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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2012‒02‒20
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Halkos, George; Tzeremes, Nickolaos |
| Abstract: | This paper by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) ranks for the first time Economics journals in the field of Agricultural, Environmental and Natural Resource. Specifically, by using one composite input and one composite output the paper ranks 32 journals. In addition for the first time three different quality ranking reports have been incorporated to the DEA modelling problem in order to classify the journals into four categories (‘A’ to ‘D’). The results reveal that the journals with the highest rankings in the field are Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Land Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Agricultural Economics, Energy Journal, Resource and Energy Economics, Environment and Planning A, Ecological Economics and European Review of Agricultural Economics. |
| Keywords: | Journals Rankings; Agricultural Economics; Environmental Economics; Natural Resource Economics; Data Envelopment Analysis |
| JEL: | Q00 C14 C02 A10 A11 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36233&r=res |
| By: | Bielsa, Jorge; Cazcarro, Ignacio; Sancho, Yolanda |
| Abstract: | A distinction is commonly drawn in Hydrology between ‘green’ and ‘blue water’ in accounting for total water availability in semi-arid regions. The criterion underlying this classification is important for successful water management, because it reveals how much natural water is and/or could be used by households, industry and, especially, agriculture. The relative share of green and blue water is generally treated as a constant. In recent years, a growing hydro-geological literature has focused on a phenomenon that significantly affects the stability of the green/blue water ratio. This is the increase in land cover density and its impact on runoff in regions with a Mediterranean climate, such as the Ebro Basin in Spain. We seek to carry this knowledge over into the parameters of disciplines concerned with the economic valuation of water and territorial resources, and translate it into the language used by water management professionals in the expectation that this contribution will improve the way we assess and account for real water availability. The heart of the matter is that the increasing density of forest cover produces both positive and negative environmental and economic impacts, presenting new economic and environmental problems that must be examined and assessed in a hydrological-economic context. We will show that these positive and negative effects are sufficiently important to merit attention, whether they are measured in physical or economic terms. Finally, we make an initial proposal for the economic valuation of some of the effects produced by these hydrological changes. |
| Keywords: | blue water; green water; hydro-economic framework; water resources accounting |
| JEL: | Q23 Q24 Q01 Q25 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36445&r=res |
| By: | Saltari, Enrico; Travaglini, Giuseppe |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present a continuous time model with reversible abatement capital in order to analyze the effects of environmental policies on the value of the firm and investment decisions. We show that the effects depend on what sort of future policy are implemented. We focus on investment effects of changes in corrective taxes to control the use of polluting inputs, and subsidies to promote abatement investment. We show that (1) while taxes have a depressive effect on capital accumulation, subsidies boost investment; (2) the impact of these policies on the value of the firm is ambiguous. This latter result has important empirical implications insofar as investment are based on the average value of the firm rather than the (unobservable) marginal value. |
| Keywords: | Pollution uncertainty; externality; capital reversibility; environmental policy |
| JEL: | L51 E22 H23 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:35072&r=res |
| By: | Pal, Barundeb; Pohit, Sanjib; Roy, Joyashree |
| Abstract: | This paper analyse the impact of growth in sectoral output and employment on green house gas emissions (GHG) in India. To analyse this we have used environmentally extended social accounting matrix (ESAM) based approach for India. The ESAM shows inter relationship between the economic activities as well as their impact on environment. The environmental impacts are captured through emission of GHGs, depletion of natural resources like land, coal and crude oil. India was an early leader in social accounting matrix (SAM) based analysis but this is the first ESAM for India. In this study we have constructed 35 sectors ESAM for India for the year 2006-07 with detail description of energy sectors. The pollution trade-off multiplier obtained from this ESAM helps us to analyse total (direct, and indirect-induced) impact of growth in sectoral output and employment on GHG emission in India. Here we have assumed public investment and foreign trade as exogenous variables. So the result shows that due to interdendency between the production sectors total increase in GHG emission is higher than their direct effects. Sometimes researchers rely on the direct relationship between the economic activity and GHG emissions but their indirect impact must be incorporated to see economy wide impact on GHG emission. The result of this study shows that the direct effect of paddy sector on GHG emission is substantially lower than their indirect-induced effect. The direct effect of paddy sector on GHG emission is around 6tons/Rs. lakh of output but its total effect on GHG emission is around 32 tons /Rs. lakh of output. Also this study shows that growth in service sector in India will not be the jobless growth and its total impact on GHG emission is not significant. |
| Keywords: | SAM; India; Environment;Climate Change |
| JEL: | C6 Q5 |
| Date: | 2011–08–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36540&r=res |
| By: | Marletto, Gerardo |
