optimal management of renewable resources with growing demand and stock externalities abstract in an equilibrium framework optimal management of renewable resources in the presence of growing demand or externalities leads to steady states that differ from those characterized by rate of interest equals rate of change in growth plus rate of change in prices measures to reach an optimum with externalities other than direct controls are found to be critically mediated by the costs of harvesting

environmental regulation and u s economic growth in this article we quantify the costs of pollution controls by reporting the results of simulations of the growth of the u s economy with and without regulation for this purpose we have constructed a detailed model of the economy that includes the determinants of long term growth we have also analyzed the interaction between industries in order to capture the full repercussions of environmental regulations however we have not attempted to assess the benefits resulting from a cleaner environment we find that pollution abatement has emerged as a major claimant on the resources of the u s economy the cost of emission controls is more than 10 of the total cost of government purchases of goods and services

financial returns under uncertainty for conventional and reduced impact logging in permanent production forests of the brazilian amazon abstract reduced impact logging ril techniques are designed to improve the efficiency of timber harvesting while mitigating its adverse effects on the forest ecosystem research on ril in select tropical forest regions has demonstrated clear ecological benefits relative to conventional logging cl practices while the financial competitiveness of ril is less conclusive we conduct a comparative analysis of financial returns to one and two cutting cycle logging entries for representative ril and cl operations of the eastern amazon observed variability in harvest efficiency and uncertainties of forest productivity are introduced in a stochastic simulation of future biological and financial returns to the alternative logging systems despite the perceived investment risks ril harvesting operations generate competitive or superior returns relative to cl for a wide range of discount rates due to gains in harvest efficiency and forest conservation

the impact of rural electric access on deforestation rates summary overpopulation and economic industrialization are two common explanations for deforestation political ecology however highlights that good governance and effective land management at the local level can offset the impact of population growth and development on environmental degradation in this paper we provide an innovative argument derived from political ecology to explain deforestation but rather than pursing a bottom up approach to governance we take a top down approach we argue that the state can ease deforestation rates by weaning rural populations off of the consumption of biomass for their energy needs by expanding rural electrification access using a panel analysis of 158 countries for the years 1990 2000 and 2010 we find that not only does rural electrification cause deforestation rates to decrease but also that it is more robust in explaining deforestation than population growth or development our study provides two innovations to political ecology it highlights that the state can help rather than hinder local populations with managing their local environments in a more sustainable way by providing them with public goods based energy alternatives and it supplements political ecology s qualitative focus on environmental degradation with a generalized quantitative analysis of state based initiatives on deforestation our results suggest that current global initiatives addressing deforestation specifically the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation redd agenda of the united nations framework convention on climate change should not only assist local land managers but also work with the state to ensure universal access to electricity

the price of pollution a dual approach to valuing so2 allowances under the 1990 clean air act amendments a market based scheme to reduce u s sulfur dioxide emissions takes effect in 1995 indications are that participation in the market will be light and allowance prices will be lower than was once expected using an output distance function approach for wisconsin coal burning utility plants we estimate the shadow price of so2abatement which should approximate the allowance price the estimated average shadow price is above the prices at which the few observed allowance trades have occurred wisconsin s stringent state so2legislation may explain a portion of this divergence

the tree cutting problem in a stochastic environment the case of age dependent growth abstract harvest policies are derived for growing biological assets e g forests livestock subject to stochastic age dependent growth and price uncertainty the task posed is analyzed as a continuous time optimal stopping problem for diffusion processes both single and ongoing rotation problems are considered qualitative comparative static and numerical results are provided

directional shadow price estimation of co2 so2 and nox in the united states coal power industry 1990 2010 abstract shadow prices also termed marginal abatement costs provide valuable guidelines to support environmental regulatory policies for co 2 so 2 and no x the key contributors to climate change this paper complements the existing models and describes a directional marginal productivity dmp approach to estimate directional shadow prices dsps which present substitutability among three emissions and are jointly estimated we apply the method to a case study of co 2 so 2 and no x produced by coal power plants operating between 1990 and 2010 in the united states we find that dsp shows 1 1 times the maximal shadow prices estimated in the current literature we conclude that estimating the shadow prices of each by product separately may lead to an overestimation of the marginal productivity and an underestimation of the shadow prices

optimal forest rotation under monopoly and competition abstract the two main propositions of the paper establish sufficient conditions for the optimal rotation to be invariant to market structure whether monopolistic competitive or maximizing the temporal sum of consumer s surpluses a corollary to the second proposition yields sufficient conditions for the monopolistic rotation to be actually longer than the competitive one

