the greenhouse effect damages costs and abatement the buildup of so called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere co2 in particular appears to be having an adverse impact on the global climate this paper briefly reviews current expectations with regard to physical and biological effects their potential costs to society and likely costs of abatement for a worst case scenario it is impossible to assess in economic terms the full range of possible non linear synergistic effects in the most favorable although not necessarily likely case of slow paced climate change however it seems likely that the impacts are within the affordable range at least in the industrialized countries of the world in the third world the notion of affordability is of doubtful relevance making the problem of quantitative evaluation almost impossible we tentatively assess the lower limit of quantifiable climate induced damages at 30 to 35 per ton of co2 equivalent worldwide with the major damages being concentrated in regions most adversely affected by sea level rise the non quantifiable environmental damages are also significant and should by no means be disregarded the costs and benefits of 1 reducing cfc use and 2 reducing fossil fuel consumption as a means of abatement are considered in some detail this strategy has remarkably high indirect benefits in terms of reduced air pollution damage and even direct cost savings to consumers the indirect benefits of reduced air pollution and its associated health and environmental effects from fossil fuel combustion in the industrialized countries range from 20 to 60 per ton of co2 eliminated in addition there is good evidence that modest e g 25 reductions in co2 emissions may be achievable by the u s and by implication for other countries by a combination of increased energy efficiency and restructuring that would permit simultaneous direct economic benefits savings to energy consumers of the order of 50 per ton of co2 saved a higher level of overall emissions reduction possibly approaching 50 could probably be achieved at little or not net cost by taking advantage of these savings we suggest the use of taxes on fossil fuel extraction or a carbon tax as a reasonable way of inducing the structural changes that would be required to achieve significant reduction in energy use and co2 emissions to minimize the economic burden and create a political constituency in support of the approach we suggest the substitution of resource based taxes in general for other types of taxes on labor income real estate or trade that are now the main sources of government revenue while it is conceded that it would be difficult to calculate the optimal tax on extractive resources we do not think this is a necessary prerequisite to policy making in fact we note that the existing tax system has never been optimized according to theoretical principles and is far from optimal by any reasonable criteria

decomposition analysis of co2 emission intensity between oil producing and non oil producing sub saharan african countries abstract the need to decompose co2 emission intensity is predicated upon the need for effective climate change mitigation and adaptation policies such analysis enables key variables that instigate co2 emission intensity to be identified while at the same time providing opportunities to verify the mitigation and adaptation capacities of countries however most co2 decomposition analysis has been conducted for the developed economies and little attention has been paid to sub saharan africa the need for such an analysis for ssa is overwhelming for several reasons firstly the region is amongst the most vulnerable to climate change secondly there are disparities in the amount and composition of energy consumption and the levels of economic growth and development in the region thus a decomposition analysis of co2 emission intensity for ssa affords the opportunity to identify key influencing variables and to see how they compare among countries in the region also attempts have been made to distinguish between oil and non oil producing ssa countries to this effect a comparative static analysis of co2 emission intensity for oil producing and non oil producing ssa countries for the periods 1971 1998 has been undertaken using the refined laspeyres decomposition model our analysis confirms the findings for other regions that co2 emission intensity is attributable to energy consumption intensity co2 emission coefficient of energy types and economic structure particularly co2 emission coefficient of energy use was found to exercise the most influence on co2 emission intensity for both oil and non oil producing sub saharan african countries in the first sub interval period of our investigation from 1971 1981 in the second subinterval of 1981 1991 energy intensity and structural effect were the two major influencing factors on emission intensity for the two groups of countries however energy intensity effect had the most pronounced impact on co2 emission intensity in non oil producing sub saharan african countries while the structural effect explained most of the increase in co2 emission intensity among the oil producing countries finally for the period 1991 1998 structural effect accounted for much of the decrease in intensity among non oil producers while co2 emission coefficient of energy use was the major force driving the decrease among oil producing countries the dynamic changes in the co2 emission intensity and energy intensity effects for the two groups of countries suggest that fuel switching had been predominantly towards more carbon intensive production in oil producing countries and less carbon intensive production in non oil producing ssa countries in addition to the decomposition analysis the article discusses policy implications of the results we hope that the information and analyses provided here would help inform national energy and climate policy makers in ssa of the relative weaknesses and possible areas of strategic emphasis in their planning processes for mitigating the effects of climate change

