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on Environmental Economics |
| By: | Warwick McKibbin; Peter Wilcoxen; Wing Thye Woo |
| Abstract: | Under reasonable assumptions, China could achieve parity in living standard with Western Europe by 2100, and India by 2150. Climate change, however, may be a key obstacle preventing such a convergence. The business-as-usual (BAU) growth path of the world might increase concentration of atmospheric to unsafe levels and cause significant negative environmental feedback before China achieves parity in living standards with the OECD countries. We use a dynamic multi-country general equilibrium model (the G-Cubed Model) to project a realistic BAU trajectory of CO2 emissions, and we find it to be even above the CO2 emissions from the high-growth scenario estimated by the Energy Information Agency in 2007. This outcome is a reminder that it has been usual so far to underestimate the growth in China energy consumption. We compare the merits of the different market-based CO2 reduction mechanisms like a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade scheme, and the McKibbin-Wilcoxen Hybrid (MWH) approach. Unexpected developments cause the different CO2 reduction mechanisms to create very different costs. Both the international carbon tax and the MWH approach are more economically efficient responses to uncertainty than the cap-and-trade scheme of the Kyoto Protocol. We use the G-Cubed Model to study the economic outcomes under each CO2 reduction mechanism, and under the deployment of advanced green energy. The reduction of CO2 emissions would only delay, not stop, the increase in CO2 concentrations toward the “danger level”. As the only long-term solution is likely to be shifting to non-fossil emitting energy, it is important to combine a market-based CO2 reduction mechanism with an ambitious program to accelerate the development of green technology. Such a program would probably have a higher chance of success if some important parts of it were based on international collaboration. We conclude the paper with recommendations about the form of future international climate agreements and how China could be encouraged to participate. |
| JEL: | O11 Q43 Q48 Q54 Q56 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:camaaa:2008-14&r=env |
| By: | Löfgren, Åsa (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Muller, Adrian (Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zürich) |
| Abstract: | Observed decoupling of emissions from output on the aggregate may not only occur due to increased efficiency on sectoral level, but also in case the sectoral composition signi cantly changes from emissions intensive industries towards others, by relocation of emission intensive sectors to foreign countries, by substitution to cleaner types of energy, or by a contraction of the whole economy - all without changes in effciencies. In this paper, we undertake a decomposition analysis using the logarithmic-mean Divisia Index method (LMDI) to investigate the overall change in CO2 emissions from 1993-2004 in the Swedish business and industry sectors, and to identify the most important factors explaining this change. We find that only four sectors (agriculture; pulp and paper; basic metal; land transportation), out of the eight sectors that each contribute with more than 5% of total CO2 emissions, contributed to a decrease in CO2 emissions through increased energy efficiency. Even more striking is the result that on the aggregate level for the whole economy and summarizing over the whole period 1993-2004, a slightly positive effect of energy effciency on CO2 emissions can be identified, while changes in relative size, i.e. overall structural change, and substitution to cleaner fuels have been more important regarding reductions in aggregate emissions.<p> |
| Keywords: | carbon emissions; energy efficiency; decomposition |
| JEL: | C02 Q40 Q54 |
| Date: | 2008–06–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0311&r=env |
| By: | GRIMAUD, André; MAGNE, Bertrand |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:9255&r=env |
| By: | Mironiuc, Marilena |
| Abstract: | During the last decade, the business community ends especially the companies that activate in the fields responsible for the degradation of the environment, are seen as subjects whose main role is to ensure sustainable development. They must face growing pressures from the stakeholders, who wish to know their position regarding sustainable development, in its three dimensions: economical development, that generates profits and jobs; social development, as a guarantee for the well-being and for the compliance to human rights; environmental development, which must ensure the preservation of natural resources and the ability of the ecosystem to absorb and tolerate pollution. A company is defined as sustainable if it is socially responsible. This paper is the result of a process of investigation, of an analysis of the present framework, and of a bibliographical synthesis in the field of social responsibility and environmental ethics. First of all, we have made a historical incursion in the problematic of social responsibility of companies, and then we have mentioned the most important challenges that justify socially responsible behavior in today’s world. In order to point out the degree of responsibility of Romanian enterprises, regarding the actions for the protection of the environment, we have drawn an empirical analysis on a representative sample of Romanian companies. |
| Keywords: | responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise; culture pro-responsabilité sociale |
| JEL: | M14 Q56 Q01 |
| Date: | 2008–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:9423&r=env |
| By: | Torstein Bye and Annegrete Bruvoll (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | Over the last few decades, several instruments have evolved to deal with similar energy and environmental challenges. For instance, the economic literature prescribes separate tax or cap-and-trade systems to internalize negative environmental externalities and subsidies to internalize positive externalities such as R&D. However, policy is not straightforward because of the influence on cost and competition and concerns for regional employment, economic activity within certain industries, and any distributional effects. Tax discrimination, subsidies and regulations then undermine the efficiency of energy instruments. To balance any environmental concerns, other instruments, including green and white certificates, have been created. While innovative, these work as simple combinations of taxes and subsidies. While the extant literature thoroughly analyzes the partial effects of these instruments, there has been little focus on their basics and the effects of aggregate taxes and subsidies. This complexity calls for research on the efficiency of each instrument, including the administration and transaction costs associated with holding a large set of instruments. We should consider the coordination and simplification of policy tools before complicating the system further by introducing new, primarily equivalent, instruments. |