innovation complementarity and environmental productivity effects reality or delusion evidence from the eu abstract innovation is a key element behind the achievement of desired environmental and economic performances regarding co2 mitigation strategies would require cuts in emissions of around 80 90 with respect to 1990 by 2050 in the eu we investigate whether complementarity namely integration between the adoption of environmental innovation measures and other technological and organizational innovations is a factor that has supported reduction in co2 emissions per value added that is environmental productivity we merge new eu innovation and wiod data to assess the innovation effects on sector co2 performances at a wide eu level we find that jointly adopting different innovations is not a widespread factor behind increases in environmental productivity nevertheless even though complementarity is not a low hanging fruit a case where innovation complementarity arises is for manufacturing sectors that integrate eco innovations with product innovations one example of this integrated action is a strategy that pursues energy efficiency with product value enhancement we believe that the lack of integrated innovation adoption behind environmental productivity performance is a signal of the current weaknesses economies face in tackling climate change and green economy challenges incremental rather than more radical strategies have predominated so far the latter have been confined to industrial niches in terms of the number of involved firms this is probably insufficient when we look at long term economic and environmental goals

responsibility and trade emission balances an evaluation of approaches this paper compares two concepts to evaluate the international responsibility of a country with respect to its emissions using a multi regional input output model we show that the trade emission balance and the responsibility emission balance yield the same result in practical work however a lack of data availability implies that the same technology assumption has been commonly adopted in that case also a third alternative exists which simply evaluates the emissions embodied in the trade balance of the country this third alternative yields the same results as the other two approaches at the aggregate level at the level of individual products however the results are clearly different and it turns out that the third alternative answers a different question that is it is appropriate for measuring the emission content of the products that cross the border in our empirical application we consider spain in 1995 and 2000 distinguishing nine different gases co 2 ch 4 n 2 o sf 6 hfcs pfcs so 2 nox and nh 3 c 2010 elsevier b v all rights reserved

spatial interactions in multiple use forestry and substitution and wealth effects for the single stand abstract forestry models often ignore spatial relationships between forest stands this paper isolates the effects of stand interactions in multiple use forestry through a straightforward extension of the single stand model effects of stand interactions decompose into wealth and substitution effects and may cause time varying patterns of resource use for a forest stand simulations illustrate that a stand s role even in steady state may alternate an emphasis on timber with an emphasis on nontimber optimal management plans differ substantially depending on whether the manager values nonmarket goods from neighboring stands the model offers insights for improving heuristic forest level optimization models in current usage

multilateral productivity comparisons with undesirable outputs in a recent paper in this journal caves christensen and diewert i982 hereafter ccd derive what they term multilateral superlative indexes for use in the comparison of output input and productivity across economic entities the indexes derived are distinguished both by transitivity and by a high degree of characteristicity a term introduced by dreschler i 973 to refer to the degree to which the weights used in a comparison are specific to the observations being compared though the indexes are presented with the application to multicountry comparisons of output input and productivity foremost in mind the authors note that they may be useful in a number of other contexts as well i e firms and industries time series and pooled time series and cross section all of the applications mentioned or implied however have this in common they involve the comparison of productive entities all of whose outputs are sold for positive prices this is not surprising of course since most products with which economists are concerned possess this characteristic however it does render incomplete or potentially misleading the comparison of productive entities which produce significant amounts of undesirable outputs such as water and air pollution since the list of such entities is rather long and includes industries critical to many national and regional economies e g chemicals paper petroleum refining copper and steel the omission of this factor from consideration may be a matter of some importance 2 consider for example a comparison of the productivity of the steel industries

busting the boom bust pattern of development in the brazilian amazon global ecosystem services are clearly threatened by deforestation associated with human occupation and economic development of the brazilian amazon however the prognosis for the socioeconomic wellbeing of inhabitants remains unclear in an empirical regularity that has been termed the boom bust pattern or the resource curse the exploitation of natural resources is associated with short run gains in welfare that dissipate over time this coupling hypothesis asserts that deforestation and development are correlated such that deforestation leads to only short term advances in economic welfare that are not sustained once natural forests along with their mature timber and soil inputs are exhausted in contrast the decoupling hypothesis asserts that deforestation and development need not be correlated over time in this context growth that is initially based on deforestation may be sustained and translated into prolonged welfare gains even once the forest is exhausted using census and deforestation data from 1991 2000 and 2010 for municipalities i e counties in the amazon region we confirm that this boom bust pattern appears in cross sectional data however using panel data we show that socioeconomic welfare has become decoupled from environmental factors and is converging to rising national averages our findings contradict the conventional wisdom that the exploitation of tropical forests is required to promote amazonian development

a new approach to measuring shadow price reconciling engineering and economic perspectives abstract shadow price is one of the most important pieces of information in environmental decision making two different approaches namely economic and engineering have been applied to obtain the shadow price of undesirable outputs while using different methodological backgrounds and perspectives the current study proposes a new conceptual framework and an economic estimation model to reconcile the shadow price estimates derived via the two approaches we also suggest a new mapping rule that incorporates the concept of abatement level which is a basic element in the engineering approach as a result the proposed model generates continuously changing estimates i e comprising a shadow price curve based on the abatement level we further investigate the determinant factors of shadow price by using second step regression the suggested methodology is used to investigate the shadow price of carbon emissions in south korean electricity generating plants thus yielding relevant policy implications

