tested, i.e. to ascertain if the sequential allocative choices are independent. The jointness in the forage sites can arise on the side of the revenues, on that of the variable costs or on both sides simultaneously. This bio-economic model formulated for migratory beekeeping farms is convertible to other farming activities involving transhumance, such as the grazing or rearing of livestock. |
| Keywords: | Migratory Beekeeping, Bio-economic Model, Sequential Discrete Choices, Sitechronological Regimes, Jointness in Sites. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpem:2014/10&r=env |