it s not now or never implications of investment timing and risk aversion on climate adaptation to extreme events abstract public investment into risk reduction infrastructure plays an important role in facilitating adaptation to climate impacted hazards and natural disasters in this paper we provide an economic framework to incorporate investment timing and insurance market risk preferences when evaluating projects related to reducing climate impacted risks the model is applied to a case study of bushfire risk management we find that optimal timing of the investment may increase the net present value npv of an adaptation project for various levels of risk aversion assuming risk neutrality while the market is risk averse is found to result in an unnecessary delay of the investment into risk reduction projects the optimal waiting time is shorter when the insurance market is more risk averse or when a more serious scenario for climatic change is assumed a higher investment cost or a higher discount rate will increase the optimal waiting time we also find that a stochastic discount rate results in higher npvs of the project than a discount rate that is assumed fixed at the long run average level

applying real options in investment decisions relating to environmental pollution abstract this study focuses on how to assess the optimal environmental investment decisions under economic and ecological uncertainty and establishes the continuous time model using the real option approach to optimize environmental pollution policy unlike traditional cost benefit analysis this work extends the model of pindyck r s 2002 optimal timing problems in environmental economics journal of economic dynamics and control 26 9 10 1677 1697 and attempts to identify the storage threshold of pollution stocks and the optimal timing for implementing environmental pollution decisions

long run carbon emission implications of energy intensive infrastructure investments with a retrofit option abstract investments in long lived fossil fuel intensive infrastructure can have large effects on carbon emissions over a long future period we simulate a 2 period model of infrastructure investment with subsequent retrofit to purge its carbon emissions under uncertainty about climate and retrofit costs the energy intensity chosen upon investment depends on current and expected future energy and environmental costs and on future retrofit cost simulations of a simplified but realistic model indicate that energy consumption and carbon emissions can be highly excessive when future energy and climate costs are not considered at the time infrastructure investments are made and charged at globally suboptimal rates when operated often by more than 50 when energy costs are undervalued at this rate both ex ante and ex post good anticipated retrofit options reduce ex post energy costs but lead to ex ante choice of more energy intensive infrastructure which could more than fully offset the energy reducing effect of the retrofit these results are of particular importance for emerging economies with large current and anticipated energy related investments where long term climate policy goals may be seriously jeopardized by policy makers facing too low energy prices now and in the future

technology adoption in nonrenewable resource management technological change has played an important role in models of nonrenewable resource management since its presence mitigates the depletion effect on extraction costs over time we formalize the problem of a competitive nonrenewable resource extracting firm faced with the possibility of technology adoption based on a quadratic extraction cost function our results show that the expected net benefits from adoption increase both with the size of the resource stock and with prices a boundary that separates the region where expected net benefits are positive from the one where they are negative is derived

the energy efficiency paradox revisited through a partial observability approach the present paper examines the energy efficiency paradox demonstrated in greek manufacturing firms through a partial observability approach the data set used has resulted from a survey carried out among 161 energy saving technology firm adopters maximum likelihood estimates that arise from an incidental truncation model reveal that the adoption of the energy saving technologies is indeed strongly correlated to the returns of assets that are required in order to undertake the corresponding investments the source of the energy efficiency paradox lies within a wide range of factors policy schemes that aim to increase the adoption rate of energy saving technologies within the field of manufacturing are significantly affected by differences in the size of firms finally mixed policies seem to be more effective than policies that are only capital subsidy or regulation oriented

renewable resource management with stochastic recharge and environmental threats abstract exploitation diminishes the capacity of renewable resources to withstand environmental stress increasing their vulnerability to extreme conditions that may trigger abrupt changes the onset of such events depends on the coincidence of extreme environmental conditions and on the resource state determining its resilience when the former is uncertain and the latter evolves stochastically the uncertainty regarding the event occurrence is the result of the combined effect of these two uncertain components we study optimal management in this setting the environmental threat renders the single period discount factor policy dependent and as a result the compound discount factor becomes history dependent existence of an optimal markovian deterministic stationary policy is established and the optimal state process is shown to converge to a steady state distribution