the limits of pension privatization lessons from argentine experience summary the paper studies the operation of the mixed pension system established in argentina in 1994 it points to the limitations that the new system has encountered to achieve some of the most important objectives of pension policy and pension reform the analysis looks at the mechanisms affecting pension system performance with particular attention to the way in which the new pension rules have interacted with the local macroeconomic social and political context the empirical analysis of this experience is oriented to provide lessons for argentina s future reforms as well as for many latin american countries with similar pension arrangements

the damage costs of climate change a note on tangibles and intangibles applied to dice economic cost benefit analysis of the costs of greenhouse gas emission abatement and climate change often points towards limited abatement this note elucidates one reason why this result is obtained the way in which the intangible damages are treated and the utility function is specified on the basis of the dice model it is shown that by putting the intangible damages directly into the utility function and by assuming them to grow with per capita income the optimal reduction increases and in the second case more than triples compared to nordhaus s original results

social security privatization a structure for analysis this paper identifies the key economic issues that must be addressed in the debate over a privatized social security system we examine a two pillar plan the first pillar would consist of a demogrant a small indexed pension of the same dollar amount for all retirees who had contributed to the system over a full lifetime of work the second pillar would consist of a fully funded individual defined contribution account financed by payroll taxes held in financial institutions and directed by participants we explore how such a system would affect the risks households face how it would alter the distribution of income and how it might influence household behavior including incentives to work and save and portfolio choices we also examine macroeconomic issues how the transition to a private plan would occur and what the likely effects would be on national saving we conclude that a two pillar system offers several positive features namely a reduction in political risk an increase in household portfolio choice and improved work incentives disadvantages include less redistributiveness and national risk sharing and increased administrative costs this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

co2 emission and economic growth in algeria abstract algeria is one of the most important co 2 emitters among developing countries and the third among african countries it pledged to curb carbon emissions by at least 7 by 2030 however complying with this target may be a difficult task without compromising economic growth the aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between co 2 emissions and economic growth in algeria taking into account energy use electricity consumption exports and imports the validity of the ekc hypothesis throughout the period from 1970 to 2010 is tested by using the autoregressive distributed lag model extended to introduce the break points results confirm the ekc for algeria nevertheless the turning point is reached for a very high gdp per capita value indicating that economic growth in algeria will continue to increase emissions results also indicate that an increase in energy use and electricity consumption increase co 2 emissions and that exports and imports affect them negatively and positively respectively therefore it is necessary to promote renewable energies and energy efficiency policies regulatory reforms are needed to facilitate foreign investments with which to carry out these policies likewise it may be appropriate to decrease subsides in energy prices to encourage energy efficiency

index decomposition analysis applied to co2 emission studies index decomposition analysis ida was first extended from energy consumption to energy related co2 emission studies in 1991 since then many studies have been reported covering various countries and emission sectors however unlike the case of energy consumption studies a comprehensive literature survey that focuses specifically on emission studies has so far not been reported in this paper we attempt to fill this gap by reviewing 80 papers appearing in peer reviewed journals from 1991 to 2012 in this application area the first part of this paper deals with the developments with regard to the ida approaches used by researchers and the scope and focus of their studies in the second part the empirical results reported in the surveyed studies are analyzed consolidated and presented by emission sector the objective is to reveal the relative contributions of key effects on changes in the aggregate carbon intensity and this is done by emission sector and by country the findings of both parts are useful in understanding the development of ida in the application area of emission study as well as the key drivers of aggregate carbon intensities in the past and their possible future developments

policy analysis of the greenhouse effect an application of the page model abstract in this paper we introduce a comprehensive model for policy analysis of the greenhouse effect page we apply the page model to assess the merits of policies to prevent global warming by controlling the emissions of greenhouse gases and policies to adapt to any global warming that occurs the results confirm that it is difficult to overcome the problem of global warming by taking preventive action alone the argument for introducing an aggressive adaptive policy is very strong we calculate the valuation that would have to be placed upon non economic environmental and social impacts for a combined strategy of preventive and adaptive policies to be considered a worthwhile option both for individual regions and for the world as a whole we also show that uncertainties in all four groups of inputs to the model scientific costs of control costs of adaptation and valuation of impacts have a great influence on the costs and impacts of the combined strategy

decomposition of aggregate carbon intensity for the manufacturing sector comparison of declining trends from 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1991 abstract as with total energy consumption or aggregate energy intensity changes in aggregate carbon intensity may also be decomposed or attributed to changes in various components including fuel mix for electricity generation final energy mix sub sectoral economic activity and sub sectoral energy intensities the adaptive weighted divisia rolling base year index specification is applied to total carbon emissions from the manufacturing sector of 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1991 declines in aggregate carbon intensity for these countries range from 70 and may be primarily attributed to decreases in energy intensity i e increases in the average factor productivity of energy however these declines in aggregate carbon intensity appear to have a complex linkage to increases in energy prices as well as changes in other determinants of gross industrial output

