political instability corruption and policy formation the case of environmental policy abstract this paper develops a theory of environmental policy formation taking into consideration the degree of corruptibility and political turbulence the predictions that emerge are that the interaction between the two variables is important political instability has a negative effect on the stringency of environmental regulations if the level of corruption is low but a positive effect when the degree of corruption is high corruption reduces the stringency of environmental regulations but the effect disappears as political instability increases the empirical findings are fully consistent with the predictions of the model

multinational public goods provision under multilateral income transfers and productivity differences abstractthis article examines multinational public goods provision under multilateral income transfers and productivity differences across countries under a planner who uses linear approximation for utility maximization we show that 1 a country is an income receiver if it has a higher productivity than the average in producing public goods enabling it to provide more public goods 2 the amount of transfers can be pinned down for all countries with an adjustment cost 3 each country obtains an identical utility increment and 4 the country with the lowest adjustment cost is the best candidate for the planner country all results are derived based on well known information regarding the cost of producing the public goods and income levels

income generating effects of biofuel policies a meta analysis of the cge literature abstract while the production of biofuels has expanded in recent years findings in the literature on its impact on economic growth and development remain contradictory this paper presents a meta analysis of computable general equilibrium cge studies published between 2006 and 2017 on the effect of biofuel production on economic development worldwide using 30 cge studies we found that biofuel supportive policies generated significant impacts on gdp and household incomes cge studies included in our database reported an average 0 25 percentage point increase in gdp and a 0 49 percentage point increase in household incomes we also found that results were driven by several key features of the cge studies included in our database we investigated features such as biofuel type geographic area and characteristics of the cge models employed we found that biofuel expansion has heterogeneous effects in developed versus emerging countries simulations on longer time periods and in multi country studies led to results that indicate higher impacts of biofuel expansion on gdp growth and household incomes moreover simulations with an increase in agricultural productivity indicate positive welfare impact gains unlike simulations with land expansion lastly we found that biodiesel development leads to higher welfare impact gains than that of bioethanol

is there a role for biofuels in promoting energy self sufficiency and security a cge analysis of biofuel policy in thailand given the rising price of crude oil some developing countries including thailand are looking towards developing their domestic renewable energy resources in particular biofuels however there are concerns about the possible adverse effects such a policy strategy would have on key variables such as sectoral output land allocation and the effects of prices particularly food prices this study develops a computable general equilibrium cge model of the thailand economy that features enhancements of the energy sector and uses it to analyze the government s recent renewable energy development plan this plan aims to increase domestic energy use from renewable sources to replace fossil fuel imports the study simulated specific policies contained in the plan among other things we found that promoting biofuel use causes a rapid increase in the price of biofuel and biofuel feedstock in the short run whereas these prices only increase slightly in the long run due to more elastic supplies the prices of food and other products marginally increase implying that food security is not undermined by the policy on the basis of the findings the study recommends a review of some of the targets because they were found to be rather high and a phasing in of others

market access for sale abstract this paper focuses on the links between foreign lobbying and preferential market access granted by the united states government to exporters in the rest of the americas we first develop a simple framework based on grossman and helpman grossman g helpman e 1994 protection for sale american economic review 84 4 833 850 to explain how lobbying by foreign firms affects their preferential access to the united states market we then estimate the model using data on tariff preferences and lobby contributions for the 34 countries in the region empirical results suggest that foreign lobbying is an important force behind preferential market access to the united states the structural estimates indicate that the weight given to foreign lobby contributions in the united states government objective function is five times higher than the weight granted to tariff revenue forgone due to preferences thus our results indicate that market access is up for sale and foreign lobbies are buying it

economic impacts of biofuels deployment in andalusia this paper aims to estimate the economic impacts of increasing the production capacity of the installed biofuel plants in andalusia southern spain a computable general equilibrium cge approach is used to calculate the changes in the economic sectors activity in employment as well as in gdp and other macroeconomic variables relevant to biofuel plants in andalusia under two distinct scenarios i based on an operating biodiesel plant with 90 ktoe year of installed capacity ii upgrading to 2174 ktoe by 2013 in compliance with the regional plan andaluz de sostenibilidad energetica pasener 2007 2013 results show that compliance with the pasener goal would increase the activity level of the economic sectors considered by 3 04 the total induced employment generated would reach 167 975 equivalent full time jobs lasting one year and the gdp would increase by 9 82

legislative organization and pollution taxation the role of political institutions in shaping public policy has been analyzed in isolation from corruption and legislative organization specifically bicameralism has received minimal attention we analyze pollution taxation when decisions are influenced by several veto players such as legislative chambers our theory predicts that an increase in the number of veto players e g moving from uni to bi cameralism pushes the pollution tax towards the social optimum with the effect being conditional on corruption as such dispersion around the optimal tax is lower under bicameralism empirical tests using data from 86 countries support the theory

foreign lobbies and us trade policy abstract in popular discussion much has been made of the susceptibility of government policies to lobbying by foreigners the general presumption being that this is harmful to the home economy however in a trade policy context this may not be the case if the policy outcome absent any foreign lobbying is characterized by welfare reducing trade barriers foreign lobbying may reduce such barriers and possibly raise welfare using a new data set on foreign political activity in the united states this paper investigates this question empirically tariffs and nontariff barriers are both found to be negatively related with foreign lobbying activity

