corrective taxes under oligopoly with inter firm externalities pollution externalities between polluters should be taken into account in the design of corrective taxes when the externalities are substantial and or the number of polluters is large the effluent levies on these firms do not necessarily result in a deadweight loss consequently the second best tax exceeds the marginal social cost of pollution a more general rule is that the tax rate should be greater than the marginal social cost of pollution if and only if a marginal increase in the tax rate results in opposite effects on the changes of equilibrium emission level and output

using genuine savings for climate policy evaluation with an integrated assessment model there has been a recent increase in efforts to develop broader models to assess the impact of climate change and climate change policies both in terms of impact measures beyond gdp and in terms of modelling complexity beyond dice rice models climate policies aimed at reducing co2 emissions can have impacts in multiple sectors of the economy and can change consumption levels over time we show how the sustainability indicator genuine savings can be endogenised within a general equilibrium model and used as a criterion for judging the impacts of such policies in terms of future well being differences in genuine savings rates between co2 emission reduction scenarios are discussed we show how a broader genuine savings based assessment of climate change can result in a re evaluation of the consequences and costs of inaction in terms of various climate change related policies and how multiple environmental and well being outcomes can be analysed within a unified modelling framework

emission taxes and optimal refunding schemes with endogenous market structure the purpose of this paper is to investigate optimal schemes for refunding the emission tax in a free entry market where the production process generates emissions we consider the regulation by a three part tax policy the government sets an emission tax a refunding scheme and an entry license tax in contrast to the case of the two part tax refund policy under no entry we show that even if it is impossible to obtain subsidies from outside the first best outcome is always attained further the government s budget constraint is binding under the optimal schemes our result implies that the tax refund system works effectively in a market with endogenous entry

environmental policy under oligopoly with endogenous market structure emission taxes under both fixed number oligopoly and endogenous market structure which are the most relevant market structures for policy issues are examined in the latter case and contrary to what is expected under imperfect competition the optimal tax could exceed marginal external damages which implies that externalities generated by oligopolistic firms could be optimally controlled by overinternalizing environmental damages under endogenous market structure a scheme consisting of a license fee and a second best underinternalizing emission tax can increase social welfare as compared to the use of a single emission tax exceeding marginal damages copyright 1995 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

energy efficiency in india assessing the policy regimes and their impacts in the recent years india has emerged as one of the fast growing economies of the world necessitating equally rapid increase in modern energy consumption with an imminent global climate change threat india will have difficulties in continuing with this rising energy use levels towards achieving high economic growth it will have to follow an energy efficient pathway in attaining this goal in this context an attempt is made to present india s achievements on the energy efficiency front by tracing the evolution of policies and their impacts the results indicate that india has made substantial progress in improving energy efficiency which is evident from the reductions achieved in energy intensities of gdp to the tune of 88 during 1980 2007 similar reductions have been observed both with respect to overall indian economy and the major sectors of the economy in terms of energy intensity of gdp india occupies a relatively high position of nine among the top 30 energy consuming countries of the world c 2009 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

long run welfare effect of energy conservation regulation we investigate the long run effect of energy conservation regulation which forces firms to raise energy saving investment above the cost minimizing level if pigovian tax is imposed additional regulation always harms social welfare under perfect competition while it can improve welfare under imperfect competition our result under imperfect competition holds regardless of whether strategies are strategic substitutes or complements in contrast to direct entry regulation

