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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2018‒01‒29
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Halvor Briseid Storrøsten (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines regulation in the presence of adjustment costs and resource scarcity, allowing for imperfectly informed firms. I find strong evidence that announcement of future environmental regulation will reduce current emissions in the combined presence of resource scarcity and adjustment costs. This contrasts with the results in the literature on the green paradox. Further, efficient transition towards a low emission economy requires an investment tax on emission intensive production, unless firms have perfect information about the future. Moreover, investments in clean substitutes should first receive a subsidy, but may thereafter be taxed. The optimal tax on production differs from the Pigouvian tax in the case of scarce resources. Last, a uniform tax across heterogeneous agents can induce the socially optimal outcome only if firms have equal expectations about the future. |
| Keywords: | regulation; adjustment cost; imperfect information; exhaustible resources; climate change |
| JEL: | H21 H23 Q41 Q54 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:864&r=res |
| By: | Natalia Zugravu-Soilita (University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines) |
| Abstract: | Based on panel data covering 114 countries in the world, this study investigates the direct, indirect and total effects of trade flows in environmental goods (EG) on total CO2 and SO2 emissions. Our system-GMM estimations reveal positive direct scale – [between-industry] composition effects prevailing on the negative direct technique – [within-industry] composition effects (if any), as well as compensating the significant indirect technique effects channelled by the stringency of environmental regulations and per capita income. If the net importers of EGs (namely from the APEC54 and WTO26 lists) are recurrently found to face increased pollution (in particular CO2 emissions) due to direct scale-composition effects of trade in EGs, the EGs’ net exporters are more likely to see their local pollution to decrease, in particular thanks to income-induced effects. We show that the direct, indirect and total effects of trade in EGs depend on the country’s net trade status, the EGs’ classification and the pollutant considered. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Goods, Environmental Policy, Net Exporter, Net Importer, Pollution, Trade |
| JEL: | F13 F14 F18 Q53 Q56 Q58 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2017.56&r=res |
| By: | Eva Lyubich (UC Berkeley); Joseph S. Shapiro (Cowles Foundation, Yale University); Reed Walker (University of California, Berkeley, IZA, & NBER) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first estimates of within-industry heterogeneity in energy and CO2 productivity for the entire U.S. manufacturing sector. We measure energy and CO2 productivity as output per dollar energy input or per ton CO2 emitted. Three findings emerge. First, within narrowly de ned industries, heterogeneity in energy and CO2 productivity across plants is enormous. Second, heterogeneity in energy and CO2 productivity exceeds heterogeneity in most other productivity measures, like labor or total factor productivity. Third, heterogeneity in energy and CO2 productivity has important implications for environmental policies targeting industries rather than plants, including technology standards and carbon border adjustments. |
| JEL: | F18 H23 Q56 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:3017&r=res |
| By: | Jack, Kelsey; Jayachandran, Seema; Rao, Sarojini |
| Abstract: | Water use and electricity use, which generate negative environmental externalities, are susceptible to a second externality problem: with household-level billing, each person enjoys private benefits of consumption but shares the cost with other household members. If individual usage is imperfectly observed (as is typical for water and electricity) and family members are imperfectly altruistic toward one another, households overconsume even from their own perspective. We develop this argument and test its prediction that intrahousehold free-riding dampens price sensitivity. We do so in the context of water use in urban Zambia by combining billing records, randomized price variation, and a lab-experimental measure of intrahousehold altruism. We find that more altruistic households are considerably more price sensitive than are less altruistic households. Our results imply that the socially optimal price needs to be set to correct both the environmental externality and also the intrahousehold externality. |
| Keywords: | environmental externalities; intrahousehold decision-making; moral hazard; Pigouvian pricing; water use |
| JEL: | O10 Q5 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12558&r=res |
| By: | Michael A. Mehling (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Gilbert E. Metcalf (Tufts University); Robert N. Stavins (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | The Paris Agreement has achieved one of two key necessary conditions for ultimate success – a broad base of participation among the countries of the world. But another key necessary condition has yet to be achieved – adequate collective ambition of the individual nationally determined contributions. How can the climate negotiators provide a structure that will include incentives to increase ambition over time? An important part of the answer can be international linkage of regional, national, and subnational policies, that is, formal recognition of emission reductions undertaken in another jurisdiction for the purpose of meeting a Party’s own mitigation objectives. A central challenge is how to facilitate such linkage in the context of the very great heterogeneity that characterizes climate policies along five dimensions – type of policy instrument; level of government jurisdiction; status of that jurisdiction under the Paris Agreement; nature of the policy instrument’s target; and the nature along several dimensions of each Party’s Nationally Determined Contribution. We consider such heterogeneity among policies, and identify which linkages of various combinations of characteristics are feasible; of these, which are most promising; and what accounting mechanisms would make the operation of respective linkages consistent with the Paris Agreement. |
| Keywords: | Climate Policy, Paris Agreement, Nationally Determined Contributions |
| JEL: | Q5 Q56 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2017.51&r=res |
| By: | Alpízar, Francisco; Piaggio, Matías; Pacay, Eduardo |
| Abstract: | Debido a la dinámica de alta densidad poblacional y los elevados niveles de contaminación, la relación entre la calidad del aire y la salud es un problema casi exclusivo de las ciudades. Existe un creciente interés por parte del sector científico y por diversas agencias de salud pública, para determinar el valor de los costos económicos que ocasiona la contaminación derivada de las actividades antropogénicas ya que, solo si se comprende la magnitud de los daños en términos monetarios, será posible realizar una incidencia política efectiva sobre los tomadores de decisiones. Bajo ese contexto, el presente trabajo analiza el impacto de la degradación en la calidad del aire sobre la salud y realiza una valoración económica de los beneficios que se podrían obtener si se redujera la carga de contaminación atmosférica de acuerdo a distintos estándares de calidad del aire, esto para un sector específico de la denominada Gran Área Metropolitana (GAM) en Costa Rica. |
| Keywords: | CONTAMINACION ATMOSFERICA, ASPECTOS MEDICOS, SALUD, ASPECTOS ECONOMICOS, ECONOMIA AMBIENTAL, LUCHA CONTRA LA CONTAMINACION, ZONAS METROPOLITANAS, AIR POLLUTION, MEDICAL ASPECTS, HEALTH, ECONOMIC ASPECTS, ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS, POLLUTION CONTROL, METROPOLITAN AREAS |
| Date: | 2017–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col022:43184&r=res |