biofuels tax policies and oil prices in france insights from a dynamic cge model abstract the 2009 renewable energies directive red has set up ambitious targets concerning biofuel consumption in the european union by 2020 nevertheless budgetary constraints and growing concerns about the environmental integrity of first generation biofuels have imposed a phasing out of the fiscal instruments to promote them focusing on france this paper combines an exogenous increase in oil prices and tax policies on fossil fuels the objective is to determine the efficiency of an alternative incentive scheme for biodiesel consumption based on a higher price of the fossil fuel substitute policy simulations are implemented through a dynamic computable general equilibrium cge model calibrated on 2009 french data the results show that the 10 biodiesel mandate set by the red would not be achieved even if the fixed taxes on diesel reach the same level as those on gasoline although integrating the rise in oil prices into the fiscal framework improves the biodiesel penetration rate it remains below the target moreover we find that the effects of biofuel consumption are limited to the biofuel chain sectors in other agricultural sectors the substitution effect of biodiesel with diesel is partially offset by the pricing effect induced by higher energy production costs

foreign aid and economic growth an econometric study of bangladesh bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world since independence in 1971 bangladesh has received a large inflow of foreign capital from various countries for rapid economic progress bangladesh thus provides a test case for examining the effectiveness of foreign capital in promoting economic growth focussing on the supply side of the economy an econometric model is developed to quantify the effects of foreign aid and its various components on economic growth the model is tested using available time series data on bangladesh from 1972 to 1988 keeping data limitations measurement problems and other econometric problems in mind the empirical results indicate the domestic resources exert a stronger impact on growth than foreign resources foreign resources in its highly aggregative form do not show any significant contribution to growth however its decomposition into various components show that loans are more effective than grants and food aid is more effective than commodity or period

looking towards policies supporting biofuels and technological change evidence from france abstract the increasing constraints on crude oil resources contribute to the emergence of liquid biofuels as an alternative for road transport fuels the european union eu parliament called for a 7 limit on crop based biofuels by 2030 and proposed increasing the incorporation target for advanced biofuels within the proposals under discussion in relation to the post 2020 eu renewable energy directive red ii by 2021 2030 the main objective of this work is to assess the economic impacts of the eu parliament s decision concerning first generation biofuels we also determine the conditions under which advanced biofuels could become available by examining the evolution of oil prices and public subsidies we employ a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium cge model calibrated on the french economy advanced biofuels are modelled as latent technology and we include biofuel by products our simulations provide guidelines for public decision makers to design alternative fiscal policies to support biofuels in a context of regulatory uncertainty

the effects of health aid on child health promotion in developing countries cross country evidence although epidemiological knowledge in relation to child health has improved in the last few decades around 3 million children die each year in developing countries from preventable diseases the international development community views increased immunization coverage for children as an important step in eliminating or reducing these deaths many developing countries have very limited resources to tackle major health problems and have to rely on external finance this article examines the impact of foreign aid devoted to the health sector on child health promotion in developing countries two proxies for child health promotion are used a immunization against measles and b immunization against diphtheria pertussis tetanus dpt a range of model specifications and panel data econometric techniques are applied to data covering the period 1990 to 2005 this article finds a positive and statistically significant link between health aid and the measures of child health promotion

carbon tax subsidy policy choice and its effects in the presence of interest groups abstract interest groups such as industry organization public finance and environmental group may exert influences on policy makers when they are choosing environmental policies considering the situation that two countries where a domestic country suffers equal influence and a foreign country suffers different influences from these groups can choose carbon tax policy or carbon subsidy policy then this paper constructs a two staged game model to study how interest groups make differences to environmental policy choices and their impacts on policy level production carbon emission profit and welfare between countries results show that the domestic country will definitely choose carbon tax policy but the foreign country may make different choices furthermore if the foreign country chooses carbon subsidy policy the domestic country will set higher tax rate than the foreign country does but production carbon emission profit and welfare of the domestic country will be lower than those of the foreign country if the foreign country chooses carbon tax policy carbon tax rate production carbon emission profit and welfare are ambiguous between countries

methods for including income distribution in global cge models for long term climate change research abstract the consequences of climate policy and the impacts of climate change vary among different types of households depending on their income level expenditure pattern and other socioeconomic characteristics global economy environment models that are used to assess climate change issues traditionally do not distinguish households by income or other attributes to facilitate progress in this area we review and assess literature on methods to include household heterogeneity in global long term computable general equilibrium cge models we distinguish among three categories of approaches 1 the explicit modeling of multiple household types within the cge framework 2 micro simulation modeling and 3 direct modeling of income distribution for each of these approaches we describe the method key assumptions limitations and several prominent examples from the literature moreover we discuss data needs including the contents of household survey data their availability and processing we conclude with an overview of what each method could provide for global long term climate related research

the economic effects of the eu biofuel target in this paper we use the cge model dart to assess the economic impacts and optimality of different aspects of the eu climate package a special focus is placed on the 10 biofuel target in the eu in particular we analyze the development in the biofuel sectors the effects on agricultural production and prices and finally overall welfare implications one of the main findings is that the eu emission targets alone lead to only minor increases in biofuel production additional subsidies are necessary to reach the 10 biofuel target this in turn increases european agricultural prices by up to 7 compared to a cost effective scenario in which the eu 20 emission reduction target is reached additional welfare losses occur due to separated carbon markets and the renewable quotas the biofuel target has relatively small negative or even positive welfare effects in some scenarios