decomposition analysis of co2 emissions from electricity generation in china abstract electricity generation in china mainly depends on coal and its products which has led to the increase in co2 emissions this paper intends to analyze the current status of co2 emissions from electricity generation in china during the period 1991 2009 and apply the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi technique to find the nature of the factors influencing the changes in co2 emissions the main results as follows 1 co2 emission from electricity generation has increased from 530 96 mt in 1991 to 2393 02 mt in 2009 following an annual growth rate of 8 72 coal products is the main fuel type for thermal power generation which accounts for more than 90 co2 emissions from electricity generation 2 this paper also presents co2 emissions factor of electricity consumption which help calculate co2 emission from final electricity consumption 3 in china the economic activity effect is the most important contributor to increase co2 emissions from electricity generation but the electricity generation efficiency effect plays the dominant role in decreasing co2 emissions

embodied energy and intensity in china s normal and processing exports and their driving forces 2005 2015 abstract international trade has important impacts on a country s energy consumption this paper first uses the time series 2005 2015 extended input output database to study china s embodied energy and intensity in both normal and processing exports structural decomposition analysis sda is then applied to analyze the driving forces behind the embodiment changes the empirical results show that china s energy embodied in both normal and processing exports first increased in 2005 2008 dropped in 2009 due to the global financial crisis and then rose again after 2009 and finally dropped in 2014 2015 the embodied energy in trade as a percentage of total energy consumption in china was relatively stable before and after the global financial crisis at around 28 over the 2005 2008 period and 22 over the 2009 2015 period the contribution of the aggregate embodied intensity aei of exports to china s aggregate energy intensity dropped from 30 in 2005 to 21 in 2015 among china s trading partners the united states japan and korea together accounted for around half of china s embodied energy and aei in exports in 2005 but their shares dropped to only one third in 2015 energy efficiency improvement played the key role in reducing the embodied energy and intensity in china s exports similar analysis can be applied to other regions and indicators

learning from social security reforms two different cases chile and argentina abstract this paper compares two of the most important structural reforms of social security in latin america the chilean private fully funded system and the public private argentinean integrated pay as you go fully funded program chile was the first country in the world to completely privatize the old public pension system this landmark reform has had a strong influence on other pension reforms not only in latin america but also in other developing and developed countries the argentinian model has important differences in comparison with the chilean model 1 a more inter and intragenerational solidarity 2 b relatively lower transition costs to be covered by the state 3 c higher coverage of self employed workers 4 d a more comprehensive regulatory framework and 5 e less gender inequality given these elements the argentinian pension model offers new insights to countries currently reforming their pension systems the paper concludes addressing important questions regarding the weaknesses of the new argentinian model

global warming discounting is not the issue but substitutability is the cost benefit study of nordhaus 1994 is representative for the neoclassical approach towards global warming nordhaus found that no substantial emission cuts are warranted most of his critics have concentrated on the issue of discounting and demanded that a lower discount rate should be applied these criticisms first miss the point and second lead to ethically dubious inconsistent conclusions and inefficient policy choices they miss the point because the real problem of nordhaus s methodology is his implicit underlying assumption of perfect substitutability between natural and other forms of capital given the validity of this assumption lowering the rate of discount is inconsistent with current savings behaviour is ethically dubious because future generations will be much richer than the current one anyway and is inefficient because scarce financial resources are channelled into emissions abatement that exhibits rates of return far inferior to alternative public investments any call for aggressive emission abatement must therefore directly attack the perfect substitutability assumption of neoclassical economics the real disagreement is about whether consumption growth can compensate for environmental degradation caused by global warming discounting is not the issue but substitutability is

demand contributors and driving factors of singapore s aggregate carbon intensities abstract singapore is an island city state it lacks conventional energy resources and is alternative energy disadvantaged yet its aggregate carbon intensity given by the ratio of carbon emissions to gdp dropped by 30 from 2005 to 2014 currently it has a relatively low carbon intensity using i o analysis we study singapore s aggregate carbon intensity and the factors contributing to its changes at different levels i e final demand sector and transmission levels it is found that domestic exports accounted for nearly two thirds of singapore s aggregate carbon intensity followed by private consumption and investment at the sectoral level the top three contributors were the petroleum petrochemical and land transport sectors improvements in emission intensity and final demand structure were major factors contributing to reductions in carbon intensity our study contributes to the literature in two aspects methodologically it deals with embodied emission intensity and analyzes its changes from the demand perspective this differs from most studies in the literature from the production perspective empirically the findings and policy implications are unique as they are applicable to a major city with urbanization taking place in many developing countries cites role in emissions and environmental sustainability are growing in importance but not many in depth analyses similar to our study have been reported