an empirical analysis of the co2 shadow price in chinese thermal power enterprises abstract this paper estimates the shadow price of co2 and explores its determinants for thermal power enterprises in china using a parametric quadratic directional distance function we evaluate the inefficiency and shadow price of co2 for 124 power enterprises in 2004 applying deterministic and econometric methods a regression analysis is undertaken to examine the factors that drive shadow prices our results indicate that there are large inefficiencies in terms of electricity production and co2 emissions the shadow price is a negative function of firm size age and coal share and is positively correlated with the technology level this correlation between shadow prices and its determinants is not sensitive to changing assumptions regarding directional vectors although such changes do alter the distribution of shadow prices the large variation witnessed in shadow prices across power enterprises argues in favor of market based regulation such as an emissions trading system as opposed to the command and control regulation currently used in china to minimize overall abatement cost

valuation of marginal co2 abatement options for electric power plants in korea the electricity generation sector in korea is under pressure to mitigate greenhouse gases as directed by the kyoto protocol the principal compliance options for power companies under the cap and trade include the application of direct co2 emission abatement and the procurement of emission allowances the objective of this paper is to provide an analytical framework for assessing the cost effectiveness of these options we attempt to derive the marginal abatement cost for co2 using the output distance function and analyze the relative advantages of emission allowance procurement option as compared to direct abatement option real option approach is adopted to incorporate emission allowance price uncertainty empirical result shows the marginal abatement cost with an average of 14 04 ton co2 for fossil fueled power plants and confirms the existence of substantial cost heterogeneity among plants which is sufficient to achieve trading gains in allowance market the comparison of two options enables us to identify the optimal position of the compliance for each plant sensitivity analyses are also presented with regard to several key parameters including the initial allowance prices and interest rate the result of this paper may help korean power plants to prepare for upcoming regulations targeted toward the reduction of domestic greenhouse gases

a metafrontier approach for measuring an environmentally sensitive productivity growth index this paper presents an alternative environmentally sensitive productivity growth index to incorporate group heterogeneities into a conventional malmquist luenberger productivity growth index the p

marginal co2 abatement costs findings from alternative shadow price estimates for shanghai industrial sectors abstract shanghai one of the most developed cities in china is implementing a pilot regional carbon emission trading scheme estimating the marginal abatement costs of co2 emissions for the industrial sectors covered in shanghai s emission trading scheme provides the government and participating firms useful information for devising compliance policies this paper employs multiple distance function approaches to estimating the shadow prices of co2 emissions for shanghai industrial sectors our empirical results show that the overall weighted average of shadow price estimates by different approaches ranges between 394 5 and 1906 1 yuan ton which indicates that model choice truly has a significant effect on the shadow price estimation we have also identified a negative relationship between the shadow price of co2 emissions and carbon intensity and the heavy industries with higher carbon intensities tend to have lower shadow prices it has been suggested that shanghai municipal government take various measures to improve its carbon market e g using the marginal abatement costs of participating sectors firms as a criterion in the initial allocation of carbon emission allowances

potential cost savings from internal external co2 emissions trading in the korean electric power industry abstract korea plans to introduce an emissions trading scheme for the controlling greenhouse gas emissions in 2015 using shephard s 1970 output distance function we first estimate the shadow price of co 2 for power generators in the korean fossil fueled electric generation industry then by assuming that each power generator is required to reduce co 2 emissions by one ton we compute the potential cost savings from internal trading among generators within the same plant and from external trading across plants at prevailing market prices the results indicate that on average the generators paid 14 63 to abate one ton of co 2 emissions in 2007 plants realized additional gains through external trading in particular cost savings from trades between different fuel fired plants were substantial

plant level productivity efficiency and environmental performance of the container glass industry this paper presents a methodology and empirical results based on themalmquist productivity index we measure productivity while treatingpollution as an undesirable output our estimates show that technicalchange has contributed to productivity and environmental performancegrowth in the container glass industry an energy and pollution intensivesector changes in inter plant efficiency over time have made thisproductivity growth more rapid than otherwise would have occurred withthe underlying technical change the efficiency estimates show that thereare both opportunities to improve productivity and reduce pollution in thisindustry as well as productivity losses associated with the emissionscontrol the shadow prices for nox the undesirable output we analyze is quite high compared to other regulated sectors

technical efficiency shadow price of carbon dioxide emissions and substitutability for energy in the chinese manufacturing industries abstract china is the world s largest co 2 producer and energy consumer in this paper we calculate the maximum technically obtainable co 2 emissions reduction from the efficient use of inputs and estimate the shadow prices of co 2 emissions in order to assess the potential cost savings deriving from trading emissions among industries by measuring the input distance function for 30 chinese manufacturing industries our empirical results indicate that co 2 emissions could be reduced by as much as 680 million tons in the aggregate the shadow prices of co 2 vary from a high of 18 82 to a low of zero across industries with an average of 3 13 per ton additionally the estimated indirect morishima elasticities of substitution of capital for fossil fuels indicate that the substitutabilities of capital for oil gas and coal are higher than the substitutability for labor

