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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2013‒01‒19
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Spencer, Thomas; Carole-Anne , Senit; Anna, Drutschinin |
| Abstract: | In November 2011, Australia adopted a highly innovative, ambitious and comprehensive climate change policy, the Clean Energy Legislative Package(CELP). This outcome was not self-evident.The CELP embeds an innovative carbon pricing mechanism in a comprehensive and highly generous package of complementary measures designed to increase its public acceptability, and environmental and economic efficiency. It is combined with progressive income tax cuts, increases in government transfer payments, and measures to shield emissions and trade-intensive industry and promote investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency and R&D. In addition, the package contains innovative governance mechanisms to shield it from the vagaries of the political cycle, and increase the political and administrative costs of dismantling it. In all, these measures increase the CELP’s chances of survival and provide an example of policy innovation for other countries to follow, keeping in mind their particular national circumstances. |
| Keywords: | Carbon pricing; political economy of climate policy; Australian climate policy |
| JEL: | Q52 Q40 Q54 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43669&r=res |
| By: | Magdalena Stadejek (Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder)); Alexander Haupt (School of Management (Plymouth Business School)) |
| Abstract: | We analyse optimal environmental policies in a market that is vertically differentiated in terms of the energy efficiency of products. Considering energy taxes, subsidies to firms for investment in more eco-friendly products, and product standards, we are particularly interested in how distributional goals in addition to environmental goals shape the choice of policy instruments. We Önd that an industry-friendly government levies an energy tax to supplement a lax product standard, but shies away from subsidies to firms. By contrast, a consumer-friendly government relies heavily on a strict product standard and additionally implements a moderate subsidy to firms, but avoids energy taxes. |
| Keywords: | Energy tax, energy efficiency standard, subsidy, vertically differentiated markets, product quality |
| JEL: | Q58 Q48 L13 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:euv:dpaper:006&r=res |
| By: | Nils Axel Braathen |
| Abstract: | Well designed emission trading systems are environmentally effective and economically efficient instruments to address emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. This paper discusses interactions that can occur when a cap-and-trade based emission trading system is combined with overlapping policy instruments (environmentally related taxes, subsidies, ‘command-and-control regulations, information instruments, etc.), addressing emissions stemming from the same sources. |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:envddd:2011/2-en&r=res |
| By: | Elizabeth Kopits; Alex L. Marten; Ann Wolverton |
| Abstract: | It has often been stated that current studies aimed at understanding the magnitude of optimal climate policy fail to adequately capture the potential for “catastrophic” impacts of climate change. While economic modeling exercises to date do provide evidence that potential climate catastrophes might significantly influence the optimal path of abatement, there is a need to move beyond experiments which are abstracted from important details of the climate problem in order to substantively inform the policy debate. This paper provides a foundation for improving the economic modeling of potential large scale impacts of climate change in order to understand their influence on estimates of socially efficient climate policy. We begin by considering how the term “catastrophic impacts” has been used in the scientific literature to describe changes in the climate system and carefully review the characteristics of the events that have been discussed in this context. We contrast those findings with a review of the way in which the economic literature has modeled the potential economic and human welfare impacts of events of this nature. We find that the uniform way in which the economic literature has typically modeled such impacts along with the failure to understand differences in the end points and timescales examined by the natural science literature has resulted in the modeling of events that do not resemble those of concern. Based on this finding and our review of the scientific literature we provide a path forward for better incorporating these events into integrated assessment modeling, identifying areas where modeling could be improved even within current modeling frameworks and others where additional work is needed. |
| Keywords: | climate change, catastrophes, integrated assessment model |
| JEL: | Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nev:wpaper:wp201301&r=res |
| By: | Bruno Milanez (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora); Igor F. Fonseca (IPEA) |
| Abstract: | Milanez and Fonseca (2011) argue that the climate justice discourse has not been adopted by the media, society or the communities affected by extreme climate events in Brazil. The climate justice discourse has been adapted from the concept of environmental justice and created from the idea that the impacts of climate change affect different social groups in various ways and intensities. (?) |
