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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2011‒06‒04
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Imori, Denise; Guilhoto, Joaquim José Martins; David, Leticia Scretas; Gutierre, Leopoldo Millan; Waisman, Caio |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this work is to verify the existence of possible tradeoffs between policies direct to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) with the ones direct to foster the development of the Brazilian Amazon Region, which is one of the poorest in the country. In order to achieve this goal, this paper uses an interregional input-output (I-O) model, estimated for the Brazilian economy for the year of 2004. The I-O model is used to make a comparison between the economical and the environmental relevance of each sector in the economies of the Amazon region and the rest of Brazil. This study considers the greenhouse gases emissions not only from the economic activities by itself, but, also for the more important factor of the land-use changes. This is a fact of most importance, given that in 2005, about 60% of the Brazilian GHGs emissions were due to the land-use change in its different biomes. Moreover, in the Brazilian Amazon region, especially in the last decades, the deforestation was linked mainly to economic factors than to policies conducted by the government. The results show that the sectors with the greatest importance in terms of emissions are cattle and soybean production. Also, they are also the most prominent for the region's economic development. This poses a dilemma that needs to be faced not only by Brazil, but also by the developed nations, as the burden of the reduction in the greenhouse gases emission in the Brazilian Amazon region cannot be only put on the poor population of the region! |
| Keywords: | Amazon Region; Greenhouse Gases; Brazil; Input-Output; Economic Development; Productive Structure; Deforestation |
| JEL: | O1 R1 D57 Q5 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:31132&r=res |
| By: | Marshall Burke; John Dykema; David Lobell; Edward Miguel; Shanker Satyanath |
| Abstract: | A growing body of economics research projects the effects of global climate change on economic outcomes. Climate scientists often criticize these articles because nearly all ignore the well-established uncertainty in future temperature and rainfall changes, and therefore appear likely to have downward biased standard errors and potentially misleading point estimates. This paper incorporates climate uncertainty into estimates of climate change impacts on U.S. agriculture. Accounting for climate uncertainty leads to a much wider range of projected impacts on agricultural profits, with the 95% confidence interval featuring drops of between 17% to 88%. An application to African agriculture yields similar results. |
| JEL: | O13 Q11 Q54 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17092&r=res |
| By: | Sebastian Rausch; Gilbert E. Metcalf; John M. Reilly |
| Abstract: | Many policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions have at their core efforts to put a price on carbon emissions. Carbon pricing impacts households both by raising the cost of carbon intensive products and by changing factor prices. A complete analysis requires taking both effects into account. The impact of carbon pricing is determined by heterogeneity in household spending patterns across income groups as well as heterogeneity in factor income patterns across income groups. It is also affected by precise formulation of the policy (how is the revenue from carbon pricing distributed) as well as the treatment of other government policies (e.g. the treatment of transfer payments). What is often neglected in analyses of policy is the heterogeneity of impacts across households even within income or regional groups. In this paper, we incorporate 15,588 households from the U.S. Consumer and Expenditure Survey data as individual agents in a comparative-static general equilibrium framework. These households are represented within the MIT USREP model, a detailed general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy. In particular, we categorize households by full household income (factor income as well as transfer income) and apply various measures of lifetime income to distinguish households that are temporarily low-income (e.g., retired households drawing down their financial assets) from permanently low-income households. We also provide detailed within-group distributional measures of burden impacts from various policy scenarios. |
| JEL: | H22 Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17087&r=res |