resource intensity institutions and development summary we examine the relationship between resource abundance and several indicators of human welfare consistent with the existing literature on the relationship between resource abundance and economic growth we find that given an initial income level resource intensive countries tend to suffer lower levels of human development while we find only weak support for a direct link between resources and welfare there is an indirect link that operates through institutional quality there are also significant differences in the effects that resources have on different measures of institutional quality these results imply that the resource curse is a more encompassing phenomenon than previously considered and that key differences exist between the effects of different resource types on various aspects of governance and human welfare 2005 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

welfare outcomes and the advance of the deforestation frontier in the brazilian amazon summary frontier expansion in the brazilian amazon is often described as boom bust development we critically assess this characterization by mapping and estimating statistical models of welfare as a function of deforestation at the municipal level after controlling for potential confounding variables and spatial autocorrelation estimation results are consistent with a frontier boom generated by exploitation of natural resources followed by a bust during which forests continue to fall but there is no compensating gain in welfare however average per capita welfare increases again with deforestation at very high levels this second turning point in average welfare along with the strong bivariate correlation between deforestation and municipal gdp km2 may encourage local leaders to equate deforestation with development this confirms the need for international incentive payments for global public goods such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration that are provided by the amazon forest

the total economic value of amazonian deforestation 1978 1993 national income accounting has been criticized because of its failure to encompass the notion of sustainability several studies address this problem through green income accounting i e by adjusting conventionally measured gdp for reduction in a given country s stock of natural resources these studies generally base value on the unit net price of the resource other studies go beyond net price emphasizing a natural resource s total economic value tev that is its non marketable as well as its marketable values this paper combines the green income accounting and tev approaches and applies the new framework to brazil in order to assess the foregone economic benefits resulting from amazonian deforestation the results lend support to calls for greater policy emphasis on conservation of unique and irreplaceable ecosystems 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

non renewability in forest rotations implications for economic and ecosystem sustainability abstract the forest rotations problem has been considered by generations of economists fisher 1930 boulding 1966 samuelson 1976 traditionally the forest resource across all future harvest periods is assumed to grow without memory of past harvest periods this paper integrates economic theory and intertemporal ecological mechanics linking current harvest decisions with future forest growth financial value and ecosystem health results and implications of a non renewable forest resource and the influence of rotation length and number on forest recovery are reported cost estimates of moving from short term economic rotations to long term ecological rotations suggest the level of incentive required for one aspect of ecosystem management a net private cost of maintaining ecosystem health emerges and for public policy purposes can be compared with measures of non timber amenity values and social benefits exhibiting increasing returns to rotation length

decoupling analysis and environmental kuznets curve modelling of provincial level co2 emissions and economic growth in china a case study abstract guangdong is one of the most representative provinces of china in terms of reflecting how the provincial level co2 emissions dynamically evolve with economic development during the process of industrialisation and urbanisation the present study combines decoupling analysis with environmental kuznets curve ekc modelling to systematically explore the interactions between co2 emissions and economic growth in guangdong from the short to long terms aiming to provide the referential significance of low carbon development to other chinese provinces empirical results indicate that co2 economy interactions in guangdong dynamically changed with time performing an effect of expansive weak decoupling during 1995 2014 and having a potential to achieve a strong decoupling in the long run the decoupling states of various sectors and their contributions to the provincial overall decoupling differed greatly and varied by time and household and service sectors played increasingly important roles overall the decoupling effect of provincial co2 emissions is distinctly affected by the stage of industrialisation and urbanisation renewable energy utilisation as well as low carbon technical progress therefore promoting co2 economy decoupling at the provincial level should be specific to the feature and development reality of various provinces

energy intensity developments in 40 major economies structural change or technology improvement this study analyzes energy intensity trends and drivers in 40 major economies using the wiod database a novel harmonized and consistent dataset of input output table time series accompanied by environmental satellite data we use logarithmic mean divisia index decomposition to 1 study trends in global energy intensity between 1995 and 2007 2 attribute efficiency changes to either changes in technology or changes in the structure of the economy and 3 highlight sectoral and regional differences we first show that heterogeneity within each sector across countries is high these general trends within the sectors are dominated by large economies first and foremost the united states in most cases heterogeneity is lower within each country across the different sectors regarding changes of energy intensity at the country level improvements between 1995 and 2007 are largely attributable to technological change while structural change is less important in most countries notable exceptions are japan the united states australia taiwan mexico and brazil where a change in the industry mix was the main driver behind the observed energy intensity reduction

a more general dynamic economic model of the optimal rotation of multiple use forests abstract a deterministic optimal control model is presented for a multiple use forest with specific consideration given to provision and maintenance costs associated with a flow of nontimber values a relatively simple relationship is found which determines the optimal rotation length for such a forest

