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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2015‒09‒11
five papers chosen by |
| By: | John P. Tang |
| Abstract: | National registries of toxic chemical emissions and facilities are increasingly used to raise public awareness of potential health hazards in local areas, but an unintended consequence may be the offshoring of production to less regulated countries. Using disaggregated U.S. trade data, this study examines the impact of registry listing on subsequent bilateral trade flows. Estimates from a difference-in-differences model indicate a significant shift toward imports from poorer countries following registry listing. Assuming that environmental protection is a normal good, this result suggests the emergence of pollution havens due to more stringent U.S. environmental regulation. |
| Keywords: | pollution haven, environmental Kuznets curve, production offshoring, Toxics Release Inventory, pollution release and transfer register, Porter hypothesis |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2015-623&r=all |
| By: | Günther, Michael (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University); Hellmann, Tim (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | Increasing concerns about climate change have given rise to the formation of International Environmental Agreements (IEAs) as a possible solution to limit global pollution effects. In this paper, we study the stability of IEAs in a repeated game framework where we restrict to strategies which are simple and invariant to renegotiation. Our main contribution to the literature on IEAs is that we allow for heterogeneous patterns of pollution such that additional to a global effect of pollution there are local pollution effects represented by a network structure. We show that stable IEAs exist if the network structure is balanced. Too large asymmetries in the degree of local spillovers may however lead to non-existence of stable structures. The generality of our approach allows for several applications to general problems in the provision of public goods. |
| Keywords: | Coalition structures, Networks, International environmental agreements, Weak renegotiation-proofness |
| Date: | 2015–09–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:545&r=all |
| By: | George Marbuah (Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences); Ing-Marie Gren (Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the issue of whether or not social capital explains per capita CO2 emissions dynamics in Swedish counties in an augmented environmental Kuznets curve framework. By accounting for issues of endogeneity in the presence of dynamic and spatial effects using geo-referenced emissions data, we show that per capita carbon emissions in a county matters for other counties and that net of economic, demographic and environmental factors, social capital has the potential to reduce carbon emissions in Sweden albeit less robustly. We test two different social capital constructs; trust in government and environmental engagement. Specifically, trust in the government inures to the reduction in CO2 emissions. Membership and engagement in environmental organisations reduces CO2 emissions only through its interaction with per capita income or trust. The implication of our estimates suggest that investment geared toward increasing the stock of social capital could inure to re ductions in CO2 emissions in addition to climate policy instruments in Sweden. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Kuznets curve, Social capital, CO2 emissions, Spatial panel analysis, Sweden |
| JEL: | C23 Q53 Q56 Z13 |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fae:wpaper:2015.14&r=all |
| By: | Zhang, Xin (Peking University); Zhang, Xiaobo (Peking University); Chen, Xi (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Existing studies that evaluate the impact of pollution on human beings understate its negative effect on cognition, mental health, and happiness. This paper attempts to fill in the gap via investigating the impact of air quality on subjective well-being using China as an example. By matching a unique longitudinal dataset at the individual level, which includes self-reported happiness and mental well-being measures, with contemporaneous local air quality and weather information according to the exact date of interview, we show that worse air quality reduces shorter-term hedonic happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms. However, life satisfaction, an evaluative measure of happiness, is largely immune from immediate bad air quality. |
| Keywords: | hedonic happiness, life satisfaction, mental well-being, air quality, China |
| JEL: | I31 Q51 Q53 |
| Date: | 2015–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9312&r=all |
| By: | Patricia S. Mesquita (IPC-IG); Marcel Bursztyn (IPC-IG) |
| Abstract: | Besides tackling socio-economic vulnerabilities, social protection interventions can be an important tool in the field of climate change adaptation (Davies et al., 2008). Social protection programmes foster adaptive capacities through improvements in socio-economic variables (e.g. education, health etc.) but, on the other hand, can also be disrupted by climate change and variability. Nonetheless, not much attention has been paid to the impacts of climate or other environmental issues on the implementation and functioning of these strategies. Specifically for regions that are characterised by significant climatic variability (e.g. semi-arid regions), current shocks can serve as lessons for better planning and implementation of social protection programmes in the face of climate change.(…) |
| Keywords: | Impacts, Climate Variability, Food Acquisition Programmes, Brazilian Semi-arid Region |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:282&r=all |