cost benefit of water resource use in biofuel feedstock production abstract an increase in the output of crops such as cassava sugarcane and oil palm is necessary for biofuels development to increase the crop yield a large amount of water is required which can have an impact on the net social welfare this study aims to assess the benefit and cost of water resource use in biofuel crops production to support the cost benefit analysis of biofuels development benefit of water is presented through the value of its marginal product estimated by using economic valuation methods the loss due to water consumption is assessed and monetized based on life cycle impact assessment to show how the approach is applied to the regional level thailand is considered as a case study the results show that the economic gains from using a cubic meter of water in cassava sugarcane and oil palm production are 1 6 6 9 1 0 5 0 and 0 8 2 9 thai baht respectively however using this amount of water can also bring about the external cost around 0 2 thai baht leading to the net benefits of using a cubic meter of water in cassava sugarcane and oil palm production between 1 5 and 6 7 0 9 4 8 and 0 6 2 6 thai baht respectively gain and loss of the water used in cassava sugarcane and oil palm cultivation are expressed in monetary units for the first time by this study besides this paper could be a guideline for future research towards an integration of life cycle impact assessment and the economic analysis tool cost benefit analysis

taxation within cournot oligopoly abstract when the production of output causes pollution we often consider taxation as a means to reduce it this paper examines various forms of taxation to control pollution within cournot oligopoly it shows that two commonly used forms can actually increase pollution in contrast both of these forms unambiguously reduce pollution within the competitive model the paper provides conditions in terms of demand and technology that make taxation effective in the cournot oligopoly case another implication of the analysis is that outside the price taking framework asymmetry of cost functions is particularly important and deserves careful attention when we examine the effect of taxation

border adjustments supplementing nationally determined carbon pricing as agreed on in the paris agreement each country determines its own contribution to combat climate change on a voluntary basis there is no mechanism to force a country to comply with its own nationally determined contributions this bottom up approach builds on unilateral actions and yields a kind of carbon pricing which is not necessarily identical across countries as a consequence these nationally determined climate policies have drawbacks in terms of carbon leakage and loss of competitiveness for firms producing in high carbon price countries to reduce these negative effects border adjustments bas may be appropriate subsequent to more stringent environmental regulation we model a three stage game involving carbon price competition in the first stage the introduction of bas in the second stage and oligopolistic competition between firms in the third stage strategic trade theory suggests that the qualitative results about the optimal ba policy may vary with the underlying type of competition namely bertrand and cournot competition however our results are similar for both types of competition we conclude that bas are suitable for supporting a more stringent environmental policy moreover we find that anticipation of the implementation of bas in the second stage yields higher average carbon prices in the first stage since high carbon price countries increase their carbon prices whereas the other countries partially offset

a comparison of land use change models challenges and future developments abstract land demand is driven by an increasing population and changing consumption patterns when land is required land use changes luc are triggered causing several environmental and social impacts particularly topical is the assessment of indirect luc effects several methodological approaches have been proposed for carrying out the assessment in this paper we classified luc models for life cycle assessment lca applications into three main categories economic causal descriptive and normative models six models were selected as representative of these three categories and compared according to fifteen criteria covering modeling framework impact categories assessed and model transparency the results show that progresses have been made in the economic general equilibrium models and the causal descriptive models compared causal descriptive models appear more suitable for long term assessments in the lca context while the compared economic models are more suitable for short medium term assessments of luc consequences as luc dynamics involve interdisciplinary knowledge a combination of economic biophysical and statistical data is however required to achieve a robust assessment of complex luc dynamics there is still considerable scope for improving current luc models in particular there is room for improving precision of data identification of marginal land and inclusion of a broader range of impact categories current models mainly focus on ghg emission related impacts and rarely on other environmental impacts such as nutrient leaching biodiversity impacts and water resource depletion socio economic analyses of luc patterns are currently excluded from lca analysis preventing a holistic assessment of land occupation impacts

