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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2014‒05‒24
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Ghisetti, Claudia; Quatraro, Francesco (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides empirical investigation of the effects of environmental innovations (EIs)on environmental performances, as proxied by the environmental productivity (EP) measure. We focused on sectoral environmental productivity of Italian Regions by exploiting the Regional Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts (Regional NAMEA). Patent applications have been extracted by the Patstat Database and assigned to the environmental domain by adopting three international classifications of green technologies:the WIPO IPC green inventory, the European Patent Office climate change mitigation technologies classification (Y02) and the OECD ENV-Tech indicators. Econometric results outline that regions -sectors characterized by higher levels of green technologies (GTs) are actually those facing better environmental performance. These positive effects directlys tem from the introduction of GT in the same sector, as well as from the introduction of GT in vertically related sectors. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201404&r=res |
| By: | Gerard van der Meijden; Frederick van der Ploeg; Cees Withagen |
| Abstract: | In partial equilibrium a rapidly rising carbon tax encourages oil producers to extract fossil fuels more quickly, giving rise to the Green Paradox. General equilibrium analysis for a closed economy shows that a rapidly rising carbon tax negatively affects the interest rate, which tends to weaken the Green Paradox. However, in a two-country world with an oil-importing and an oil-exporting region the Green Paradox may be amplified in general equilibrium if exporters are relatively patient. On the contrary, if oil exporters are relatively impatient, the Green Paradox might be reversed. Furthermore, general equilibrium effects tend to weaken the link between a capital asset tax and the time profile of resource extraction so that the capital asset tax becomes less useful as an instrument to offset the Green Paradox effect associated with the announcement of a future carbon tax. Taking exploration costs into account, we show that the effect of both policy instruments on cumulative extraction is of opposite sign as the effect on current extraction. Moreover, if the change in current extraction is amplified or reversed in general equilibrium, so will be the change in cumulative extraction. |
| Keywords: | Green Paradox, Hotelling rule, oil importers, oil producers, investment, capital markets, carbon tax, asset holding tax |
| JEL: | D81 H20 Q31 Q38 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:130&r=res |
| By: | Dietz, Simon; Matei, Anca N. |
| Abstract: | Economic evaluation of climate policy is notoriously dependent on assumptions about time and risk preferences, since reducing greenhouse gas emissions today has a highly uncertain payoff, far into the future. These assumptions have always been much debated. Rather than occupy a position in this debate, we take a non-parametric approach here, based on the concept of Time-Stochastic Dominance. Using an integrated assessment model, we apply Time-Stochastic Dominance analysis to climate change, asking are there global emissions abatement targets that everyone who shares a broad class of time and risk preferences would agree to prefer? Overall we find that even tough emissions targets would be chosen by almost everyone, barring those with arguably `extreme' preferences. |
| Keywords: | almost stochastic dominance, climate change, discounting, integrated assessment, risk aversion, stochastic dominance, time dominance, time-stochastic dominance, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q54, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare14:165822&r=res |
| By: | Sjak Smulders; Michael Toman; Cees Withagen |
| Abstract: | The relatively new and still amorphous concept of "Green Growth" can be understood as a call for balancing longer-term investments in sustaining environmental wealth with nearer-term income growth to reduce poverty. We draw on a large body of economic theory available for providing insights on such balancing of income growth and environmental sustainability. We show that there is a no a priori assurance of substantial positive spillovers from environmental policies to income growth, or for a monotonic transition to a "green steady state" along an optimal path. The greenness of an optimal growth path can depend heavily on initial conditions, with a variety of different adjustments occurring concurrently along an optiaml path. Factor-augmenting technical change targeting at offsetting resource depletion is critical to sustaining long-term growth within natural limits on the availability of natural resources and environmental services. |
| Keywords: | growth, environment, natural resources, innovatoin, R&D spillovers, sustainable development, natural capital |
| JEL: | O1 O3 O4 Q2 Q3 Q4 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:135&r=res |
| By: | Wei, Wenjie |