phase i completed an empirical assessment of the 1990 caaa with the conclusion of phase i trading of so2 allowances the epa declared the allowance trading policy to be a success the time had come to include cap and trade programs in the arsenal of effective policy tools in terms of reducing atmospheric emissions of sulfur dioxide the program appears to be successful it is not clear however whether or not the program has minimized the cost of achieving the emission reductions the measure of the true success of a market based incentive program however has yetto be quantified has the program resulted in converging marginalabatement costs across participant plants in this study i report theshadow prices of phase i power plants from 1994 to 1998 anddetermine that there are more costs to be saved within theambitious public policy experiment

an empirical examination of the pollution haven hypothesis for india towards a green leontief paradox using input output analysis we examine whether india can be regarded as a pollution haven we calculate the extra co2 so2 and nox emissions induced by 1 billion rupees of additional exports this is compared with the reduction of indian pollution caused by an import increase of equal size in contrast to what the pollution haven hypothesis states for developing countries we find that india considerably gains from extra trade comparing 1996 1997 with 1991 1992 the gains have only increased indicating that india has moved further away from being a pollution haven the outcome is robust to changes in the underlying assumptions

natural resources education and economic development economic growth since 1965 has varied inversely with the share of natural capital in national wealth across countries four main channels of transmission from abundant natural resources to stunted economic development are discussed a the dutch disease b rent seeking c overconfidence and d neglect of education public expenditure on education relative to national income expected years of schooling for girls and gross secondary school enrolment are all shown to be inversely related to the share of natural capital in national wealth across countries natural capital appears to crowd out human capital thereby slowing down the pace of economic development

estimating the shadow prices of so2 and nox for u s coal power plants a convex nonparametric least squares approach abstract weak disposability between outputs and pollutants defined as a simultaneous proportional reduction of both outputs and pollutants assumes that pollutants are byproducts of the output generation process and that a firm can freely dispose of both by scaling down production levels leaving some inputs idle based on the production axioms of monotonicity convexity and weak disposability we formulate a convex nonparametric least squares cnls quadratic optimization problem to estimate a frontier production function assuming either a deterministic disturbance term consisting only of inefficiency or a composite disturbance term composed of both inefficiency and noise the suggested methodology extends the stochastic semi nonparametric envelopment of data stoned described in kuosmanen and kortelainen 2011 applying the method to estimate the shadow prices of so 2 and no x generated by u s coal power plants we conclude that the weak disposability stoned method provides more consistent estimates of market prices

clustering analysis of environmental emissions a study on kyoto protocol s impact on member countries abstract this paper aims to start the study of the effects of the kyoto protocol on the agricultural and forestry sector the emission levels of greenhouse gases are greatly changed from a geographical point of view over the years after kyoto accord except for technical innovation the design and timing of policy interventions is crucial for reducing innovation barriers and improving production efficiency the proper use of available databases linked to the identification and application of tools by decision makers for grooming emissions are one of the main drivers for improving the efficient use of resources and global warming reduction in this paper we propose a first proposal of methodologies to analyse the effects of the kyoto protocol policies on the agricultural and forestry sector

issue in pollution control interplant cost differences and economies of scale debate on interplant pollution control cost differences focuses on the question of whether a system of taxes or transferable discharge permits should require those plants with low treatment costs to control a higher share of effluents another issue under debate is whether those industries with a large minimum size may be effectively barred by pollution control requirements evidence of the inefficiency of present institutional arrangements is shown by studying production function estimations of 30 pulp and paper mills in wisconsin and michigan a more efficient reallocation of pollution control resources could be effected with more market oriented regimes 58 references 6 tables dck

cost minimizing regulation of sulfur emissions regional gains in electric power environmental regulations set maximum allowable rates for sulfur dioxide emissions from electric utilities by ignoring firm differences in marginal abatement costs and preventing emissions trading these standards do not minimize the cost of reducing einissions this paper estimates marginal abatement cost functions for 56 utilities for 1973 79 marginal costs vary substantially across firms due to differences in the price of low and high sulfur fuels and the intensity of regulation the potential savings from a cost minimizing reallocation of abatement resources are estimated for five regions current expenditures are found to be 47 higher than cost minimizing levels i mplementation of the 1970 clean air act amendments relies extensively on technology based emission standards economists long have recognized that these standards can result in an inefficient allocation of pollution control resources engineering based restrictions ignore or oversimplify differences in abatement costs among polluters limited empirical research suggests that current standards result in substantially higher costs as much as ten times higher than a cost minimizing regulatory scheme 2 these studies however are based on engineering estimates of marginal abatement costs the models often assume that all polluters adopt control technologies that are required only for new plants and that have been largely unadopted by polluting firms 3 the impact of changing factor prices on marginal abatement costs typically is ignored the difficulty is that the resulting estimates of the cost of regulation neither adequately reflect the range of control options available to polluters nor take into account how polluters actually have responded to environmen