what to make of new york s new economy the politics of the creative field inner city ensembles featuring novel mixes of culture technology and commerce are generating synergies of production consumption and place yet this new economy of the city is also linked to contradictory economic impulses and negative effects proposing that economistic accounts have a limited ability to explain the rise of these ensembles their effects and the possibilities for policy the idea of a creative field is revised in order to analyse how politics have shaped a creative ensemble in lower manhattan it is shown that the political influence of real estate has helped to displace firms and residents of modest means and has stunted campaigns by creative sectors to access resources build institutions and upgrade capacities however a survey of creative industry politics hints at alternative policies that in the wake of the financial collapse might promote progressive ties between creative segments and modest neighbourhoods

the role of spatial scale in the timing of uncertain environmental policy the spatial scale of an environmental problem is dictated by boundaries physical boundaries limit the extent of impacts while the scale of decision making creates perceived boundaries beyond which impacts are ignored by decision makers while it is well understood that uncertainty and irreversibility will alter policy decisions aimed at alleviating environmental impacts the effect of spatial scales both physical and perceived is less understood when spatial scale is included in a real options model of environmental policy adoption results indicate that the importance and influence of spatial considerations depends on the level of uncertainty stringency of the proposed policy and flexibility of the policy decision recognizing spatial scale may force policy adoption to take place within a window of current damage when spatial scale is small or uncertainty high this window for policy adoption can close precluding policy adoption entirely this undermines well known results demonstrating that changes in uncertainty will only alter the timing of policy adoption in other instances the policy adoption window remains open but the option value increases faster than the benefits of the policy creating a scenario where it is always preferable to delay here the inclusion of an option value can prevent adoption of policies that would be adopted according to traditional cost benefit analysis in general policy decisions will be most affected by spatial considerations when the spatial scale is small damage is spreading fast and the uncertainty in damage spread is high

precautionary principle and the optimal timing of environmental policy under ambiguity i consider a problem in environmental policy design in which i focus on stock pollutants in particular i consider stock pollutants that cause severe damage on the environment and do not depreciate at all once they are released into the atmosphere and the ocean the purposes of this paper are 1 to provide an economic foundation for environmental policies based on the precautionary principle and the 1992 rio declaration on environment and development and 2 to show that this optimal timing rule has a reservation property furthermore i analyze the effect of an increase in ambiguity on the optimal timing of adopting some environmental policy and show that an increase in ambiguity decreases the optimal timing of adopting the environmental policy

differences in pollution levels among civil law countries a possible interpretation abstract the aim of this paper is to shed light on the way the legal systems of different countries can explain the discrepancies in their pollution levels in particular we underline the factors of capital accumulation and the financial market development that are driven among other things by the various levels of protection accorded by the legal system to both shareholders and creditors the research develops in two directions firstly we supply a theoretical analysis to explain how constraints on the process of capital accruement affect the pollution level in the model a crucial role is assigned to the rate of interest and its relationship with discount rates which constitutes an important variable in decisions to implement anti pollution devices secondly we perform an econometric analysis using the data of eighty five countries belonging to the legal family of civil law for the period from 1992 to 2003 adopting four pollution indicators as dependent variables our main findings are that legal families and financial market development can help to explain the differences in environmental indicators observed among nations

optimal timing problems in environmental economics abstract because of the uncertainties and irreversibilities that are often inherent in environmental degradation its prevention and its economic consequences environmental policy design can involve important problems of timing i use a simple two period model to illustrate these optimal timing problems and their implications for environmental policy i then lay out and solve a continuous time model of policy adoption in which the policy itself entails sunk costs and environmental damage is irreversible the model generalizes earlier work in that it includes two stochastic state variables one captures uncertainty over environmental change and the other captures uncertainty over the social costs of environmental damage solutions of the model are used to show the implications of these two types of uncertainty for the timing of policy adoption