land use and land use changes in life cycle assessment green modelling or black boxing the assessment of land uses and land use changes luluc impacts has become increasingly complex sophisticated modelling tools such as life cycle assessment lca are employed to capture both direct and indirect damages however quantitative assessments are often incomplete dominated by environmental aspects land uses are a multidisciplinary matter and environmental and sustainable development policies intertwine yet lcas mostly focus on environmental impacts excluding socioeconomic implications of land occupation this paper investigates the limitations of current luluc modelling practices in lca common lca assumptions harbor value choices reflect a post positivist epistemology that are often non transparent to e g policymakers they particularly influence the definition of the functional unit the reference system and system boundaries among other lca methodological choices consequently results informing land policies may be biased towards determined development strategies or hide indirect effects and socioeconomic damages caused by large scale land acquisitions such as violation of tenure rights speculation and displacement quantitative assessments of luluc impacts are certainly useful but should holistically encompass both direct and indirect impacts concerning the environmental and the social science dimension of luluc an epistemological shift towards a dialectic approach would facilitate the integration of multiple tools and methods and a critical interpretation of results

environmental tax in a green market we examine the impact of an emission tax in a green market characterized by consumers environmental awareness and competition between firms for both environmental quality and product prices the unique aspect of this model comes from the assumption that the cost for an increase in quality is fixed we show that the emission tax improves welfare thanks to a decline in pollution and despite an accentuation of product differentiation the higher the marginal environmental damage is the higher the optimal tax will be the optimal tax however becomes lower than the marginal damage when the market is not too large finally when marginal environmental damage is not too low the optimal tax leads to a green product monopoly

levelized cost of energy from private and social perspectives the case of improved alkaline water electrolysis abstract the concept of the levelized cost of energy or respectively hydrogen lch is frequently chosen for techno economic analyses of energy technologies however the results of the lch very much depend on the assessment perspective which may be either private or synonymously business or social the paper identifies three points as being basically responsible for differences 1 tax deductibility of cost components 2 external environmental costs and 3 discounting the objectives of the paper are to present the levelized cost of hydrogen for improved alkaline water electrolysis awe and to highlight the different results from private and social perspectives accordingly the methodology comprises the different lch calculation schemes an energy scenario focusing on electricity a life cycle assessment for environmental impacts of awe technology and the monetary valuation of these impacts as a case study we chose the production of hydrogen from advanced alkaline water electrolysis at three different sites in europe germany austria and spain the paper shows that the private and social lch differ strongly inclusion of all cost components and comparatively low discount rates provoke highest lch from social perspective the main differences in the case study presented here are due to full accounting for environmental costs with the global warming potential resulting from electricity generation as the main environmental cost source and due to electricity price projections finally the paper also discusses the sensitivity of lchs with respect to parameters such as plant lifetime monetary values of co2 and tax rates

economic valuation of biodiversity sense or nonsense this paper critically evaluates the notion and application of economic monetary valuation of biological diversity or biodiversity for this purpose four levels of diversity are considered genes species ecosystems and functions different perspectives on biodiversity value can be characterized through a number of factors instrumental vs intrinsic values local vs global diversity life diversity vs biological resources etc a classification of biodiversity values is offered based on a system of logical relationships among biodiversity ecosystems species and human welfare suggestions are made about which economic valuation methods can address which type of biodiversity value the resulting framework is the starting point for a survey and evaluation of empirical studies at each of the four levels of diversity the contingent valuation method is by far the most used method an important reason is that the other valuation methods are unable to identify and measure passive or nonuse values of biodiversity at first sight the resulting monetary value estimates seem to give unequivocal support to the belief that biodiversity has a significant positive social value nevertheless most studies lack a uniform clear perspective on biodiversity as a distinct concept from biological resources in fact the empirical literature fails to apply economic valuation to the entire range of biodiversity benefits therefore available economic valuation estimates should generally be regarded as providing a very incomplete perspective on and at best lower bounds to the unknown value of biodiversity changes 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

free entry and social inefficiency our goal is to provide a simple yet general exposition of the conditions under which the number of entrants in a free entry equilibrium is excessive insufficient or optimal our analysis compares the number of firms that enter a market when there is free entry with the number that would be desired by a social planner who is unable to control the behavior of firms once they are in the market that is we consider the second best problem of choosing the welfare maximizing number of firms while we take as given their noncompetitive behavior after entry we demonstrate that the crucial conditions for establishing the presence of an entry bias can be stated quite simply in terms of the outcome of the postentry game played by entrants in contrast to previous work we do not need to model this postentry game explicitly