| Abstract: | This paper draws on institutional and evolutionary economics and contributes to an approach to environmental policy which diverges from mainstream prescriptions. The 'socio-technical system' is the core concept: this is a complex made of co-evolving institutions, technologies, markets and actors that fulfils an overall societal need (such as housing, production, mobility, etc.). A systemic and dynamic analysis of those structural changes which are needed to create more sustainable socio-technical systems is provided; actors – and their ability to influence politics and policy – are explicitly taken into consideration. Unsustainable socio-technical systems feature a relevant resistance to change, because they are embedded in the very structure of our society and because of the conservative action of dominant stakeholders; this is why no environmental policy will be effective unless it aims at 'unlocking' our societies from their dominance. But also a constructive side of environmental policy is needed in order to establish new and more sustainable socio-technical systems; consistently, environmental policy is viewed as a combination of actions that can trigger, make viable and align those institutional, technological and economic changes which are needed to reach sustainability. Again, actors (for change) are at the heart of this vision of environmental policy: as subject, because the creation of new and sustainable socio-technical systems is made possible by (coalitions of) actors for change; as object, because environmental policy – to be effective – must actively support the empowerment, legitimation and social networking of such coalitions. A ‘chicken and egg’ problem remains: who comes first? Actors for change advocating policies for sustainability or policies for sustainability supporting actors for change? |
| Keywords: | Environmental policy; Economic dynamics; Institutional economics; Evolutionary economics; Socio-technical systems |
| JEL: | B52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36441&r=res |
| By: | Lopez-Feldman, Alejandro; Taylor, J. Edward; Yúnez-Naude, Antonio |
| Abstract: | The relationship between poverty and natural resources is complex and the empirical evidence to date, mostly from studies of forest activities and poverty, is inconclusive. The main purpose of this paper is to empirically identify the effects of household characteristics and of inequality at the village level on natural resource extraction and dependence. To do so we use data from the Mexico National Rural Household Survey (ENHRUM). Our results show that in rural Mexico natural resource extraction is predominantly an activity carried out by poor households. The same is true for dependence. We also show that there are important differences across Mexico in terms of both participation and dependence on resource income. These differences are most evident when one compares the south and north of the country. We also show that when relatively rich households participate in resource extraction their natural resource income is considerably higher than that of the poor. |
| Keywords: | resource dependence; Mexico; poverty; inequality; natural resources |
| JEL: | Q56 Q0 O12 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36473&r=res |
| By: | Kjetil Telle (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | Relying on a small natural field experiment with random assignment of treatments, I estimate effects of three core elements of most monitoring and enforcement practices: self-reporting, audit frequency and specific deterrence. I find evidence of evasive reporting of violations in self-audits, as more violations are detected in on-site audits than in self-audits. Announcing the increased audit frequency has no effect on compliance, but an audit raises the firm’s subsequent compliance substantially. |
| Keywords: | environmental regulation; enforcement; EPA; natural field experiment; random assignment |
| JEL: | K42 C93 Q58 D21 H41 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:680&r=res |
| By: | Gabriel Chan; Robert Stavins; Robert Stowe; Richard Sweeney |
| Abstract: | The introduction of the U.S. SO2 allowance-trading program to address the threat of acid rain as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 is a landmark event in the history of environmental regulation. The program was a great success by almost all measures. This paper, which draws upon a research workshop and a policy roundtable held at Harvard in May 2011, investigates critically the design, enactment, implementation, performance, and implications of this path-breaking application of economic thinking to environmental regulation. Ironically, cap and trade seems especially well suited to addressing the problem of climate change, in that emitted greenhouse gases are evenly distributed throughout the world’s atmosphere. Recent hostility toward cap and trade in debates about U.S. climate legislation may reflect the broader political environment of the climate debate more than the substantive merits of market-based regulation. |
| JEL: | Q52 Q53 Q55 Q58 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17845&r=res |
| By: | Lemoine, Derek M. (Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley); Traeger, Christian P. (University of California, Berkeley. Dept of agricultural and resource economics) |
| Abstract: | We model optimal policy when the probability of a tipping point, the welfare change due to a tipping point, and knowledge about a tipping point's trigger all depend on the policy path. Analytic results demonstrate how optimal policy depends on the ability to affect both the probability of a tipping point and also welfare in a post-threshold world. Simulations with a numerical climate- economy model show that possible tipping points in the climate system increase the optimal near-term carbon tax by up to 45% in base case speciffcations. The resulting policy paths lower peak warming by up to 0.5 C compared to a model without possible tipping points. Different types of tipping points have qualitatively different effects on policy, demonstrating the importance of explicitly modeling tipping points' effects on system dynamics. Aversion to ambiguity in the threshold's distribution can amplify or dampen the effect of tipping points on optimal policy, but in our numerical model, ambiguity aversionincreases the optimal carbon tax. |
| Keywords: | tipping point, threshold, regime shift, ambiguity, climate, uncertainty, integrated assessment, dynamic programming, social cost of carbon, carbon tax |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:are:cudare:1111r&r=res |