real options approach to renewable energy investments in mongolia developing nations are seeking alternative energy for electricity and one attractive alternative is renewable energy this research analyzes changing investment environment for renewable energy with real options approach and explores its potential in developing economies through studying the case of mongolia under coal price uncertainty to evaluate comparative attractiveness of either continuing to use coal based infrastructures or switching to renewable energy we formulate social revenue functions for the two environments assuming that renewable energy has lower external costs and coal prices follow geometric brownian motion gbm or geometric mean reverting gmr processes we find the optimal trigger coal prices for switching technologies with some scenarios in electricity price and externality characterize when renewable energy investments become attractive in contrast to conventional wisdom we identify some situations where the value of having more decision opportunities does not exceed that of a now or never decision for switching technologies and welfare losses are incurred the optimal trigger prices are higher in gbm than in gmr and our result raises the possible risks for waiting to switch energy to avoid welfare losses in mongolia the government should increase electricity prices or switch to renewable energy earlier especially when people pay more for the removal of externalities

from the frying pan to the oven gentrification and the experience of industrial displacement in williamsburg brooklyn this paper explores the effects of gentrification on industrial displacement although urban manufacturing centres are not as central to the urban economy as they once were they still house a vibr

fundamental irreversibilities in stock externalities abstract this paper concerns the irreversibility effect in stock externalities in an environment of uncertainty with learning taking place one may wish to under emit today to avoid potential environmental irreversibilities alternatively one may wish to under invest in pollution control capital avoiding investments in sunk capital that turn out to be wasted the paper develops theoretical results on the tension between these two effects and separates risk aversion from the irreversibility effect the paper also presents a simple example in climate change policy

valuing non market valuation studies using meta analysis a demonstration using estimates of willingness to pay for water quality improvements abstract a common refrain in the environmental economics literature is the need for additional estimates of environmental and natural resource values yet economists have paid little formal attention to the value of information voi provided by non market valuation studies and whether this value justifies the cost we develop a novel voi model to quantify the benefit of non market valuation studies conducted to expand the body of value estimates in the literature and hence available for use in policy analyses the approach is designed to capitalize on information available through preexisting valuation meta data and can be applied to any valuation meta regression that is suitable to inform policy decisions we illustrate the approach for a prototype nationwide water quality improvement policy in the united states assuming that policy benefits are evaluated using benefit transfer based on a meta regression model of willingness to pay our results suggest that when evaluating nationwide water quality regulations with uncertain net benefits the voi from a typical water quality valuation study will almost certainly exceed the cost we also examine how voi varies with study design features and information gaps in the literature thereby illustrating how the approach can inform research priorities

small farmer cooperatives and voluntary coffee certifications rewarding progressive farmers of engendering widespread change in costa rica abstract our research examines the benefits and drawbacks for cooperatives who participate in voluntary coffee certifications we interviewed administrators at twenty costa rican coffee cooperatives about management practices related to voluntary certification voluntary certifications are popular among coffee cooperatives access to certified markets is facilitated by state support of the cooperative sector regulation of the coffee sector and well enforced environmental and social laws however there are no significant or consistent financial incentives for farmers to pursue certification multiple certifications may lower auditing and implementation costs but cooperatives rarely receive the full premium for multiply certified coffee low market demand for certified coffee weak price incentives and high auditing and management costs encourage cooperatives to certify only a portion of their members this strategy rewards compliant farmers rather than inducing widespread change to farming practices among the entire membership though financial incentives are weak certifications offer non financial benefits to both farmers and cooperatives including better management and more resilient cooperatives

energy prices and carbon taxes under uncertainty about global warming this paper extends the strategic interactions between producers of fossil fuels concerned about their profits and a taxing government concerned about the consumers welfare for uncertainty global warming follows an ito process stochasticity requires to differentiate between reversible and irreversible emissions in contrast to the deterministic version the unconstrained reversible case allows for a closed form solution but not the more realistic and constrained case nevertheless interesting analytical properties e g about when to stop emissions implicit conservation due to monopolistic supply are derived and complemented by a numerical example

regulatory actions under adjustment costs and the resolution of scientific uncertainty food system regulators often decide whether to ban existing practices or approve new technologies without conclusive scientific evidence on possible damage and knowing that resolution is likely in the future in a model with three decision points and stochastic resolution of uncertainty we study interactions between expected losses due to regulation and information availability when a regulator is deciding on an early reversible ban and on a later reversible ban adjustment costs create inertia concerning intermediate signals such that earlier decisions are not overturned and also a bias against imposing an early ban the prospect of more later stage information can increase or decrease the incentive to ban early but research decreases the incentive to ban early