energy saving instrument escerts in india abstract there exists a large potential in india as far as achievement of energy efficiency is concerned and it is up to the indian policy makers regulators and obligated entities to ensure that india realizes this potential to the fullest a deep commitment towards this effect is not only beneficial for the country as a whole through reduction in its carbon foot print and reduced dependence on fuel imports but will also increase the competitive edge of our industries vis a vis other countries one of the instruments for improving the overall energy efficiency that has emerged in recent times is energy saving certificates escerts the staying power of european examples in italy uk and france has demonstrated that escerts can help initiate more efficiency projects this paper discusses escerts as an instrument for reducing the energy intensity of the high energy intensive indian industries under the light of the energy conservation act 2001 and perform achieve and trade scheme under nmeee and suggests a way forward for the escerts market in india

green net value added as a sustainability metric based on life cycle assessment an application to bounty paper towel abstract sustainability measurement in economics includes assessment of environmental and economic effects in an integrated manner in this study system level economic data are integrated with environmental impacts determined from a life cycle assessment lca of a common product we adopt a costing methodology that captures conventional costs but additionally incorporates externality costs to present a convenient easily interpretable metric green net value added gnva is a type of full cost accounting that incorporates total revenue the cost of production depreciation and environmental externalities we present externality costs disaggregated by upstream sectors full cost of production and gnva to evaluate the relative sustainability of bounty paper towels manufactured at two production facilities we found that the longer running more established line had a higher gnva the predominant components contributing to externality costs come from the stationary sources in the supply chain electricity generation 27 35 refineries 20 21 pulp and paper making 15 23 health related externalities from particulate matter pm2 5 and carbon dioxide equivalent co2e emissions are to a great extent driven by electricity usage and emissions by the facilities followed by pulp processing and transport supply chains for other facility purchases product distribution and end of life management contribute the least to the environmental health related costs

optimal pollution taxation in a cournot duopoly it is well known that the optimal pollution tax in a competitive industry is equal to the marginal damage inflicted by the pollution it has also been shown that the optimal pollution tax on a monopoly is less than the marginal damage in this paper i derive the optimal pollution tax for a cournot duopoly if firms have different production costs the optimal tax rate may exceed the marginal damage this is so because the tax may be an effective instrument for allocating production from the less to the more efficient firm it is also shown that if one firm has a positive most preferred pollution tax the sum of consumer and producer surpluses will be declining in the tax at this level

sectoral changing patterns of china s green gdp considering climate change an investigation based on the economic input output life cycle assessment model abstract the rapid growth of energy intensive and high emission industries has underpinned china s economic boom over the past few decades since her economic development entered the new normal phase in 2013 china has faced the challenge of mitigating greenhouse gas ghg emissions while achieving medium high economic growth transforming the economic development pattern and restructuring the economy is a principal solution and one important prerequisite is discerning great sectoral disparities of ghg emissions and corresponding environmental costs because the diversity of characteristics among different sectors causes the pollutants that are discharged to vary hence this paper aims to assess the environmental costs of china s total and sectoral ghg emissions based on the system of environmental and economic accounts and using the economic input output life cycle assessment model this study calculates the green gdp and green output value of 27 sectors to reflect the environmental costs of ghg emissions in china during 1991 2016 the findings are as follows 1 while china s direct ghg emissions increased from 3 040 60 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent mtco2eq to 10 641 10 mtco2eq during 1991 2014 declining trends were observed in the total and 16 sectors direct ghg emissions in the subsequent two years 2 although the ratios of direct ghg emissions to total ghg emissions in most sectors decreased total ghg emissions in eight sectors rose first and then fell and in 15 sectors continued to rise 3 china s green gdp grew from 2 003 88 billion chinese yuan to 26 245 25 billion chinese yuan during 1991 2016 and the difference between china s gdp and green gdp decreased from 2 73 to 1 02 and 4 differences between the output value and green output value decreased in over 20 sectors finally some policy implications are given from the perspective of some key sectors of the manufacturing industry agricultural sector and transport storage and post sector