global warming agreements international trade and energy carbon embodiments an input output approach to the italian case abstract in the kyoto protocol the absence of green house gases ghgs commitments of developing countries non annex i and the more flexible terms of implementation which are allowed to countries shifting toward a market economy transition economies naturally lead to the absence or to less constraining national measures and policies of reduction of the ghgs emissions which in turn may determine a comparative advantage in the production of the highest energy carbon intensive commodities for these countries these arguments are valid also considering the future implementation of the european emission allowance trading scheme eats thus developing countries may become a haven for the production of not environmental friendly commodities in this case the so called pollution haven hypothesis stating that due to freer international trade the comparative advantage may change the economic structure and consequently the trade patterns of the countries linked by trade relationships could occur this would lead to the increase of the transfers of energy and carbon embodied in traded commodities from developing countries and transition economies toward kyoto or eats constrained countries the aim of this paper is to verify if for italy as a kyoto and eats complying country evidence of a change in the trade patterns occurred on the basis of the pollution haven hypothesis does exist and to estimate the magnitude of the under estimation of the carbon actually emitted the carbon leakage the input output model has been used to calculate the intensities of energy consumption and the related green house gases emission for each italian economic sector

shadow prices of environmental outputs and production efficiency of household level paper recycling units in vietnam abstract the production efficiency and shadow prices of three environmental outputs bod cod and ss of 63 household level paper recycling units from a recycling craft village in vietnam are assessed a two stage procedure linear programming and stochastic estimation is used to estimate output distance function social capital as a production factor and environmental outputs are included in the output distance function results indicate that production efficiencies could potentially be improved by 28 there is a substantial variation in the shadow prices of environmental outputs among the production units of different types of paper products furthermore the average shadow prices of the three environmental outputs are all positive this indicates a potential for improving environmental quality though introducing pollution prevention methods to paper recycling production processes in vietnam e g recirculation of wastewater and suggests that it may be inappropriate to restrict the shadow prices of environmental outputs to be non positive for the analysis of some production processes

risk and forest policy issues and recent trends in the u s abstract recent forest policy trends in the united states have implications for the nature timing and incidence of risk to which the public is exposed policy makers face enormous uncertainty both about what forests can do and be and about what people want forest policy that places a premium on shortrun predictability in the flow of commodity outputs is being replaced with policy that allows disturbances such as fire that are consistent with long run naturalness scientists advocate adaptive management the introduction of planned variation in order to enhance learning within the bounds of safety a concept that can only be understood in the context of public feelings and perceptions of risk this paper reviews economic models of choice under uncertainty and discusses issues that are relevant for understanding risk perceptions and preferences the definition of probabilities and the many attributes of risk and it examines the margins on which trade offs in risk are made in new forest policy arguing that because new forest policy shifts from public to private risk and from future to current risk it may enhance the common good finally this paper calls for policy to address uncertainty explicitly in a way that acknowledges public feelings and preferences about risk recognizes risk perceptions of experts and of lay persons and encourages developments in forest policy that allow for flexibility in the face of new knowledge

energy and carbon embodied in the international trade of brazil an input output approach abstract all goods and services produced in an economy are directly and or indirectly associated with energy use and according to the type of fuel utilized with co2 emissions as well international trade is an important factor in shaping the industrial structure of a country and consequently in affecting a country s energy use and co2 emissions this study applies input output techniques to the brazilian economy to evaluate the total impacts of international trade on its energy use and co2 emissions a commodity by industry io model in hybrid units energy commodities in physical units and non energy commodities in monetary units is applied to the brazilian economy in 1995 results show that total energy embodied in the exports of non energy goods of brazil equals 831 pj while total carbon embodied is 13 5 mtc these amounts are larger than the relevant amounts embodied in the imports of non energy goods respectively 679 pj and 9 9 mtc these figures are better understood by contrasting them with the total energy use and the corresponding total carbon emissions of the brazilian economy in 1995 estimated by this work 6781 pj and 99 4 mtc respectively this means that international inflows and outflows of energy embodied in non energy goods are in the order of 10 and 12 of the total energy use while inflows and outflows of carbon embodied in non energy goods are approximately 10 and 14 of the corresponding total carbon emissions of the brazilian economy in 1995 the general picture is that brazil is not only a net exporter of energy 153 pj and of carbon 3 6 mtc embodied in the non energy goods internationally traded by the country in 1995 but also that each dollar earned with exports embodied 40 more energy and 56 more carbon than each dollar spent on imports these findings suggest that brazilian policy makers should be concerned about the extra impacts international trade policy may have on energy use and carbon emissions of the country

choice under uncertainty problems solved and unsolved ffifteen years ago the theory of choice under uncertainty could be considered one of the success stories of economic analysis it rested on solid axiomatic foundations it had seen important breakthroughs in the analytics of risk risk aversion and their applications to economic issues and it stood ready to provide the theoretical underpinnings for the newly emerging information revolution in economics 1 today choice under uncertainty is a field in flux the standard theory is being challenged on several grounds from both within and outside economics the nature of these challenges and of our profession s responses to them is the topic of this paper