biodiesel investment in a disruptive tax credit policy environment abstract an investigation of poisson type policy jumps on biodiesel investment considers the theory of investment under uncertainty the analysis studies the probability of implementing a policy if it is not in effect and the probability of withdrawal if it is in effect an application models the policy switching regime of the discontinuous u s federal tax credit of 1 00 per gallon on biodiesel results support that time inconsistent government policies do lead to market uncertainty the analysis reveals a pronounced negative impact on decisions to invest in a biodiesel refinery results do indicate a consistent policy switching regime may not be that disruptive to the emerging biodiesel industry it is policy uncertainty that drives the option pricing thresholds and a consistent policy switching does not increase the uncertainty

biomass and ccs the influence of technical change the combination of bioenergy production and carbon capture and storage technologies beccs provides an opportunity to create negative emissions of co2 in biofuel production however high capture costs reduce profitability this paper investigates carbon price uncertainty and technological uncertainty through a real option approach we compare the cases of early and delayed ccs deployments an early technological progress may arise from aggressive r d and pilot project programs but the expected cost reduction remains uncertain we show that this approach results in lower emissions and more rapid investment returns although these returns will not fully materialise until after 2030 in a second set of simulations we apply an incentive that prioritises sequestered emissions rather than avoided emissions in other words this economic instrument does not account for co2 emissions from the ccs implementation itself but rewards all the sequestered emissions in contrast with technological innovations this subsidy is certain for the investor the resulting investment level is higher and the project may become profitable before 2030 negative emission in bioethanol production does not seem to be a short term solution in our framework whatever the carbon price drift

application of the modified tobin s q to an uncertain energy saving project with the real options concept abstract this paper is to develop a modified tobin s q evaluation method which successfully combines the evaluation criteria of the traditional tobin s q and the real options this study provides flexible thinking for decision making criteria that is it clearly provides decision makers with a reference in choosing enter or exit strategies such as quantitative indicators references the proposed model introduces two variables stochastic process in continuous time and explores the impact of the occurrence of unexpected events on the project value so that it can more authentically response to the project value the studied issue deals with the firms that have not established energy saving equipment yet it attempts to figure out the optimal timing to adopt an energy saving investment project when it is beneficial and the optimal timing to terminate it when the continuous operation of that business is unprofitable the future discounted benefit cost ratio q follows the geometric brownian motion with the poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment except for the evaluation of energy saving equipment investment project the proposed model can be applied to other related project evaluation issues such as energy saving co 2 emission reduction or general investment projects

the latte revolution regulation markets and consumption in the global coffee chain abstract coffee is a truly global commodity and a major foreign exchange earner in many developing countries the global coffee chain has changed dramatically as a result of deregulation new consumption patterns and evolving corporate strategies from a balanced contest between producing and consuming countries within the politics of international coffee agreements power relations shifted to the advantage of transnational corporations a relatively stable institutional environment where proportions of generated income were fairly distributed between producing and consuming countries turned into one that is more informal unstable and unequal through the lenses of global commodity chain analysis this paper examines how these transformations affect developing countries and what policy instruments are available to address the emerging imbalances

fair trade organic coffee production in nicaragua sustainable development or a poverty trap abstract this article assesses the impact of fair trade organic coffee production on the well being of small scale farmers in nicaragua studying the results of organic management is crucial for evaluating the advantages of fair trade because approximately half of all fair trade coffee is also organically certified a wide range of farmers representatives of cooperatives and export companies in nicaragua were interviewed during seven months of field work between 2005 and 2008 fair trade organic production raises farmer income when low intensity organic farming is an alternative to low intensity conventional farming however low intensity farming produces very little coffee in the case of the most marginalized farmers keeping these farmers in poverty with higher intensities of management the economic advantages of fair trade organic production largely depend on prices in the mainstream market

