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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2024‒01‒29
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Shapiro, Joseph S |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes that strong financial, judicial, and labor market institutions provide comparative advantage in clean industries, and thereby improve a country’s environmental quality. Five complementary tests support this hypothesis. First, industries that depend on institutions are disproportionately clean. Second, strong institutions increase relative exports in clean industries, even conditional on environmental regulation and factor endowments. Third, an industry’s complexity helps explain the link between institutions and clean goods. Fourth, a quantitative general equilibrium model indicates that strengthening a country’s institutions decreases its pollution through relocating dirty industries abroad, though increases pollution in other countries. Fifth, cross-country differences in the composition of output between clean and dirty industries explain more of the global distribution of emissions than differences in the techniques used for production do. The comparative advantage that strong institutions provide in clean industries gives one under-explored reason why developing countries have relatively high pollution levels. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, institutions, comparative advantage, pollution |
| Date: | 2024–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt17g3r8m5&r=res |
| By: | Heinz Welsch (University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Resilience is the ability of an entity to manage a destabilizing shock or rise in pressure. The recently published State Resilience Index (SRI) includes ecological resilience along with several other “pillars†of state resilience. Given that indicators of subjective well-being (SWB) are increasingly accepted as a measure of national performance and as a standard for evaluating public policy, this paper investigates whether national SWB scores capture the ecological resilience dimension of national performance. Regression analysis of data for 124 countries reveals that SWB is significantly positively related to the ecological pillar of state resilience as well as some of its sub-pillars, but not others. In multivariate regressions, significant sub-pillars of ecological resilience are agricultural productivity, low levels of pollution, and freshwater availability, but not ecosystem health, long-term climate stability and biodiversity. The evidence is taken to suggest that SWB captures the more tangible aspects of the state of the environment rather than latent ecological threats whose full consequences will mainly be felt in the future. To capture latent ecological threats, SWB-based performance measures will therefore have to be complemented by more forward-looking indicators of ecological resilience. |
| Keywords: | ecological resilience; subjective well-being; national performance; environmental threat; forward-looking |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:old:dpaper:443&r=res |
| By: | Zaheer Allam (IAE Paris - Sorbonne Business School); Simon Elias Bibri; Didier Chabaud (IAE Paris - Sorbonne Business School); Carlos Moreno (IAE Paris - Sorbonne Business School) |
| Abstract: | Conventional and emerging paradigms of urbanism require new responses under the current circumstances, especially in relation to the integration of sustainability dimensions and technology advances. The escalating rate of urbanization, coupled with the climate emergency, fundamentally indeed disrupt the challenges that urbanism research and practice deal with, calling for adopting more innovative approaches to urban planning and design. With cities contributing around 65% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and experiencing an unprecedented growth of population, contemporary urban policy needs to be redefined and re-assessed accordingly. While numerous urban models, such as the Compact City, the Eco-City, the Sustainable City, and the Smart City, have emerged in response to the challenges of sustainability and urbanization, the 15-Minute City has recently gained a steep popularity. This paper explores the theoretical, practical, and technological foundations of the 15-Minute City, with a particular focus on the proximity dimension of mixed land-use and its environmental, social, and economic benefits of sustainability as supported by smart technologies. We argue that this evolving model of urbanism has the potential to gain more expansion and success in regard to building more sustainable, efficient, resilient, equitable, and inclusive cities in line with the global agendas of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, as it adds a strategic value to the amalgam of the prevailing and emerging paradigms of urbanism and their synergies with respect to increasing the benefits of sustainability while emphasizing its environmental dimension. |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03997394&r=res |
| By: | Molitor, David (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); White, Corey (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | Do environmental conditions pose greater health risks to individuals living in urban or rural areas? The answer is theoretically ambiguous: while urban areas have traditionally been associated with heightened exposure to environmental pollutants, the economies of scale and density inherent to urban environments offer unique opportunities for mitigating or adapting to these harmful exposures. To make progress on this question, we focus on the United States and consider how exposures—to air pollution, drinking water pollution, and extreme temperatures—and the response to those exposures differ across urban and rural settings. While prior studies have addressed some aspects of these issues, substantial gaps in knowledge remain, in large part due to historical deficiencies in monitoring and reporting, especially in rural areas. As a step toward closing these gaps, we present new evidence on urban-rural differences in air quality and population sensitivity to air pollution, leveraging recent advances in remote sensing measurement and machine learning. We find that the urban-rural gap in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has converged over the last two decades and the remaining gap is small relative to the overall declines. Furthermore, we find that residents of urban counties are, on average, less vulnerable to the mortality effects of PM2.5 exposure. We also discuss promising areas for future research. |
| Keywords: | environment, urban, rural, pollution, health |
| JEL: | I10 Q53 Q54 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16678&r=res |
| By: | Giovanni Carnazza (Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa); Thomas I. Renström (Department of Economics and Management, Centre for Environmental and Energy Economics, Durham University); Luca Spataro (Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa) |
| Abstract: | The EU has embarked on multiple initiatives reflecting its commitment to environmental enhancement and sustainable transitions. Notable among these are the European Green Deal and the NextGenerationEU recovery plan, both pivotal in fostering eco-friendly policies and sustainable practices within the region. Conversely, the fiscal rules within the EU, designed to manage budgetary deficits and debt-to-GDP ratios, may pose challenges to the implementation of fiscal measures targeted at achieving environmental quality objectives. These regulatory constraints potentially curtail the fiscal space available for policies aligned with the environmental goals set forth by the EU. To address this issue, using a panel of 27 European member countries observed annually from 1995 to 2021, we investigate the impact of two different indicators on the overall carbon intensity: on the one hand, the implicit tax rate on energy reduces environmental pollution; on the other hand, an increase in the stringency of the European fiscal framework and/or the debt-to-GDP ratio increase carbon intensity. From a policy point of view, our outcomes stress the importance of shaping national and European regulations to foster more sustainable environmental development. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Rules, European Union, Energy taxes, CO2 emissions, Government debt |
| JEL: | H23 H63 H87 Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2023.26&r=res |