monetary valuation in life cycle assessment a review abstract monetary valuation is the practice of converting measures of social and biophysical impacts into monetary units and is used to determine the economic value of non market goods i e goods for which no market exists it is applied in cost benefit analysis to enable the cross comparison between different impacts and or with other economic costs and benefits for this reason monetary valuation has a great potential to be applied also in life cycle assessment lca especially in the weighting phase however several challenges limit its diffusion in the field which resulted in only a few applications so far the authors have performed a review of different monetary valuation methods for use in lca firstly monetary valuation approaches methods and lca applications were identified secondly key features and the strengths and weaknesses of each monetary valuation method were determined finally monetary valuation methods and lca applications were evaluated according to a comprehensive set of criteria ranging from scientific foundation to uncertainty and complexity it was found that observed and revealed preference methods and the abatement cost method have limited applicability in lca whereas the choice experiment method and the budget constraint method are the best options for monetary valuation in lca

the political economy of refunded emissions payment programs abstract we study the effects on the equilibrium tax of refunding firms pollution tax payments can lobbying yield stricter environmental policy do imperfect property rights affect policy clean firms may favor higher pollution levies but insecure property rights reduce this incentive

emission taxes and optimal refunding schemes abstract we examine how refunding emission taxes to firms dependent on market shares should be designed while refunding is harmful under perfect competition a first best self financing tax tax refunding scheme exists if the marginal damage from pollution exceeds the marginal distortion in an imperfectly competitive output market with symmetric firms under pre investment in cleaner technology with short term abatement opportunities a first best refunding scheme exists if pollution refunding can be made dependent on both market and investment shares

using the budget constraint to monetarise impact assessment results abstract recent developments in life cycle impact assessment lcia provide a basis for reducing the uncertainty in monetarisation of environmental impacts the lcia method ecoindicator99 provides impact pathways ending in a physical score for each of the three safeguard subjects humans ecosystems and resources we redefine these damage categories so that they can be measured in terms of quality adjusted life years qalys for impacts on human well being biodiversity adjusted hectare years bahys for impacts on ecosystems and monetary units for impacts on resource productivity the monetary value of a qaly can be derived from the budget constraint i e the fact that the average annual income is the maximum that an average person can pay for an additional life year since a qaly by definition is a life year lived at full well being the budget constraint can be determined as the potential annual economic production per capita at full well being we determine this to be 74 000 eur with an uncertainty estimate of 62 000 to 84 000 eur this corresponds well to the 74 627 eur willingness to pay estimate of the externe project differences to other estimates can be explained by inherent biases in the valuation approaches used to derive these estimates the value of ecosystems can be expressed in monetary terms or in terms of qalys as the share of our well being that we are willing to sacrifice to protect the ecosystems while this trade off should preferably be done by choice modelling only one such study was found at the level of abstraction that allows us to relate bahys to qalys or monetary units stressing the necessity for such studies we resort to suggest a temporary proxy value of 1400 eur bahy or 52 bahy qaly with an uncertainty range of 350 to 3500 eur bahy the practical consequences of the above described monetarisation values has been investigated by combining them with the midpoint impact categories of two recent lcia methods thus providing a new lcia method with the option of expressing results in both midpoints and an optional choice between qaly and monetary units as endpoint from our application of the new method to different case studies it is noteworthy that resource impacts obtain less emphasis than in previous lcia methods while impacts on ecosystems obtain more importance this shows the significance of being able to express impacts on resources and ecosystems in the same units as impacts on human well being