an entry and exit model on the energy saving investment strategy with real options this paper presents an improved decision model based on the real options approach presented by ansar and sparks 2009 for the firms that have not yet established energy saving equipment under the entry and exit strategies furthermore the proposed model takes account of the inevitable equipment renewal and the occurrence of unexpected events under the poisson jump process the timing for terminating an investment when continuous operations of that business are unprofitable is also explored to realize the optimal timing of implementing the energy saving strategy the future discounted benefit b follows the geometric brownian motion with the poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment a numerical analysis is followed by a sensitivity study of various parameters to better realize their impacts on the entry and exit thresholds the results show that for the jump case the higher probability of occurrence of unfavorable events will result in a higher entry threshold and lower exit threshold investors are forced to request higher benefit thresholds to cover the higher probability of losses brought by unfavorable events

managing risks from climate impacted hazards the value of investment flexibility under uncertainty abstract incomplete knowledge about climate change and the related uncertainty in climate prediction makes adaptation inherently difficult we introduce a real options framework to determine the optimal adaptation to catastrophic risk that takes into account climate change uncertainty the framework can be used to select the optimal adaptation project from a number of alternative projects or to determine the optimal investment sequence of the considered projects in applying the model to the management of bushfire risk at a local government area we find that the framework can significantly increase the value of adaptation investment above the current net present value and also improve upon deterministic dynamic models we also find that it is important to consider sequential investment to preserve investment flexibility under the uncertainty of climate change when decision makers can afford multiple investment projects the loss associated with the use of a simple net present value rule can be substantial and it is important to use a deterministic dynamic model or a real options model

the effects of fair trade on coffee growers a framework and analysis the world coffee market has undergone a significant transformation in the past couple of decades resulting in declining farm prices despite the fact that coffee demand has been strong and consumer prices have been soaring fair trade organizations have tried to address this price imbalance by providing an alternative method of trading aimed at increasing the prices received by coffee growers despite their noble objectives fair trade movements have had limited success in improving coffee growers welfare however this paper utilizes a novel framework of heterogeneous producers and relevant market information to provide insights on the market and welfare impacts of the fair trade regime when important idiosyncrasies of fair trade production and marketing are included in the analysis

economic models for the environmental kuznets curve a survey abstract the environmental kuznets curve ekc refers to an inverted u shaped relationship between some pollutant level and per capita income i e the environmental quality deteriorates at early stages of economic growth and subsequently improves at a later stage since the early 1990s a considerable number of empirical studies have been conducted on the ekc and although there is no conclusive proof it has been recognized that the ekc emerges as an empirical regularity however some recent studies cast doubt on the concept and methodology of empirical results and evidence of the existence of the ekc has been questioned in fact how economic growth affects the environmental quality i e the shape of the ekc is still controversial in order to identify the actual relationship between the environmental quality and economic growth it is essential to develop economic models from various points of view this paper overviews the current stage of theoretical models that explain such relationship

entry timing in a secondary market when to trade abstract in volatile long lead time and short selling season markets a secondary market enables buyers to update their inventory during the selling season the decision of when to update involves complicated trade offs between forecast accuracy expected lost sales and average purchasing cost we use a two stage inventory replenishment model to identify the optimal trading time across different scenarios across most scenarios the optimal trading time is around the midpoint of the season and is sensitive to the expected profit margin and demand forecast errors we discuss the impacts of the timing decision on upstream suppliers sales and channel performance in terms of sales revenue and supply demand mismatch costs specifically secondary market trading always reduces upstream suppliers sales no matter when trading occurs but trading at an optimal time can maximize a secondary market s profit gain over the no trade scenario through reducing supply demand mismatch

beyond the post industrial city valuing and planning for industry in london this paper examines the challenges that planners face if industry is to survive and thrive in a growing post industrial city it examines london where the difference between the value of land for residential and industrial use and the pressure to address the housing crisis is leading to the rapid loss of industrial land and premises the paper first explores the role of industry in a high value city such as london arguing that trends in manufacturing in advanced economies are increasing the benefit for firms of an urban location whilst at the same time cities continue to need industry if they are to be economically and socially resilient sustainable and vibrant the paper then explores current approaches to planning for industry in london identifying impacts of a policy framework that anticipates and plans for its decline finally it focuses on the question of how to plan for a productive and inclusive city we explore the arguments in favour of integrating industry into the urban fabric as wel