| Abstract: | A two-country, three-good general equilibrium model is developed to examine the welfare and environmental effects for countries (North and South) of demand subsidies (a feed-in tariff) to renewable energy equipment, as well as tariffs on renewable energy equipment imports. Both North and South renewable energy equipment producers engage in Cournot duopoly competition with a homogeneous product in both countries. Both countries also produce polluting fossilfuel- generated electricity and a numeraire good. We show, inter alia, that an endogenous Northern import tariff is increasing in (independent of) a Northern (Southern) feed-in tariff premium, even if the North government does not internalize any pollution harm. A Northern feed-in tariff premium may hurt domestic environment due to a rebound effect and it may also hurt Southern welfare.1 |
| Keywords: | Renewable energy equipment, Environmental goods, Environmental subsidies, Trade and environment, Feed-in tariff, Pollution, North-South Trade , International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, F12, F18, H23, Q58, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare14:165887&r=res |
| By: | Regnier Camille; Sophie Legras |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyze policy design for air pollution management in the spatial context of urban development. We base our analysis on the paper of Ogawa and Fujita (1982), which offers a proper theoretical framework of non-monocentric urban land use using static microeconomic theory where the city structure is endogenous. First, we show that when households internalize industrial pollution in their residential location choice, spatialization within the city is reinforced. This impacts directly the emissions of greenhouse gases from commuting. Then, we analyze policy instruments in order to achieve optimal land use pattern when the policy maker has to manage both industrial and commuting related polluting emissions, that interact through the land market. |
| Keywords: | Environmental externalities, Land use pattern, Air pollution |
| JEL: | Q53 D62 R14 |
| Date: | 2014–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ceo:wpaper:48&r=res |
| By: | Joschka Gerigk (Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich); Ian A. MacKenzie (School of Economics, The University of Queensland); Markus Ohndorf (Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich) |
| Abstract: | The conventional economic argument favors the use of market-based instruments over ‘command-and-control’ regulation. This viewpoint, however, is often limited in the description and characteristics of the latter; namely, environmental standards are often portrayed as lacking structured abatement incentives. Yet contemporary forms of command-and-control regulation, such as standards stipulated via benchmarking, have the potential to be efficient. We provide a first formal analysis of environmental standards based on performance benchmarks. We show, in a variety of contexts, that standards can provide efficient incentives to improve environmental performance. |
| Date: | 2014–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:519&r=res |
| By: | Sebastián J. Miller; Sebastián Galiani; Omar O. Chisari |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the optimal dynamic choices between policies of mitigation and adaptation for three economies: Brazil, Chile and the United States. The focus is on the optimal role of mitigation and adaptation for "environmentally small economies", i. e. , economies that are witnessing an exogenous increase in emissions to which they are contributing very little. The simulations lead to three main conclusions. First, small economies should concentrate their environmental efforts, if any, on adaptation. This is not a recommendation that such economies indulge in free-riding. Instead, it is based on considerations of cost effectiveness, ceteris paribus. Second, small economies that are unable to spend enough on adaptation may end up spending less on mitigation owing to their impoverishment as a result of negative climate shocks. Third, higher mitigation expenditures may arise not only as a result of greater optimal adaptation expenditures, but also because of increased adaptation to the incentives for mitigation provided by richer countries. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Policy, Climate Change, adaptation policies, IDB-WP-417 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:83017&r=res |
| By: | A. Denny Ellerman |
| Abstract: | Incentives for the development of renewable energy have increasingly become an instrument of climate policy, that is, as a means to reduce GHG emissions. This research analyzes the German experience in promoting renewable energy over the past decade to identify the ex-post cost of reducing CO2 emissions in the power sector through the promotion of renewable energy, specifically, wind and solar. A carbon surcharge and an implicit carbon price due to the renewable energy incentives for the years 2006-2010 are calculated. The carbon surcharge is the ratio of the net cost of the renewable energy over the CO2 emission reductions resulting from actual renewable energy injections. The net cost is the sum of the costs and cost savings due to these injections into the electric power system. The implicit carbon price is the sum of the carbon surcharge and the EUA price and it can be seen as a measure of the CO2 abatement efficiency of the renewable energy incentives. Results show that both the carbon surcharge and he implicit carbon price of wind are relatively low, on the order of tens of euro per tonne of O2, while the same measures for solar are very high, on the order of hundreds of euro per tonne of CO2. |
| Date: | 2014–03–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:euirsc:p0376&r=res |