| Keywords: | energy instruments; taxes; subsidies; green certificates; white certificates; carbon taxes |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:549&r=env |
| By: | Warwick McKibbin; Peter Wilcoxen |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:camaaa:2008-13&r=env |
| By: | Angelo Antoci (Università degli Studi di Sassari); Paolo Russu (Università degli Studi di Sassari); Elisa Ticci (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche) |
| Abstract: | Vulnerability to reduction of natural capital depends on defensive substitution possibilities that, in turn, are affected by the availability of other productive factors. However in several developing countries asset distribution tends to be highly skewed. Taking into account these elements, this paper proposes a model considering an economy polarized into two classes (the rich and the poor) and characterized by the following stylized facts income and productivity of the rural poor is highly dependent on natural resources; labour remuneration in rural sector represents the opportunity cost for wage labour; the rich can partially substitute natural capital with physical capital accumulation and wage labour employment. In this context, agents differ for feed back mechanisms and interactions between their choices of production and environmental dynamics. Moreover environmental depletion may trigger economic transition, but the structural change is likely to result regressive. |
| Keywords: | structural change, environmental externalities, economic development, poverty alleviation. |
| JEL: | D62 O11 O13 O15 O41 Q20 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2008_07.rdf&r=env |
| By: | Dominique Ami (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - CNRS : UMR6579); Olivier Chanel (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - CNRS : UMR6579); Frédéric Aprahamian (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - CNRS : UMR6579); Robert-Vincent Joule (LPS - Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales); Stephane Luchini (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - CNRS : UMR6579) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we propose a behavioural approach to determine the extent to which the consumer/citizen distinction affects interpretations of monetary values. We perform a field experiment dealing with air pollution, where some (randomly selected) subjects are given the opportunity to behave politically by signing a petition for environmental protection prior to stating their private preferences in a standard contingent valuation exercise. We show that the petition has the potential to influence respondents' willingness to pay and that whether the effect is negative or positive depends on the degree of (dis)similarity between the petition and the scenario in which willingness to pay are elicited. We interpret the results using the theory of commitment borrowed from social psychology. |
| Keywords: | Field Experiment, Citizen, Consumer, Contingent Valuation, Willingness to pay, Commitment, Air Pollution |
| Date: | 2008–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00289451_v1&r=env |
| By: | Marcus Wagner |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the link between sustainability-related innovation and sustainability performance and the role that family firms play in this. This theme is particular relevant from a European point of view given the large number of firms that are family-owned. Governments often support environmentally and socially beneficial innovation with various policy instruments with the intention is to increase international competitiveness and simultaneously support sustainable development. In parallel, firms use corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental management systems partly in the hope that this will foster such innovation in their organisation. Hence the main research question of this paper is about the association of CSR and environmental management with environmentally and socially beneficial innovation and its determinants. Based on panel data, the paper analyses the link of corporate sustainability performance with sustainability innovation and the effect of being a family firm using panel estimation techniques. The paper discusses the results of the analysis, which point to a moderating role of family firms on the link of sustainability innovation and performance and assesses the policy implications of this insight. |
| Keywords: | sustainability, innovation, management, quantitative methods, family firms |
| JEL: | C30 L73 Q25 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2008-046&r=env |
| By: | Melissa Dell; Benjamin F. Jones; Benjamin A. Olken |
| Abstract: | This paper uses annual variation in temperature and precipitation over the past 50 years to examine the impact of climatic changes on economic activity throughout the world. We find three primary results. First, higher temperatures substantially reduce economic growth in poor countries but have little effect in rich countries. Second, higher temperatures appear to reduce growth rates in poor countries, rather than just the level of output. Third, higher temperatures have wide-ranging effects in poor nations, reducing agricultural output, industrial output, and aggregate investment, and increasing political instability. Analysis of decade or longer climate shifts also shows substantial negative effects on growth in poor countries. Should future impacts of climate change mirror these historical effects, the negative impact on poor countries may be substantial. |
| JEL: | O11 O13 O40 Q54 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14132&r=env |
| By: | Hongli Feng (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD)); Bruce A. Babcock (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD); Midwest Agribusiness Trade Research and Information Center (MATRIC)) |