induced effects and technological innovation with strategic environmental policy abstract this paper investigates an environmental policy designed to reduce the emission of pollutants under uncertainty where the agents problem is formulated as an optimal stopping problem we first analyze the single agent s case according to pindyck pindyck r s 2002 optimal timing problems in environmental economics journal of economic dynamics and control 26 1677 1697 we then extend the model to the case in which there are two competing agents therefore we consider the external economic effects that are peculiar to an agent s environmental policy decision finally we consider the effect of technological innovation the results of the analysis suggest that if there are two competing agents they implement environmental policy simultaneously furthermore the threshold for implementing environmental policy is higher when there are two agents and how long these two agents take to implement environmental policy depends on the magnitude of the external economic effect furthermore when we consider the effect of technological innovation we show that the incentive to be the leader occurs if an additional condition is satisfied

optimal management of environmental externalities with time lags and uncertainty many environmental externalities occur with time lags that can range from a few days to several centuries in length and many of these externalities are also subject to uncertainty in this paper we examine the key features of an optimal policy to manage environmental externalities that are both lagged and stochastic we develop a two period two polluter model and obtain closed form solutions for optimal emissions levels under different combinations of damage functions and stochastic processes these solutions show that it is not obvious whether greater control should be exerted on polluters that generate externalities with longer lags or on polluters that generate externalities with shorter lags we find that the optimal ranking of polluters with respect to the length of the time lag associated with their externality will depend on a the discount rate b conditional expectations of future states of the polluted resource c persistence of the pollutant and d initial conditions

skill formation under incomplete information we consider an economic model of child development with multiple stages due to incomplete information parents are not able to tailor their investments to their child s type when the child is young we show that incomplete information weakens the importance of early investments in children when inter stage investments are easily substitutable but strengthens them when substitution is difficult the latter case is empirically relevant

threshold cointegration and nonlinear adjustment between co2 and income the environmental kuznets curve in spain 1857 2007 abstract article history received 9 march 2011received in revised form 24 february 2012accepted 2 march 2012available online 14 march 2012jel classi cation c2q4keywords environmental kuznets curveco 2 emissionsnonlinear relationshipthreshold cointegration inthispaper wemodelthe long run relationship between per capita co 2 and per capita income for the spanisheconomy over the period 1857 2007 according to the environmental kuznets curve eck the relationshipbetween the two variables has an inverted u shape however previous studies for the spanish economy onlyconsidered the existence of linear relationships such an approach may lack exibility to detect the trueshape of the relationship our empirical methodology accounts for a possible non linear relationship throughthe use of threshold cointegration techniques our results con rm the non linearity of the link between thetwo above mentioned variables pointing to the existence of an environmental kuznets curve for the spanishcase 2012 elsevier b v all rights reserved

taking one for the team is collective action more responsive to ecological change debate persists around the timing of risk reduction strategies for large scale ecological change for three reasons risks are difficult to predict they involve irreversibilities and they impact multiple jurisdictions the combination of these three factors creates a general class of filterable spatial dynamic externalities fsde in which one person s risk reduction investments reduce or filter undesirable events experienced by others and underestimates the option value placed on being able to respond to new information about the consequences of ecological change by focusing on the optimal intervention decision we illustrate how and when the opposing forces created by an fsde will lead to a divergence in private and collective risk reduction strategies we use bioinvasions as our motivating example the bioinvasion first hits one jurisdiction and that jurisdiction s risk reduction investment reduces the risk faced by all other jurisdiction we find that efforts to internalize the full benefits of risk reduction investments may have unintended consequences on the responsiveness of environmental policy there is a social welfare gain from asking the first jurisdiction to delay a risk reduction investment to internalize the option values of all at risk jurisdictions

bayesian learning growth and pollution abstract environmental problems such as climate change have great uncertainties current expectations are that uncertainties about climate change will be resolved quickly we examine this hypothesis theoretically and computationally we consider bayesian learning about the relationship between greenhouse gas levels and global mean temperature changes a key uncertainty learning is non trivial because of a stochastic shock to the realized temperature we find theoretically the expected learning time which is related to the variance of the shock and the emissions policy implying a tradeoff between the benefits of controlling emissions and information we imbed the learning model into an optimal growth model with a climate sector and solve the resulting dynamic program we find computationally that learning takes on average over 90 yr far longer than currently believed