| Keywords: | The Climate Justice Discourse in Brazil: Potential and Perspective |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:162&r=res |
| By: | Ronaldo Seroa da Motta (IPEA) |
| Abstract: | The Durban and Copenhagen Accords are not a treaty. Thus, the national commitments reported therein to achieve the 2°C trajectory, even if sufficient, will not be mandatory or binding under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In brief, there is no new global agreement in which national mitigation efforts are recognised by the UNFCCC and that points to an effective reduction of emissions in line with what science recommends as necessary. (?) |
| Keywords: | Trade Barriers in Policies that Regulate Greenhouse Gases |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:160&r=res |
| By: | Honma, Satoshi |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a model of waste product trade between a developed and a developing country. North firms produce products that are consumed exclusively in North. After consumption, parts of them are exported from North to South. This export may be illegal. The remaining portion of the waste products are collected and recycled by firms in North. Firms in South engage exclusively only in recycling. The South government is unable to find illegal dumping of recycled waste products because of an inadequate governance capacity. Therefore, we assume that the South government subsidizes recycled material. The model addresses five scenarios: closed economy, the first best, strategic government, selfish North government and inactive South government, and benevolent North government and inactive South government. Among these scenarios, only the first best outcome needs a negative tariff for waste-product import to South. A limitation of the strategic government case is that the South government must finance the subsidy. In the selfish North government case, North benefits by avoiding collection and recycling costs by outflow of waste into South. The South environment, however, would enormously deteriorate due to the absence of a policy. If the North government is benevolent, it imposes an export tax on waste products to South to curb it. |
| Keywords: | Recycling: International trade; Strategic trade policy |
| JEL: | F18 Q53 H23 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43703&r=res |
| By: | Orea, Luis (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln); Growitsch, Christian (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln); Jamasb, Tooraj (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln) |
| Abstract: | Supervised dimension reduction methods have been extensively applied in different scientific fields like biology and medicine in recent years. However, they have hardly ever been used in micro economics, and in particular cost function modeling. Nonetheless, these methods can also be useful in regulation of natural monopolies such as gas, water, and electricity networks, where firms’ cost and performance can be affected by a large number of environmental factors. In order to deal with this ‘dimensionality’ problem we propose using a supervised dimension reduction approach that aims to reduce the dimension of data without loss of information. Economic theory suggests that in the presence of other relevant production (cost) drivers, the traditional all-inclusive assumption is not satisfied and, hence, production or cost predictions (and efficiency estimates) might be biased. This paper shows that purging the data using a partial regression approach allows us to address this issue when analyzing the effect of weather and geography on cost efficiency in the context of the Norwegian electricity distribution networks. |
| Keywords: | supervised composites; environmental conditions; electricity networks |
| JEL: | L15 L51 L94 |
| Date: | 2012–12–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:ewikln:2012_018&r=res |
| By: | Alan Barreca; Karen Clay; Olivier Deschenes; Michael Greenstone; Joseph S. Shapiro |
| Abstract: | Adaptation is the only strategy that is guaranteed to be part of the world's climate strategy. Using the most comprehensive set of data files ever compiled on mortality and its determinants over the course of the 20th century, this paper makes two primary discoveries. First, we find that the mortality effect of an extremely hot day declined by about 80% between 1900-1959 and 1960-2004. As a consequence, days with temperatures exceeding 90°F were responsible for about 600 premature fatalities annually in the 1960-2004 period, compared to the approximately 3,600 premature fatalities that would have occurred if the temperature-mortality relationship from before 1960 still prevailed. Second, the adoption of residential air conditioning (AC) explains essentially the entire decline in the temperature-mortality relationship. In contrast, increased access to electricity and health care seem not to affect mortality on extremely hot days. Residential AC appears to be both the most promising technology to help poor countries mitigate the temperature related mortality impacts of climate change and, because fossil fuels are the least expensive source of energy, a technology whose proliferation will speed up the rate of climate change. |
| JEL: | I10 I12 I18 Q54 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18692&r=res |