environmental income and rural livelihoods a global comparative analysis this paper presents results from a comparative analysis of environmental income from approximately 8000 households in 24 developing countries collected by research partners in cifor s poverty environment network pen environmental income accounts for 28 of total household income 77 of which comes from natural forests environmental income shares are higher for low income households but differences across income quintiles are less pronounced than previously thought the poor rely more heavily on subsistence products such as wood fuels and wild foods and on products harvested from natural areas other than forests in absolute terms environmental income is approximately five times higher in the highest income quintile compared to the two lowest quintiles

balancing priorities aligning interests developing mitigation capacity in china and india debates about how to respond to climate change have largely focused on the difficulties in agreeing on national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by assuming that the main obstacle to

refunded emission payments theory distribution of costs and swedish experience of nox abatement in this paper we discuss the effect of refunding environmental charges taxes are often resisted by polluters because they imply both abatement and tax costs when charges are refunded the incentives for abatement are essentially the same as for a tax as long as there are many producers the incidence and distribution of costs is however different lower net tax payments reduce resistance from the polluters and make refunded emissions payments politically easier to implement at a sufficiently high charge level to have significant abatement effects we describe and examine the refunded emissions payment scheme as a policy instrument and compare it with taxes and permits with regard to allocative properties distribution of costs property rights and consequently the politics of implementation as an empirical example the swedish charge on nitrogen oxides is analyzed

china and india in the age of globalization sectoral variation in postliberalization reregulation in recent years china and india have extensively liberalized their economies they have departed from the east asian developmental states which have restricted foreign direct investment fdi to protect domestic industry and the liberal fdi strategy of latin america during a similar stage of development as they have eschewed dependent development instead they have taken a liberalization two step which follows liberalization with reregulation that varies across industrial sectors country and sectoral case studies demonstrate the perceived strategic value of a sector sectoral characteristics and the organization of state institutions shape the ways in which reregulation varies insulated from political pressures the chinese state shifts from universal controls on the aggregate level to selective controls at the sectoral level and adopts a bifurcated strategy in its reregulation in india the government liberalizes fdi according to state goals but reregulates as a function of sectoral interests

economic valuation of biodiversity a comparative study abstract in recent years an intensive debate on the economic valuation of biodiversity has entered the environmental economics literature the present paper seeks to offer first a critical review of key concepts that are essential for a proper understanding of such evaluation issues particular attention is given here to various monetary valuation approaches and to comparative i e meta analytical methods from the perspective of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity several illustrative examples are presented in order to highlight the usefulness of the various approaches discussed next an attempt is made to infer general findings and lessons from past applied research by means of meta analysis in this context a multi dimensional technique originating from the field of artificial intelligence is deployed it allows us to identify the most important variables responsible for changes in economic estimates of biodiversity

entry barriers and economic welfare the relationship between economic welfare and the number of firms in a quasi cournot market is examined in the first place we presuppose the existence of a strong first best government that can enforce the marginal cost principle to the firms along with regulating the number of firms it is shown that there exist excessive number of firms at the free entry quasicournot equilibrium vis a vis the first best welfare maximizing number of firms the thrust of this result essentially survives even if we replace a utopian first best government by a secondbest government that leaves the firms to pursue their respective profit maximization freely and engages solely in regulating the number of firms it can be shown that the excess entry prevails again in this second best world recent studies in the theoretical industrial organization literature have uncovered several instances which cast serious doubt on the reasonableness of a widespread belief that increasing competition will increase welfare stiglitz 1981 p 184 it has been shown that there are cases which are not altogether unreasonable where social welfare will be increased by strengthening rather than weakening the protection of incumbent firms from the threat of potential entry this is in sharp contrast with the traditional belief 2 what is not known however is how robust these pathologies in fact are we intend to settle this problem by proving two excess entry theorems in the quasi cournot parametric conjectural variations homogeneous oligopoly model seade 1980a b in the first place we presuppose the existence of a strong first best government that could costlessly enforce the marginal cost pricing principle by firms in an oligopolistic market and regulate entry in pursuit of first best social welfare optimization it is shown that the number of firms at the free entry equilibrium exceeds the first best welfare optimizing number of firms the result has already been noted by von weizsacker 1980a b and others in terms of numerical examples our theorem 1 asserts that this phenomenon always holds true for the family of quasi cournot models at hand an implication of this result is that the existence of entry barriers which protect incumbent firms from potential competitors is not necessarily welfare decreasing in sharp contrast with the traditional belief a problem remains with theorem 1 however in that an omnipotent first best government does not exist in reality and the first best ideal is unrealizable in the actual economy therefore even if the intervention by a first best government with a view to restricting the number of firms within an industry may be welfare improving it does