energy consumption pollutant emissions and economic growth in south africa article i nfo article history this paper examines the long run and the causal relationship between economic growth pollutant emissions and energy consumption for south africa for the period 1965 2006 in a multivariate framework which includes labour and capital as additional variables using the bound test approach to cointegration we found a short run as well as a long run relationship among the variables with a positive and a statistically significant relationship between pollutant emissions and economic growth further applying a modified version of the granger causality test we also found a unidirectional causality running from pollutant emissions to economic growth from energy consumption to economic growth and from energy consumption to co2 emissions all without a feedback the econometric evidence suggests that south africa has to sacrifice economic growth or reduce its energy consumption per unit of output or both in order to reduce pollutant emissions in the long run however it is possible to meet the energy needs of the country and at the same time reduce co2 emissions by developing energy alternatives to coal the main source of co2 emissions however the econometric results upon which the policy suggestions are made should be interpreted with care as they may not be sufficiently robust enough to categorically warrant the choice of an unpalatable policy option by south africa

energy consumption carbon emissions and economic growth in china abstract this paper investigates the existence and direction of granger causality between economic growth energy consumption and carbon emissions in china applying a multivariate model of economic growth energy use carbon emissions capital and urban population empirical results for china over the period 1960 2007 suggest a unidirectional granger causality running from gdp to energy consumption and a unidirectional granger causality running from energy consumption to carbon emissions in the long run evidence shows that neither carbon emissions nor energy consumption leads economic growth therefore the government of china can purse conservative energy policy and carbon emissions reduction policy in the long run without impeding economic growth

the marginal cost of species preservation the northern spotted owl abstract because species survival is not certain the decision to save a species is not an all or nothing choice but rather a marginal one the appropriate unit for both benefit and cost functions is the likelihood of survival and the appropriate question is how certain we want to be of species survival the intensity of the species preservation debate is also fired by strong equity concerns we illustrate these points for the case of the northern spotted owl by constructing a marginal cost curve for its survival and by disaggregating welfare loss by region and by market level

the applicability of marginal abatement cost approach a comprehensive review abstract the marginal abatement cost mac methodology is widely used in climate change policies policy makers rely on mac to assess feasible strategies and related costs to achieve emission reduction goals this paper introduces a variety of mac methodologies aiming at solving diverse problems which utilizes various calculable logic thus producing different results and implications this study applies a mind mapping method to capture differentiation of mac methods and systematically classify mac methodologies the applicability path analysis was proposed based on principles such as stakeholder type decision making objectives cost concept strategy mode and information scope our goal is to assess the applicability of different methodologies to reduce misuse by policy makers and to serve as a guide for subsequent research which might prompt and lead to the derivation of more consequential results in future studies the results of this study suggest that the complex method is not always better than the simplified method because policy makers are required to select the appropriate method according to the type of information needed it may even be suggested that mac could be reliable by ranking relative value of options compared with baseline rather than focusing on the absolute value of individual measures

the potential for cost savings in the sulfur dioxide allowance market empirical evidence from florida since the passage of the 1990 clean air act amendments researchers have hastened to appraise the new market for sulfur dioxide so2 emission allowances as the epa s program moves into its second phase some analysts question whether large enough savings are available to induce widespread market participation this study calculates the shadow prices of emission reductions for power plants that serve florida and compares the actions of utility owners to the actions predicted by the shadow prices the evidence suggests that plant owners have not taken full advantage of the opportunities the allowance market has provided to date

how realistic is green growth sectoral level carbon intensity versus productivity abstract this study considers the potential conflict between economic growth and climate change mitigation some believe green growth is an option while others think climate goals are incompatible with growth it does so by developing a sector based approach to analyze the relation between on the one hand carbon dioxide emissions per dollar of output and on the other the growth in economic output and labor productivity this allows us to investigate whether green growth combining economic growth with environmental sustainability is feasible the analysis covers denmark germany and spain for the period 1995 2007 an important innovation of this study is that carbon intensity is calculated in two different ways 1 as direct carbon dioxide emissions from each sector which can be seen to immediately result from the processes in the respective sector and 2 as total direct plus indirect emissions by using environmentally extended input output tables and considering also indirect carbon emissions through imported goods another novelty of this study is that we calculate correlations over time between sectoral carbon intensity and a range of economic indicators sectoral total and relative output final demand value added and so called output and valued added productivity indicators and their change a main conclusion is that despite past climate policy developed under the kyoto protocol relatively clean sectors do not seem to be more productive than dirtier ones and neither show higher productivity growth sectors associated with high carbon intensity grew more in absolute terms than those with low carbon intensity the share of these sectors increased suggesting that green development requires an extremely rapid pace of decarbonization to allow for green growth or the economy as a whole to shrink green decline an important additional finding of this study is that longer term sectoral growth as expressed by a change in value added does not seem to be positively correlated with carbon intensity