production functions for climate policy modeling an empirical analysis abstract quantitative models for climate policy modeling differ in the production structure used and in the sizes of the elasticities of substitution the empirical foundation for both is generally lacking this paper estimates the parameters of 2 level ces production functions with capital labour and energy as inputs and is the first to systematically compare all nesting structures using industry level data from 12 oecd countries we find that the nesting structure where capital and labour are combined first fits the data best but for most countries and industries we cannot reject that all three inputs can be put into one single nest these two nesting structures are used by most climate models however while several climate policy models use a cobb douglas function for part of the production function we reject elasticities equal to one in favour of considerably smaller values finally we find evidence for factor specific technological change with lower elasticities and with factor specific technological change some climate policy models may find a bigger effect of endogenous technological change on mitigating the costs of climate policy

foreign aid and economic growth in cameroon cameroon is classified as a lower middle income country since it became a unified and independent country in 1961 cameroon has received significant amounts of foreign aid most of it from france and the european economic community since the 1960s economic growth in the country has been quite significant between 1965 and 1980 the gross domestic product grew at an average annual rate of 5 1 and at a rate of 2 3 between 1980 and 1990 cameroon seems a good test case for determining the effects of foreign aid on economic growth in developing countries an econometric model based on the neoclassical production function is developed and used to test the relationship between foreign aid and eonomic growth the model is tested using time series datd on the country from 1971 to 1990 the results show that domestic resources have a stronger impact on economic growth in cameroon than foreign resources these results however must be taken with the understanding that the data suffer from measurement probl

geography matters international trade patterns and the indirect land use effects of biofuels this article investigates the relationship between international trade patterns and the global distribution of coarse grain production responses to market developments in the united states our null hypothesis is that world markets are fully integrated rendering the geographic persistence of bilateral trade flows irrelevant in the global production response to a change in us prices the alternative hypothesis allows price transmission to vary along with the intensity of competition among countries in specific markets using data from 1975 to 2002 we reject the null hypothesis our work has direct implications for the analysis of the global land use impacts of biofuel mandates

thailand s low carbon scenario 2050 the aim cge analyses of co2 mitigation measures climate change and co2 mitigation have become increasingly important environmental issues recently thailand has proposed policies on ghg mitigation such as thailand s nationally appropriate mitigation action nama which aims at ghg mitigation in the energy sector this study used the computable general equilibrium cge model called aim cge model to analyse ghg mitigation measures under emission trading and carbon capture and storage ccs technology in thailand results show that the international free emission trading policy can drive more ghg reduction by decreasing energy supply and demand and increasing prices of emissions the ccs technologies would balance emission reduction but they would reduce energy efficiency improvement and renewable energy utilization in the energy security aspect the policy options in this study would improve energy security energy import dependency and co benefits of ghg mitigation in forms of improving local air quality results are also helpful to ghg mitigation policy in developing countries

economic and policy issues in the production of algae based biofuels a review despite the initial environmental and supply benefits associated with conventional biofuels leading to substantial policy support research has indicated that these benefits might have been overly optimistic negative externalities associated with food and resource allocation have also resulted in an increasing scepticism about the long term potential of transitioning to biofuels this review presents the economic benefits and costs surrounding conventional biofuels and suggests the need for further development of a third generation feedstock based on algae the article provides guidance on the potential for a policy framework for supporting microalgae as a source of biofuels given the numerous associated positive externalities

the regional economic impacts of biofuels a review of multisectoral modelling techniques and evaluation of applications allan g j the regional economic impacts of biofuels a review of multisectoral modelling techniques and evaluation of applications regional studies the regional economic impact of biofuel production depends upon a number of interrelated factors the specific biofuels feedstock and production technology employed the sector s embeddedness in the rest of the economy through its demand for local resources and the extent to which new activity is created these issues can be analysed using multisectoral economic models some studies use input output io and social accounting matrix sam modelling frameworks whilst a nascent computable general equilibrium cge literature has begun to examine the regional impact of biofuel development this paper reviews compares and evaluates these approaches for modelling the regional economic impacts of biofuels

domestic politics foreign interests and international trade policy reply this paper incorporates the foreign interest in the determination of a country s international trade policy into a model of political competition between candidates contesting elective office we envisage foreign and domestic producer interests as expressing political support for a candidate via campaign contributions and candidates as making trade policy pronouncements to maximize political support from producer interests tariffs are divisive but vers are consistent with conciliatory policy positions yielding mutual gain to foreign and domestic interests no candidate has an interest in formulating a trade policy position using a tariff if a ver is a policy option protection in the developed countries has in recent years often taken the form of bilaterally negotiated voluntary export restraints vers rather than the more traditional unilaterally imposed import restrictions the use of voluntary export restraints has been paralleled by interest in the theoretical literature the effects of vers have been compared with tariffs and quotas and vers have been examined in a political economy framework with a view to identifying the gainers and losers from this form of restric

political regimes and foreign intervention abstract we present a theory of endogenous political regimes that emphasizes foreign direct investment as a motive for foreign governments to either induce regime transitions or promote regime consolidations we characterize different forms of foreign intervention and identify the conditions under which they occur we highlight new channels through which economic factors affect political regime choices foreign intervention is most likely to originate from countries where the government has a substantial pro investor bias and to be directed at destinations where fdi is highly profitable and where income inequality is high foreign sponsored coups d etat are more likely to be directed at democratic governments of poor countries in destinations where fdi is highly profitable but the domestic elite is weak foreign intervention tends to be aimed at stabilizing dictatorships we relate the analysis to evidence on foreign intervention from around the world