| Abstract: | Land use impacts of biofuel expansion have attracted a tremendous amount of attention because of the implications for the climate, the environment, and the food supply. To examine these impacts, we set up an economic framework that links input use and land allocation decisions with ethanol and agricultural commodity markets. Crops can be substitutes or complements in supply depending on the relative magnitude of three effects of crop prices: total cropland effect, land share effect, and input use effect. We show that with unregulated free markets, total cropland area increases with corn prices whether crops are substitutes or complements in supply. Similarly, higher corn yields from exogenous technical changes lead to cropland expansion. The impacts of yield increases for other crops are ambiguous. With a quantity mandate for ethanol, higher mandates mean larger cropland area if corn and other crops are substitutes in demand. For a given mandate, yield improvement causes total cropland to expand if crop demand is elastic enough, or to contract under a very general condition if crop demand is sufficiently inelastic. |
| Keywords: | biofuels, complements in supply, ethanol, (in)direct land use changes, substitutes in supply, yield increases. |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ias:cpaper:08-wp472&r=env |
| By: | Sheila M. Olmstead; Robert N. Stavins |
| Abstract: | Urban water conservation is typically achieved through prescriptive regulations, including the rationing of water for particular uses and requirements for the installation of particular technologies. A significant shift has occurred in pollution control regulations toward market-based policies in recent decades. We offer an analysis of the relative merits of market-based and prescriptive approaches to water conservation, where prices have rarely been used to allocate scarce supplies. The analysis emphasizes the emerging theoretical and empirical evidence that using prices to manage water demand is more cost-effective than implementing non-price conservation programs, similar to results for pollution control in earlier decades. Price-based approaches also have advantages in terms of monitoring and enforcement. In terms of predictability and equity, neither policy instrument has an inherent advantage over the other. As in any policy context, political considerations are important. |
| JEL: | L95 Q25 Q28 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14147&r=env |
| By: | Céline Gisèle Jung (Centre Emile Bernheim, Solvay Business School, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels.); O. Ioannidou (Chemical Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.); A. Zabaniotou (Chemical Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.) |
| Abstract: | Pyrolysis is the initial step in most of the biomass thermal conversion processes, and the most depending on the properties of biomass. In the current study, three agricultural residues: olive tree prunnings, rapeseed residues and soya residues have been pyrolyzed and gasified in a captive sample and a fixed bed reactor, respectively. Yields and heating values of the gaseous and solid products were estimated. The experimental results were further compared with the results from a predictive model based in the proximate analysis estimated from the raw materials thermogravimetric and ultimate analysis. The comparison between the pyrolysis results and the predictions from the model showed to have deviations ranged between almost zero to 17%. The higher deviations appeared in the amount of heating values of the char. For the gasification results, on the other hand, the model is only be used for predictions in the energetic value the gas produced due to the differences in the assumptions taken respectively in the experimental procedure and the model. |
| Keywords: | predictive model, biomass, pyrolysis, gasification, mass balance, energy balance |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:08-022&r=env |
| By: | António Brandão Moniz (IET - Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation - WORKS project); Margarida Paulos (IET - Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation - Universidade Nova de Lisboa - Faculty of Sciences and Technology - Faculty of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Portugal had only very few foresight exercises on the automobile sector, and the most recent one was a survey held in a project on work organisation systems in the automobile industry, its recent historical paths and the special strategies of location of companies (the WorTiS project). This involved several teams with different disciplinary backgrounds and from two Portuguese universities. The provisional main results of the first round of a Delphi survey held in Portugal on the automotive sector were already published, but a further analysis was not yet done. This foresight survey was done under the WorTiS project, developed in 2004 by IET – Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation (at FCT-UNL), and financed by the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology. Some of this experience on foresight analysis is also been transferred to other projects, namely the WORKS project on work organisation restructuring in the knowledge society that received the support from EC and still is running. The majority of experts considered having an average of less knowledge in almost all the scenario topics presented. This means that information on the automotive industry is not spread enough among academics or experts in related fields (regional scientists, innovation economists, engineers, sociologists). Some have a good knowledge but in very specialised fields. Others have expertise on foresight, or macroeconomics, or management sciences, but feel insecure on issues related with futures of automobile sector. Nevertheless, we considered specially the topics where the experts considered themselves to have some knowledge. There were no “irrelevant” topics considered as such by the expert panel. There are also no topics that are not considered a need for co-operation. The lack of technological infrastructures was not considered as a hindered factor for the accomplishment of any scenario. The experts’ panel considered no other international competence besides US, Japan or Germany in these topics. Special focus will be made in this paper on the topic 2. Public policy and automobile industries, and more specifically on the technological and/or research policies issues, where one can specify the automobile’s role in transport policies with further implications like environment, safety, energy, mobility. |
| Keywords: | automotive industry; scenario; economical co-operation; technology; Delphi survey |
| Date: | 2008–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00287886_v1&r=env |