green transition industrial policy and economic development this paper outlines possibilities for a green industrial policy with particular emphasis on developing countries the question of green industrial policy is investigated by examining experiences and barriers to phasing in green technologies focusing on solar pv and energy efficiency as areas for a green industrial policy the paper outlines a green transition approach to sustain a shift to cleaner and more energy efficient production processes through clever policy mixes involving elements of push and pull rent management and policy adaptation by competent authorities are also part of the model the paper offers concrete guidance to the question of what governments in developing countries can usefully and realistically do to phase in green technologies given the priorities for development imperfect institutions for policy making and implementation weakly developed innovation systems and problems of lock in

choosing a monetary value of greenhouse gases in assessment tools a comprehensive review there is a societal need for using monetary estimates of social impacts of co2 and other greenhouse gases in different assessment tools such as cost benefit analysis and life cycle assessment a number of estimates are available in the literature since these differ by several orders of magnitude there is ambiguity and confusion about which to use this review aims to give some guidance on this issue the variation in carbon value estimates depends on several uncertain aspects which will remain uncertain including climate sensitivity assumptions about future emissions and decision makers ethical standpoints hence there is no single correct monetary value for co2 it will depend on the ethical standpoint of the user due to this estimates of social costs of co2 emissions cannot be used for calculating an optimal emission level although they can inform such assessments it is suggested that marginal abatement cost values are used for emissions capped by binding targets in short term assessments and that social cost of carbon values should be used for all other emissions benchmark principles for choosing a monetary carbon value are suggested along with associated estimates depending on the choices made with regard to ethical standpoints and assumptions about future emissions and climate sensitivity estimates can be significantly higher than the ones typically used in assessment tools today the estimates need continuous updating and there is need for better understanding and communication around the limitations and uncertainties involved

the state of the art of environmental valuation with discrete choice experiments abstract this paper provides with a review of the state of the art of environmental valuation with discrete choice experiments dces the growing body of literature on this field serves to emphasize the increasing role that dces are playing in environmental decision making in the last decade the paper attempts to cover the full process of undertaking a choice experiment including survey and experimental design econometric analysis of choice data and welfare analysis the research on this field is found to be intense although many challenges are put forward e g choice task complexity and cognitive effort experimental design preference and scale heterogeneity endogeneity or model uncertainty reviewing the state of the art of dces serves to draw attention to the main challenges that this methodological approach will need to overcome in the coming years and to identify the frontiers in discrete choice analysis

when does environmental regulation facilitate entry deterring practices abstract this paper evaluates the welfare benefits of introducing environmental regulation in a market that is subject to the threat of entry we consider complete and incomplete information settings where potential entrants use the regulator s tax policy and the incumbent s output decisions in order to infer the incumbent s cost structure when the regulator is absent we show that firms entry deterring practices increase pollution relative to complete information hence under certain conditions environmental regulation becomes more beneficial in incomplete than in complete information contexts our results therefore identify under which cases an under or over estimation of the welfare benefits of environmental regulation arises from ignoring the information setting in which firms interact we also examine how this estimation error increases as firms become more symmetric in their production costs