energy transition under irreversibility a two sector approach in this paper we analyze the optimal energy transition of a two sector economy energy and final goods with exhaustible oil reserves a renewable source of energy and a pollution threat the latter corresponds to a pollution threshold above which a part of the capital is lost following flooding for instance we show that the optimal energy transition path may correspond to a corner regime in which the economy starts using both resources then crosses the pollution threshold and therefore loses a part of its capital at the end the sole adoption of the renewable energy is optimal only in the long run this result is in line with the asymptotic energy transition arguments stating that the transition to clean energy may happen only in the long run we also show that economy reduces the use of energy resource as long as the productivity of capital and energy services is high therefore public policies should promote investments in energy innovation that targets productive sector home appliances and buildings and helps to save both money and energy we extend the present model to allow for additional investment in energy saving technologies our main results show that this additional investment favours the energy transition in the sense that it increases the time within which the economy may experience the catastrophe and the welfare of the society for policy implications economic instruments such as taxes on dirty energy subsidies on clean energy or incentives for energy saving technologies need to be implemented in order to promote the energy transition this is particularly important for developing countries that mostly rely on polluting energy resources and are the most vulnerable to climate change but those economic instruments should be carefully designed in line with the asymptotic energy transition result

ekc type transitions and environmental policy under pollutant uncertainty and cost irreversibility abstract previous studies have suggested that some pollutant levels first increases due to the economic growth and then start decreasing the pattern being called the environmental kuznets curve ekc we examine ekc type transitions of pollutant levels not with respect to economic growth but more generally in time assuming that each policy maker optimally executes the two switching options of regulation and unregulation for pollution the switching dynamics of environmental policy can be described by an alternating renewal process it is shown that the double laplace transform of transition density of a pollutant level can be obtained by a novel application of renewal theory the expected level of overall pollutants is then calculated numerically and found to exhibit either a shaped or an n shaped pattern in time our results present a simple explanation for the ekc type transitions of pollutant levels within a real options framework

political measures for strategic environmental policy with external effects this paper investigates an environmental policy designed to reduce the emission of pollutants under uncertainty with the agent problem as an optimal stopping problem we first analyze the two cases in which there are one agent and two competing agents by following ohyama and tsujimura 2005 when we consider a model of strategic agents we need to analyze the external economic effect that is peculiar to an agent s environmental policy implementation then to improve and resolve these external effects we examine three alternative political measures comprising an environmental subsidy an environmental tax and an emission trading system the results of the analysis indicate that the environmental subsidy and environmental tax promote environmental policy however they do not create an incentive to be the leader on the other hand an emissions trading system not only promotes environmental policy but also creates an incentive for leadership

bad eggs learning by doing and the choice of technology we model long run economic development through technology adoption under scientific uncertainty about environmental effects there are four possible long run equilibria in a socially planned economy high growth adopt rapidly but abandon damaging technologies once revealed ddt cfcs cautious brake the introduction of new technologies to avoid mistakes genetically modified organisms no growth halt technological progress to preserve secondary knowledge and collapse adopt rapidly without ever abandoning damaging technologies in the base parameterization a short sighted social planner chooses the cautious strategy a far sighted planner chooses the high growth strategy unless damages are irreversible in which case the cautious strategy again dominates regulatory options in the market economy are investigated pollution taxes do not affect the firm s level of precaution if they can only be applied after the adopting firm has reaped the benefits however they do encourage the abandonment of damaging technologies liability rules do affect precaution but may lead to excessive caution or even a no growth trap

welfare implications of water scarcity higher prices of desalination in this paper we evaluate the welfare implications of shortages in renewable resources and investigate the effects of cross subsidization on these shortages we set up a stochastic dynamic programming model in which a benevolent supplier allocates the resource for multiple user groups subject to revenue and resource constraints the supplier also has access to an external source that can be utilized at a certain cost the solution to the model gives the optimal sectoral prices and demand for the external source we find out that saving budget surplus during periods of scarcity allows the planner to charge prices below average costs when the resource is abundant using data from turkey we simulate our dynamic model to quantify the implications of cross subsidization on water use across user groups