impacts of official development assistance on agricultural growth savings and agricultural imports abstract this paper explores the links between development assistance agricultural output growth and imports in 56 developing economies over the period 1974 1990 the empirical model treats agricultural growth and imports savings and aid as endogenous the analysis also accounts for differences in macroeconomic policies the results show that aid had a positive impact on agricultural growth a robust relationship exits between aid and agricultural imports consistent with the argument that aid helps industrialized countries through market expansion and strengthened trade ties

aid growth nexus empirical evidence from fiji foreign aid to the island economies is a major source for foreign exchange and resource needs this paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between foreign aid and economic growth in the case of fiji a neoclassical production function is applied to estimate the aid growth nexus since the data employed are time series for the period 1968 to 1996 the autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration is utilized to estimate the models components of total aid such as grant aid loan aid technical cooperation bilateral and multilateral aid flows are also utilized to estimate a disaggregated short run and long run relationship between foreign aid and economic growth the results show that total aid flows and its various forms i e bilateral aid grant aid and technical cooperation grant aid has a significant impact on economic growth in fiji as for domestic resources only exports and private investments in two equations show positive contribution to growth

the impact of ethanol production on us and regional gasoline markets abstract this study quantifies the impact of increasing ethanol production on wholesale retail gasoline prices employing pooled regional time series data from january 1995 to march 2008 we find that the growth in ethanol production kept wholesale gasoline prices 0 14 gallon lower than would otherwise have been the case the negative impact of ethanol on retail gasoline prices is found to vary considerably across regions the midwest region has the biggest impact at 0 28 gallon while the rocky mountain region had the smallest impact at 0 07 gallon the results also indicate that the ethanol induced reduction in gasoline prices comes at the expense of refiners profits we find a net welfare loss of 0 5 billion from the ethanol support policies in multiple markets

why do only the g7 2 countries among united nations members discuss about international public goods a simulation study abstractthis article investigates why only the group of 7 plus china and russia g7 2 countries among 194 united nations members discuss about international public goods by simulating the heterogeneity of income prices and preference parameters on the total provisions and the number of free riders we find that the number of contributors for international public goods is 15 under the 194 member countries while the others are free riders in addition the contributors are the top 15 powerful countries with largest dropout value over the world then the discussion with only 15 countries for public goods is meaningful as large as the heterogeneity of parameters is the number of contributors becomes closer to g7 2

trade wars and trade talks when governments meet in the international arena their actions reflect the political situations at home previous studies of trade relations have focused on governments that are immune from political pressures and that act as benevolent servants of the public interest here we introduce domestic politics into the analysis of international economic relations we study the interactions between national leaders who are concerned both with providing a high standard of living to the general electorate and collecting campaign contributions from special interest groups our analysis sheds light on the determinants of the structure of protection in non cooperative and cooperative policy equilibria

an ethanol blend wall shift is prone to increase petroleum gasoline demand abstract in 2010 the u s environmental protection agency announced a waiver allowing an increase in the fuel ethanol blend limit the blend wall from 10 e10 to 15 e15 justifications for the waiver are reduced vehicle fuel prices and less consumption of petroleum gasoline leading to greater energy security empirical investigations of this waiver using monte carlo simulations reveal an anomaly where a relaxation of this blend wall elicits a demand response under a wide range of elasticities this demand response can actually increase the consumption of petroleum gasoline and thus lead to greater energy insecurity the economics supporting this result and associated policy implications are developed and discussed

would you trust lobbies we consider the regulatory problem to approve or to ban a new product technology in the context of scientific controversy about its detrimental environmental and or health effects we formalize the regulator s decision making process as a tullock contest towards a theory of the rent seeking society texas a m university press texas 1980 the contestants being an industrial lobby representing the economic agents who have developed the new product technology and an environmental lobby representing the economic agents who will be harmed by the product or technology assuming that the industrial lobby has private information about the unfavorable environmental and or health effects but can be held liable for damage ex post we derive the equilibrium properties of the contest in particular we derive conditions under which it is socially preferable for the regulator to decide according to the contest s outcome rather than according to an ex ante cost benefit analysis using his prior beliefs we find that the contest outperforms the ex ante cost benefit analysis only if the risk of judgment proofness is not too high

anatomy of a crisis the causes and consequences of surging food prices although the potential causes and consequences of recent rising international food prices have attracted widespread attention many existing appraisals are superficial and or piecemeal this article attempts to provide a more comprehensive review of these issues based on the best and most recent research as well as on fresh theoretical and empirical analysis we first analyze the causes of the current crisis by considering how well standard explanations hold up against relevant economic theory and important stylized facts some explanations turn out to hold up much better than others especially rising oil prices the depreciation of the u s dollar biofuels demand and some commodity specific explanations we then provide an appraisal of the likely macro and microeconomic impacts of the crisis on developing countries we observe a large gap between macro and micro factors which when identifying the most vulnerable countries often point in different directions we conclude with a brief discussion of what ought to be learned from this crisis

the power to tax analytical foundations of a fiscal constitution preface 1 taxation in constitutional perspective 2 natural government a model of leviathan 3 constraints on base and rate structure 4 the taxation of commodities 5 taxation through time income taxes capital taxes and public debt 6 money creation and taxation 7 the disposition of public revenues 8 the domain of politics 9 open economy federalism and taxing authority 10 toward authentic tax reform prospects and prescriptions epilogue notes selected bibliography index