measuring environmental efficiency of industry a case study of thermal power generation in india technical and environmental efficiency of some coal fired thermal power plants in india is estimated using a methodology that accounts for firm s efforts to increase the production of good output and reduce pollution with the given resources and technology the methodology used is directional output distance function estimates of firm specific shadow prices of pollutants bad outputs and elasticity of substitution between good and bad outputs are also obtained the technical and environmental inefficiency of a representative firm is estimated as 0 06 implying that the thermal power generating industry in andhra pradesh state of india could increase production of electricity by 6 while decreasing generation of pollution by 6 this result shows that there are incentives or win win opportunities for the firms to voluntarily comply with the environmental regulation it is found that there is a significant variation in marginal cost of pollution abatement or shadow prices of bad outputs across the firms and an increasing marginal cost of pollution abatement with respect to pollution reduction by the firms this result calls for the use of economic instruments like pollution taxes instead of command and control regulation used currently in india to reduce air pollution

weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis with undesirable outputs environmental economics and natural resources group at wageningen university in the netherlands weak disposability of outputs means that firms can abate harmful emissions by decreasing the activity level modeling weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis has caused some confusion this article identifies a dilemma in these approaches conventional formulations implicitly and unintentionally assume all firms apply uniform abatement factors however it is usually cost effective to abate emissions in those firms where the marginal abatement costs are lowest this article presents a simple formulation of weak disposability that allows for non uniform abatement factors and preserves the linear structure of the model

timber harvest adjacency economies hunting species protection and old growth value seeking the dynamic optimum abstract forests have the potential to provide ecosystem services timber mature growth aesthetics and wildlife and endangered species protection forest managers are faced with complex ecosystem management decisions due to competing and complementary social values and differential interactions of these social values with timber production as a result management strategies can have dramatic aggregate and intertemporal welfare implications this paper portrays the trade offs and externalities in choosing or changing the forest management objective and the resulting rankings of management policies in addition the paper analyzes the role of economies of scale in harvest area where larger harvest areas generate average cost savings in harvesting and reseeding thereby promoting more intensive harvesting at the expense of environmental benefits

the political resource curse this paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians both with theory and data the theory is based on a political agency model with career concerns and endogenous entry of candidates the data refer to brazil where federal transfers to municipal governments change exogenously at given population thresholds allowing us to implement a regression discontinuity design the empirical evidence shows that larger transfers increase observed corruption and reduce the average education of candidates for mayor these and other more specific empirical results are in line with the predictions of the theory jel d72 d73 h77 o17 o18

forests livelihoods and conservation broadening the empirical base summary more than 10 000 years after the agricultural revolution started millions of rural smallholders across the developing world may still derive as much income from foraging forests and wildlands as from cultivating crops these steady environmental income flows come often from public forests and are extracted by men and women alike however inflexible supplies from nature the physical hardship of harvesting and commonly low returns limit their role as safety nets and pathways out of poverty while their harvesting does not preclude the ongoing conversion of wildlands to agriculture privileged access to high quality environmental resources can become a strong local conservation motive

environmentally sensitive productivity analysis of the canadian pulp and paper industry 1959 1994 an input distance function approach abstract this study employs a parametric input distance function that incorporates both desirable and undesirable outputs to provide a more complete representation of the production technology from which environmentally sensitive productivity and efficiency measures can be generated this framework also generates pollution abatement cost estimates that are useful for policy making an input based malmquist index of productivity growth that appropriately credits the producer not only for increases in marketable or desirable outputs but also for the production of improved environmental quality through pollution abatement activities is derived from the input distance function the method was applied to time series data from the canadian pulp and paper industry our shadow price estimates indicate that the marginal cost to producers of pollution control has been rising the main conclusion of this study is that productivity improvement from the social viewpoint has been stronger than conventional measures would suggest

energy consumption income and carbon emissions in the united states abstract this paper investigates the effect of energy consumption and output on carbon emissions in the united states earlier research focused on testing the existence and or shape of an environmental kuznets curve without taking energy consumption into account we investigate the granger causality relationship between income energy consumption and carbon emissions including labor and gross fixed capital formation in the model we find that income does not granger cause carbon emissions in the us in the long run but energy use does hence income growth by itself may not become a solution to environmental problems

marginal abatement cost air pollution and economic growth evidence from chinese cities abstract the directional distance function ddf with multiple bad outputs allows estimation of conditional marginal abatement cost mac that would be more informative than the unconditional mac estimated with a single pollutant applying a multi pollutant parametric output ddf approach we estimate the macs of co2 so2 and nox emissions for 105 chinese cities in 2006 2014 it is found that the period medians of the macs for the three emissions all increase over time while the medians of the macs for different cities tend to vary significantly a goodness of fit criterion is developed and used to evaluate the fit of alternative models which demonstrates the superiority of the multi pollutant model we have also shown that there exists a positive relationship between mac and economic growth finally several policy implications are suggested for reducing the overall emission abatement costs of china