taxing incumbent monopoly to foster entry abstract this paper investigates whether it is welfare enhancing to tax the output of a monopoly in order to foster cost inefficient entry this question is of particular concern in the energy markets dominated by cartel like affiliations opec and oil russia s gas exports to europe and the interest and practice to stimulate the development of alternative fuels making the realistic assumption that none of the players can commit to future policies subsidies are not a viable strategy for the government a tax cannot be first best but can be second best if the government cannot force the incumbent monopoly to sell its output at no profit and if the incumbent s profit is discounted however stimulating supply by improving the conditions for entry is not the prime concern of taxation after all it lowers aggregate supplies and may even lower the entrant s supply but to accrue parts of the monopoly rent

international emission permit markets with refunding we propose a blueprint for an international emission permit market such as the eu trading scheme each country decides on the amount of permits it wants to offer a fraction of these permits is grandfathered the remainder is auctioned revenues from the auction are collected in a global fund and reimbursed to member countries in fixed proportions we show that international permit markets with refunding lead to outcomes in which all countries tighten the issuance of permits and are better off compared to standard international permit markets if the share of grandfathered permits is sufficiently small we obtain approximately socially optimal emission reductions

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

feed in subsidies taxation and inefficient entry we study energy markets with dirty production and lumpy entry costs of clean production renewables for intermediate entry costs markets yield inefficient production and inefficient entry a mix of three popular regulatory instruments polluter taxation feed in subsidies for renewables and consumption taxation cannot correct these market failures for larger entry costs the instruments are imperfect because they affect marginal incentives whereas entry is a lumpy fixed cost problem whenever the first best is implementable feed in subsidies and consumption taxes are redundant the second best requires feed in subsidies or consumption taxes in addition to a pollution tax and overshoots first best levels given production levels the instruments do not affect the regulator s budget

the economics of attribute based regulation theory and evidence from fuel economy standards in many countries fuel economy standards mandate that vehicles meet a certain fuel economy but heavier or larger vehicles are allowed to meet a lower standard this has the perverse implication of allowing automakers to meet standards either by improving fuel economy or by increasing weight which lowers fuel economy and increases externalities related to accidents this is but one example of an attribute based regulation in which the regulation imposed on a product depends on both the externality it creates and some other attribute attribute basing potentially motivates rms and individuals to strategically alter the attribute thereby endogenously altering the stringency of the regulation this paper develops a theory of attribute basing to demonstrate the costs and benets of its use the paper then empirically examines the consequences of attribute based fuel economy standards in japan where fuel economy standards are a notched attribute based function of vehicle weight we use cross sectional and panel techniques to demonstrate that attribute based regulation has signicantly altered the distribution of vehicle weight in japan where 10 of vehicles bunch at weight notches for cars whose weight is altered in response to the policy we estimate that the alteration generates a welfare loss from the exacerbation of weight related externalities of 1 500 per unit sold which translates into a 700 million annual loss across the japanese auto market

a review of edward luce s in spite of the gods the strange rise of modern india india poses a development puzzle on a grand scale sixty years of electoral democ racy thirty years of rapid growth and a number of world class institutions such as the institutes of technology or election commission have led to talk of india as a superpower in a league with the united states and china yet on many fronts india s indicators of human well being e g malnutrition immunization are at or below those of much poorer sub saharan african countries measures of the administrative capacity of the state on basics like attendance performance and corruption reveal a potentially flailing state whose brilliantly formulated policies are disconnected from realities on the ground this review essay of ed luce s in spite of the gods attempts to articulate the puzzle that is modern india and pose questions about the development trajectory of a country whose fortunes will shape our century

an optimal ad valorem tax subsidy with an output based refunded emission payment for permits auction in an oligopoly market in this paper we explores a hybrid mechanism of output based refunded emission payment and an ad valorem tax subsidy to remove the distortions emerging in the permit auction market and the product market we find that first best outcomes can be achieved under such a hybrid mechanism a clearing price equal to a pigouvian tax will endogenously result in the permit auction market moreover we extend the analysis to take into consideration the investment in abatement technology