german aid and trade versus namibian gdp and labour productivity this paper examines the effects of german foreign aid to and net trade with namibia on namibia s recent 1985 95 economic performance the analysis suggests significant benefits for namibia from trade with and assistance from germany however domestic capital is found to determine namibian economic growth more than net trade with germany and german foreign aid to namibia while the effect of german capital tends be larger than that of german aid a need for direct foreign investment from germany to namibia is inferred two types of further investigations are required a joint determination of economic growth aid trade and capital formation and a disaggregation of german aid to namibia with an analysis of its individual impacts compared with similar effects of aid from other donors

foreign informational lobbying can enhance tourism evidence from the caribbean there exist legal channels for informational lobbying of u s policymakers by foreign principals foreign governments and private sector principals frequently and intensively use this institutional channel to lobby on trade and tourism issues this paper empirically studies whether such lobbying effectively achieves its goal of trade promotion in the context of caribbean tourism and suggests the potential for using foreign lobbying as a vehicle for development panel data are used to explore and quantify the association between foreign lobbying by caribbean principals and u s tourist arrivals to caribbean destinations a variety of sensitivity analyses support the finding of a strong association the policy implications are obvious and potentially important for developing countries

electrification pathways for tanzania implications for the economy and the environment abstract the role of electricity availability in promoting the economic growth of low income countries is a highly debated issue taking the tanzanian government s view that a lack of infrastructure for power generation together with a low electrification rate are a limitation to growth this paper studies the implications on the country s sustainable development of expanding the electricity sector the analysis is based on the joint use of the osemosys open source power system optimization model and the leontief input output model based on the tanzanian social accounting matrix four scenarios are considered representative of alternative technological and environmental policies characterized by different timing to achieve full electrification results indicate that while an expansion of the electricity sector can contribute significantly to economic growth the associated direct and indirect growth in carbon emissions is equally remarkable relying on the country s renewable generation potential would be important but might not be sufficient to lower the economy wide carbon intensity particularly under the assumption of reaching full access already in 2030 targeting energy efficiency and or decarbonization efforts in the industrial sectors as well as in the provisions of services would also be necessary the latter is particularly relevant as per effect of an average income increase household consumption habits contributes to drive the economy away from its traditional agricultural base

lobbying multisector trade and sustainability of free trade agreements this paper is concerned with the sustainability of free trade agreements fta fta sustainability is influenced by governments valuations of political contributions discount factors the lobbying position of the specific interest groups in the intra industry trade sectors and the sectoral coverage of the fta i find that i under certain conditions the fta under protectionist lobbying could be more sustainable than the fta under no political pressure ii the lobby supported fta is more sustainable than the lobby opposed fta and the fta under no political pressure and iii multisector trade enhances fta sustainability jel classification f12 f13 f15 lobbying commerce multisectoriel et durabilite des accords de libre echange ce memoire examine la durabilite des arrangements de libre echange ale celle ci est influencee par les evaluations par les gouvernements des contributions politiques les facteurs d escompte la position de lobbying des groupes d interet specifiques dans les secteurs de commerce intra industriel et la couverture sectorielle de l accord de libre echange l auteur trouve que i sous certaines conditions l ale pourrait etre plus durable s il y a lobbying protectionniste que si pression politique il n y a pas ii l ale supporte par du lobbying est plus durable que l ale oppose au lobbying et sans pression de lobbying et iii le commerce multisectoriel ameliore la durabilite de l ale

protection for sale with imperfect rent capturing we extend the protection for sale framework to non tari barriers introducing partial rent capturing leads to a testable specification that bridges the gap between the grossman and helpman 1994 model and its empirical implementation where coverage ratios have been used to measure protection the econometric analysis supports our augmented specification and leads to more realistic estimates for the structural parameters of the model jel classification f13

implementing a biofuel economy in the eu lessons from the sustoil project and future perspectives for next generation biofuels abstract the aim of this article is to illustrate main economic and environmental ghg emission reductions effects of implementing a biofuel economy and to discuss the potential of establishing advanced biofuels in the european union the study is based on the recently completed eu fp7 sustoil research project the main question addressed is the eu policy objective of achieving 20 ghg emission reductions using 20 of renewables by the year 2020 to contribute to the achievement of this policy we run and execute through a computable general equilibrium model a simulation experiment of implementing a bio based economy using biorefineries in the production process main results suggest that a biorefineries working from oil seeds and their by products will lead to a large increase in the amount of this crop grown particularly in eastern europe b this increase will be accompanied by a decrease in sectoral gdp in several other areas c oil and electricity prices will generally fall in across the eu with a particularly notable trend in eastern europe and d a reduction in carbon emissions is achieved but this will be insufficient to meet the eu 20 target this latter result would suggest to speed the technological process towards the use of next generation biofuels in the eu furthermore these results advocate for a leading role expected to play by eastern eu countries over the next years the expected increase in the cultivation of energy crops could conflict with the availability of land for food crops the potential for establishing next generation biofuels in the eu with adequate support policies would be essential for guaranteeing energy and food security in the long run

