|
on Resource Economics |
|
Issue of 2013‒10‒05
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Claire Brunel; Arik Levinson |
| Abstract: | Researchers have long been interested in whether environmental regulations discourage investment, reduce labour demand, or alter patterns of international trade. But estimating those consequences of regulations requires devising a means of measuring their stringency empirically. While creating such a measure is often portrayed as a data-collection problem, we identify four fundamental conceptual obstacles, which we label multidimensionality, simultaneity, industrial composition, and capital vintage. We then describe the long history of attempts to measure environmental regulatory stringency, and assess their relative success in light of those obstacles. Finally, we propose a new measure of stringency that would be based on emissions data and could be constructed separately for different pollutants. |
| Keywords: | trade and environment, environmental regulations, environmental subsidies |
| JEL: | C26 C43 C83 D78 F18 L51 Q52 Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–08–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaaa:2013/5-en&r=res |
| By: | Dimitrios Varvarigos |
| Abstract: | I model an economy where the adverse health effects of pollution impede labour productivity and capital accumulation is the source of economic growth. Pollution is generated by firms that choose whether to employ a dirty technology and pay an environmental tax, or employ a clean technology and incur the cost of its adoption. The task of inspecting the environmental impact of each firm’s production technology is delegated to bureaucrats who are corruptible since they receive bribes in order to mislead authorities on the firms’ actual technology choice. The model can generate multiple steady state equilibria. In this context, the multiplicity of equilibria is associated with indeterminacy, due to the self-fulfilling nature of corruption incentives and the relevant implications for pollution, productivity and economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Corruption; Economic Growth; Health; Pollution; Productivity |
| JEL: | D73 O44 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:13/22&r=res |
| By: | Heymi Bahar; Jagoda Egeland; Ronald Steenblik |
| Abstract: | In recent years the manufacturing of renewable-energy technologies has become truly global. The associated rise in international investment and trade in goods and services related to renewable energy has been rapid, but it has not always been smooth. Already there have been challenges at the WTO, and the unilateral imposition of countervailing and anti-dumping duties, in response to some countries‘ policies on the grounds that they distort trade. Against this background, this paper surveys, through the lenses of market-pull and technology-push policies, the numerous domestic incentives used by governments to promote renewable energy, focusing on those that might have implications for trade — both those that are likely to increase opportunities for trade and those that may be inhibiting imports or promoting exports. Many OECD countries, and an increasing number of non-OECD countries, have established national targets for renewable energy. To help boost the rate of penetration of renewable energy in their economies, most of the same countries are providing additional incentives. Market-pull incentives for the deployment of renewable-energy-based electricity generating plants include quota systems, usually administrated through "green" certificates, and fixed per kilowatt-hour feed-in tariffs and premiums. Renewable fuels for transport are typically promoted by governments through obliging fuel suppliers to mix ethanol or biodiesel with their corresponding petroleum-derived fuels. Frequently, renewable fuels for transport also benefit from exemptions, or reductions in, fuel-excise taxes, and in a few countries from production bounties. Many national and sub-national governments also support capital formation in these industries with grants, subsidised loans, loan guarantees, or a combination of instruments. In some jurisdictions, access to government support schemes have been made conditional upon meeting certain minimum levels of domestic content. Such domestic-content requirements are highly controversial because of their direct effects on trade. These effects, and the effects of other policies in combination and in isolation, are examined through a graphical analysis of generic policies, using a simplified stylised representation of the relevant markets. The basic message is that while many domestic incentives are both increasing the supply of renewable energy and facilitating trade in associated technologies and renewable fuels, some — especially those combined with border protection or domestic-content requirements — are likely reducing export opportunities for foreign suppliers, and raising domestic prices for renewable energy as a consequence. |
| Keywords: | trade, environment, renewable energy, environmental subsidies, bioenergy, biofuels |
| JEL: | F18 H23 L98 O38 Q42 Q56 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaaa:2013/1-en&r=res |
| By: | Michielsen, T.O. (Tilburg University) |
| Abstract: | The dissertation also deals with conflicts between successive regulators that can arise when policy makers have self-control problems, or because successive regulators share a common concern for long-term environmental outcomes, but each regulator would like his successors to shoulder the costs of preventative policies. Lastly, it contains a chapter that highlights the importance of energy reserves for the location of energy-intensive manufacturing industries. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:tilbur:urn:nbn:nl:ui:12-5919260&r=res |
| By: | Sheetal Sekhri; Paul Landefeld |
| Abstract: | Globalization can lead to either conservation or depletion of natural resources that are used in the production of traded goods. Rising prices may lead to better resource man- agement. Alternatively, stronger incentives to extract these resources may exacerbate their decline- especially in open access institutional frameworks. We examine the impact of agricultural trade promotion on the groundwater extraction in India using nationally representative data from 1996-2005. We nd evidence that trade promotion leads to de- pletion of groundwater reserves. Access to world markets does not result in emergence of institutions that would enable protection of the resource. |
| Keywords: | Groundwater Depletion, Agricultural Trade |
| JEL: | O13 Q25 Q56 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vir:virpap:405&r=res |
| By: | Clive George |
| Abstract: | This report provides an update on recent developments in the field of Regional Trade Agreements and the environment. Issues arising in the implementation of RTAs with environmental considerations are examined as well as experience in assessing their environmental impacts. It is the sixth update prepared under the aegis of the Joint Working Party on Trade and Environment (JWPTE). The document covers developments from late 2011 to October 2012. It is based on publicly available information. |
| Keywords: | trade policy, trade and environment, free trade agreements, regional trade agreements, environmental provisions |
| JEL: | F13 F18 N50 Q56 |
| Date: | 2013–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaaa:2013/4-en&r=res |
| By: | Barbara Annicchiarico (University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Fabio di Dio (Sogei S.p.a. IT Economia) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the dynamic behaviour of an economy under different environmental policy regimes in a New Keynesian (NK) model with nominal and real uncertainty. We find the following results: (i) an emissions cap policy is likely to dampen macroeconomic fluctuations; (ii) staggered price adjustment alters significantly the performance of the environmental policy regime put in place, especially with an emissions intensity target; (iii) welfare tends to be higher with a tax on emissions when prices are sticky; (iv) the optimal policy response to inflation is found to be very strong as long as welfare is not affected by environmental quality and the environmental policy does not consist in an emissions cap. |
| Keywords: | New Keynesian Model,Environmental Policy,Macroeconomic Dynamics,Monetary Policy |
| JEL: | E32 E50 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:286&r=res |