lobbying competition over trade policy counterlobbying over trade policy competition between opposing lobbies is an important factor in the endogenous determination of trade policy this paper investigates empirically the consequences of lobbying competition between upstream and downstream producers for trade policy the theoretical structure underlying the empirical analysis is the well known grossman helpman model of trade policy determination modified suitably to account for the cross sectoral use of inputs in production itself a quantitatively significant phenomenon with around 50 percent of manufacturing output being used by other sectors rather than in final consumption data from more than 40 countries are used in our analysis our empirical results validate the predictions of the theoretical model with lobbying competition importantly accounting for lobbying competition also alters substantially estimates of the welfare mindedness of governments in setting trade policy

producing biofuels in low income countries an integrated environmental and economic assessment for tanzania this paper jointly evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in tanzania sequentially linked models capture natural resource constraints emissions from land use change economywide growth linkages and household poverty results indicate that there are economic incentives to convert unused lands to sugarcane ethanol production but only grasslands not forests have a reasonable carbon payback period there are also strong socioeconomic reasons to involve smallholders in feedstock production in order to reduce rural poverty especially since our results indicate that biofuels have little effect on food production yet smallholders require more land than large scale plantations and so face more binding natural resource and emissions constraints overall environmental constraints alter the socioeconomically optimal biofuel strategy for tanzania by limiting potential poverty reduction unlike previous studies our integrated assessment suggests that a mixed farming system with greater emphasis on large scale plantations is more appropriate for producing sugarcane ethanol in tanzania

policy options for non grain bioethanol in china insights from an economy energy environment cge model abstract the chinese government has been issuing numerous incentive policies to promote non grain bioethanol development to address the problem of excessive energy consumption and environmental pollution in this study we divide the incentive policies into five categories subsidies on bioethanol production non grain feedstocks planting marginal land reclamation and utilization bioethanol consumption in more cities and consumption tax on gasoline use the objective of the paper is to evaluate and compare the economic energy and environmental effects of the incentive policies to help the government choose the optimal policies to promote bioethanol in china the results show that subsidies on bioethanol production and consumption can boost gdp and simultaneously decrease crude oil and gasoline consumption and reduce co2 emissions however the increase in bioethanol consumption is combined with the rise in coal and electricity consumption subsidies on bioethanol production can promote gdp and reduce energy consumption and co2 emission but have less effect on bioethanol development than that under the scenario of subsides on bioethanol consumption on the contrary although subsidies on non grain feedstocks planting and marginal land reclamation and utilization can improve macro economy but have a negative effect on energy saving and co2 emission reduction therefore appropriate subsidies on bioethanol production and consumption can promote bioethanol consumption with economic energy and environmental benefits the chinese government should further pay more attention to the coordination of different policy options by policy tools and intensities

a cost benefit analysis of the eu 20 20 2020 package the european commission did not publish a cost benefit analysis for its 2020 climate package this paper fills that gap comparing the marginal costs and benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction the uncertainty about the marginal costs of climate change is large and skewed and estimates partly reflect ethical choices e g the discount rate the 2010 carbon price in the eu emissions trading system can readily be justified by a cost benefit analysis emission reduction is not expensive provided that policy is well designed a condition not met by planned eu policy it is probably twice as expensive as needed costing one in ten years of economic growth the eu targets for 2020 are unlikely to meet the benefit cost test for a standard discount rate 3 pure rate of time preference the benefit cost ratio is rather poor 1 30 so that benefits need to be very much higher or costs very much lower than typically assumed to justify the 2020 targets only a very low discount rate 0 prtp would justify the 20 emission reduction target for 2020

woody biomass processing potential economic impacts on rural regions abstract this paper estimates the economic and environmental impacts of introducing woody biomass processing wbp into a rural area in central appalachia wbp is among the most promising additions to energy generation portfolios for reducing import dependency while at the same time providing economic opportunity to stimulate regional economies especially in rural regions where economic development options are often limited we use an input output framework to assess wbp under three different pathways fast pyrolysis ethanol and coal biomass to liquids we find that the proposed wbp will increase regional output by 0 5 1 3 of gross regional product it will increase income by 17 32 to 51 31 million dollars each year and regional employment by 218 1 1127 8 jobs depending on the chosen pathway of these impacts the direct portions are 63 77 of the total impact depending on the chosen pathway the economic analysis and the results from the accompanying environmental assessment show that only the ethanol pathway has both economic and environmental benefits we conclude that because long run economic development strategies in rural regions are limited and negative impacts do not alter dramatically the regional environmental profile regional policymakers should include wbp among their development portfolio options

oil price biofuels and food supply abstract the price of oil could play a significant role in influencing the expansion of biofuels but this issue has yet to be fully investigated in the literature using a global computable general equilibrium cge model this study analyzes the impact of oil price on biofuel expansion and subsequently on food supply the study shows that a 65 increase in oil price in 2020 from the 2009 level would increase the global biofuel penetration to 5 4 in 2020 from 2 4 in 2009 if oil prices rise 150 from their 2009 levels by 2020 the resulting penetration of biofuels would be 9 which is higher than that would be caused by current mandates and targets introduced in more than forty countries around the world the study also shows that aggregate agricultural output drops due to an oil price increase but the drop is small in major biofuel producing countries as the expansion of biofuels would partially offset the negative impacts of the oil price increase on agricultural outputs an increase in oil price would reduce global food supply through direct impacts as well as through the diversion of food commodities and cropland towards the production of biofuels

the eu 20 20 2020 targets an overview of the emf22 assessment three computable general equilibrium models are used to estimate the economic implications of a stylized version of eu climate policy if implemented at the lowest possible cost the 20 emissions reduction would lead to a welfare loss of 0 5 2 0 by 2020 second best policies increase costs a policy with two carbon prices one for the ets one for the non ets could increase costs by up to 50 a policy with 28 carbon prices one for the ets one each for each member state could increase costs by another 40 the renewables standard could raise the costs of emissions reduction by 90 overall the inefficiencies in policy lead to a cost that is 100 125 too high the models differ greatly in the detail of their results the ets non ets split may have a negligible impact on welfare while the renewables standard may even improve welfare the models agree however that the distortions introduced by total eu package imply a substantial welfare loss over and above the costs needed to meet the climate target the marginal total and excess costs reported here are notably higher than those in the impact assessment of the european commission

economic growth export and external debt causality the case of african countries empirical investigation of the export driven economic growth hypothesis has provided mixed results in a bivariate causality framework the problem with such bivariate causality analysis is that there can be an omitted variable which could adversely affect the results this paper looks at the trivariate causality analysis of african countries by introducing external deby servicing as a third variable in the export economic growth analysis the results indicate that there is a feedback or bidirectional causality between external debt servicing economic growth and exports evidence of the 1983 90 subperiod is consistent with the argument that the structural adjustment programmes which were designed to remove economic distortions promote exports and encourage external debt management increased growth in the countries involved

to ban or not to ban foreign lobbying and cross national externalities this paper studies the costs and benefits of foreign lobbying we show how and when foreign lobbying can help internalize cross national externalities we argue that this is an often overlooked benefit of foreign lobbying we also study under what conditions a constitutional rule banning foreign lobbying is in the national interest of a country a key factor in this calculus is whether the interests of foreign lobby groups and domestic unorganized groups coincide or not we illustrate the logic with examples from trade policy and environmental regulation bannir ou ne pas bannir lobbying etranger et effets externes transnationaux ce texte etudie les couts et avantages du lobbying etranger on montre quand et comment que le lobbying etranger peut aider a internaliser des effets externes transnationaux on suggere que c est souvent un avantage qu on est porte a negliger du lobbying etranger on etudie sous quelles conditions une regle constitutionnelle bannissant le lobbying etranger peut etre dans l interet national d un pays un facteur cle dans ce calcul est le fait que les interets des groupes etrangers coincident ou non avec ceux des groupes nationaux non organises on illustre la logique sous jacente a l aide d exemples portant sur la politique commerciale et la reglementation environnementale

integrating bioenergy into computable general equilibrium models a survey in the past years biofuels have received increased attention since they were believed to contribute to rural development energy security and to fight global warming it became clear though that bioenergy cannot be evaluated independently of the rest of the economy and that national and international feedback effects are important computable general equilibrium cge models have been widely employed in order to study the effects of international climate policies the main characteristic of these models is their encompassing scope global models cover the whole world economy disaggregated into regions and countries as well as diverse sectors of economic activity such a modelling framework unveils direct and indirect feedback effects of certain policies or shocks across sectors and countries cge models are thus well suited for the study of bioenergy biofuel policies one can currently find various approaches in the literature of incorporating bioenergy into a cge framework this paper gives an overview of existing approaches critically assesses their respective power and discusses the advantages of cge models compared to partial equilibrium models grouping different approaches into categories and highlighting their advantages and disadvantages is important for giving a structure to this rather recent and rapidly growing research area and to provide a guidepost for future work

growth in africa does the source of investment financing matter this paper examines empirical evidence for 11 sub saharan african countries on the relationship between economic growth and three principal sources of investment funds foreign aid foreign direct investment and domestic saving in light of the shortcomings of traditional cross section analyses the time series approach is used instead modern time series methods are rigorously applied beginning with unit root tests and followed by model specifications that reflect the revealed temporal behaviours of the variables in each of the 11 countries domestic saving seems to play a somewhat more important role in generating economic growth than foreign direct investment or foreign aid however the mixture of results across the 11 countries implies that in general it is not possible to rank one source of investment financing ahead of any other

impacts of ethanol policy on corn prices a review and meta analysis of recent evidence abstract the literature on the impacts of biofuels on agricultural commodity prices is characterized by contradictory findings we review studies published between 2007 and 2014 that estimate the effects of u s corn ethanol policy on corn prices and find estimates ranging from nil to over 80 such divergent results make it difficult to assess the merits of alternative biofuel policies to bring more clarity to the issue and facilitate comparisons across studies we assemble a database of over 150 medium to long run estimates of the effect of corn ethanol production on corn prices from 29 published studies we first normalize corn price impacts by the change in corn ethanol volume to control for the large differences in ethanol quantities across scenarios we then conduct a meta analysis to identify the factors that drive the remaining variation in corn price impacts across studies in addition to ethanol volumes we find that modeling framework projection year inclusion of ethanol co products and biofuel production from other feedstocks explain much of the differences in price effects the results indicate that a one billion gallon expansion of the us corn ethanol mandate in the year 2015 would lead to a three to four percent increase in corn prices with smaller price changes projected in future years

the impacts of the german biofuel quota on sectoral domestic production and imports of the german economy abstract this study analyses the impacts of the german biofuel quota on sectoral domestic production and imports of the german economy the effects are calculated as net effects i e accounting for the direct and indirect effects of both the additional demand for biofuels and the reduced demand for fossil fuels the analysis uses an input output model and information on quantities production processes import quotas etc to calculate the impacts for the agricultural sector which is obviously of high relevance for biofuel production two cases are differentiated first and in line with classical input output assumptions we propose that agricultural production is not constrained by the availability of agricultural land thus biofuel production is basically added to other agricultural outputs in the second case agricultural land is considered a limiting factor for production as a consequence biofuel production substitutes other agricultural outputs the results indicate a clear increase of domestic production and a decline of net imports in the first case in the second case gains in domestic production are smaller and net imports are in contrast to the first case increasing

trade policy what s welfare got to do with it abstract the empirical trade policy literature based on by grossman and helpman grossman g and e helpman 1994 protection for sale american economic review 84 833 850 provides estimates of the u s and turkish governments weight on welfare significantly greater than on campaign contributions we explain this puzzle by incorporating political institutions and political instability

the impacts of biofuel targets on land use change and food supply a global cge assessment this study analyzes the long term impacts of large scale expansion of biofuels on land use change food supply and prices and the overall economy in various countries or regions using a global computable general equilibrium model augmented by a land use module and detailed representation of biofuel sectors the study finds that an expansion of global biofuel production to meet currently articulated or even higher national targets in various countries for biofuel use would reduce gross domestic product at the global level however the gross domestic product impacts are mixed across countries or regions the expansion of biofuels would cause significant land re allocation with notable decreases in forest and pasture lands in a few countries the results also suggest that the expansion of biofuels would cause a reduction in food supply although the magnitude of the impact on food supply at the global level is not as large as perceived earlier it would be significant in developing countries like india and those in sub saharan africa agricultural commodities such as sugar corn and oil seeds which serve as the main biofuel feedstocks would experience significant increases in their prices in 2020 compared with the prices at baseline due to the expansion of biofuels to meet the existing targets

green lobbies and transboundary pollution in large open economies abstract we employ a common agency model of policy making to examine how green lobbies affect the determination of trade and environmental policies in two large countries that are linked by trade flows and transboundary pollution we show that the impact of green lobbying on environmental policy outcomes depends crucially on the prevailing trade regime cooperative or non cooperative on whether environmental agencies act in a unilateral or coordinated manner and on the size of the emission leakages and transboundary spillovers under free trade a unilateral increase in pollution taxes reduces domestic emissions at the cost of increased foreign emissions in this case if the emission leakages and the associated transboundary spillovers are large enough green lobbying can create a bias towards lower pollution taxes

the impact of foreign aid on economic growth in papua new guinea this article investigates the impact of foreign aid on economic growth in papua new guinea png using time series data for the period 1965 to 1999 following the most recent literature the article examines whether aid effectiveness is conditional on levels of economic policy and governance an empirical model is estimated using the autoregressive distributed lag ardl approach to cointegration proposed by pesaran and shin 1995 results provide little evidence that aid and its various components have contributed to economic growth in png there is some evidence that aid is more effective during periods when the country has undertaken a world bank structural adjustment program sap an alternative interpretation is that a sap may be more effective at spurring growth when supported by foreign aid

consumer side actions in a low carbon economy a dynamic cge analysis for spain abstract in recent decades the need to strengthen efforts to reduce ghg emissions to combat climate change has become a major global concern as reflected in the 2015 paris agreement and the eu climate strategy 2016 in this context eu countries are required to organize their contributions to environmental improvement through national strategies given the potential importance of demand side actions both directly and through their relationship with the productive system as well as the need for a dynamic evolution we assess the dynamic path and medium term environmental impact of certain consumer oriented measures using a dynamic computable general equilibrium cge model specifically we generate scenarios that follow spain s strategies and evaluate the dynamic impact of more efficient technologies on electricity consumption and the use of transport services both in terms of environmental ghg and sox and economic effects our results confirm the role of technology improvements in delivering positive results for the environment and the importance of economy wide rebound effects through a detailed study of energy uses as a result of efficiency improvements in household energy consumption our findings show that reductions in emissions per person are consistent with economic growth

biofuels and economic development a computable general equilibrium analysis for tanzania abstract biofuels could offer new economic opportunities for low income countries we use a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of tanzania to evaluate different biofuels production options and estimate their impacts on growth and poverty our results indicate that maximizing the poverty reducing effects of biofuels production in countries like tanzania will require engaging and improving the productivity of smallholder farmers evidence shows that cassava based ethanol production is more profitable than other feedstock options cassava also generates more pro poor growth than sugarcane based systems however if smallholder yields can be improved rather than expanding cultivated land then both sugarcane and cassava out grower schemes generate similar pro poor outcomes we conclude that in so far as the public investments needed to establish a biofuels industry are consistent with other development needs then producing biofuels will enhance economic development in countries like tanzania

evaluating irrigation investments in malawi economy wide impacts under uncertainty and labor constraints irrigation expansion is critical to increase crop yields and mitigate effects from climate change in sub saharan africa but the low profitability has led to little irrigation investments in the region so far using an integrated modeling framework we simultaneously evaluate the returns to irrigation arising from both economic and biophysical impact channels to understand what determines the profitability of irrigation in malawi our results confirm that the returns to irrigation cannot cover the costs in malawi while labor intensive irrigation expansion leads to unfavorable structural change in the short run the profitability hinges on low irrigated yields that fall far from expectations due to insufficient input use and crop management techniques on the other hand we find that the nonmonetary benefits of irrigation regarding higher food security lower poverty and reduced vulnerability to climate change make investments in irrigation worthwhile to improve the livelihoods of smallholders