decomposition of co2 emissions change from energy consumption in brazil challenges and policy implications this study evaluates the changes in co2 emissions from energy consumption in brazil for the period 1970 2009 emissions are decomposed into production and consumption activities allowing computing the full set of energy sources consumed in the country this study aims to develop a comprehensive and updated picture of the underlying determinants of emissions change from energy consumption in brazil along the last four decades including for the first time the recently released data for 2009 results demonstrate that economic activity and demographic pressure are the leading forces explaining emission increase on the other hand carbon intensity reductions and diversification of energy mix towards cleaner sources are the main factors contributing to emission mitigation which are also the driving factors responsible for the observed decoupling between co2 emissions and economic growth after 2004 the cyclical patterns of energy intensity and economy structure are associated to both increments and mitigation on total emission change depending on the interval the evidences demonstrate that brazilian efforts to reduce emissions are concentrated on energy mix diversification and carbon intensity control while technology intensive alternatives like energy intensity has not demonstrated relevant progress residential sector displays a marginal weight in the total emission change

social security and wealth accumulation in developing economies evidence from the 1981 chilean reform summary wealth holdings are particularly important in developing economies as they allow individuals to insure themselves against income shocks in the absence of developed financial markets in this paper we test whether the existence of future social security benefits impacts wealth holdings by using the 1981 chilean social security reform our estimates are based on the eps 2004 which contains detailed data on wealth holdings assets and liabilities and social security account balances by means of different econometric methods we find no impact of social security on wealth accumulation with the exception of poorer individuals in that case each additional peso in social security wealth depresses other types of wealth by almost 0 1 pesos mainly in regard to real estate 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

climate change costs recent advancements in the economic assessment climate change is unique among the consequences of fossil fuel burning in its far reaching impact both spatially and temporally earlier studies estimate the aggregated monetized damage due to climate change at 1 5 to 2 0 of world gdp for 2 co2 the oecd would lose 1 0 to 1 5 of gdp the developing countries 2 0 to 9 0 according to these estimates these figures are not comprehensive and highly uncertain newer studies increasingly emphasize adaptation variability extreme events other non climate change stress factors and the need for integrated assessment of damages as a result differences in impacts between regions and sectors have increased the market impacts in developed countries tended to fall and non market impacts have become increasingly important marginal damages are more interesting from a policy point of view earlier estimates range from about us 5 to us 125 per tonne of carbon with most estimates at the lower end of this range these figures are based on polynomial functions in the level of climate change but the rate of change may be equally important as are the speed of adaptation restoration and value adjustment furthermore future vulnerability to climate change will be different from current vulnerability on the whole the market impacts fall relatively with economic growth while the non market impacts rise relatively with growth

the future of pensions in europe rescuing unfunded pensions suitably amended unfunded schemes remain a good idea unfunded state pension schemes are projected to become financially unsustainable this is usually attributed to demographic trends yet trends in unemployment and in female labour force participation are quantitatively as important improvements in either or both might be sufficient to rescue existing state schemes especially if combined with an end to the practice of allowing even after retirement the value of a pension to rise with national earnings rather than prices attempts at piecemeal reform are important because nothing in economic theory suggests a switch to the alternative fully funded pensions is desirable not only would such a transition be costly and therefore politically difficult it also neglects the fact that it makes sense to diversify the retirement portfolio holding claims both on labour productivity and on capital assets one can even view pensions as part of a more sophisticated system of intergenerational transfers through which workers finance their earlier education and subsequent retirement michele boldrin juan j dolado juan f jimeno and franco peracchi

economic and climate impacts of reducing china s renewable electricity curtailment a comparison between cge models with alternative nesting structures of electricity abstract to mitigate climate change impacts and achieve low carbon transformation china has accelerated the development of renewable energy which is severely challenged by the curtailment of renewable electricity this study uses a dynamic multi sectoral cge model with alternative nesting structures and substitution elasticities for electricity with different power sources to capture the economic and environmental feasibility of reducing renewable electricity curtailment across all economic sectors in china the reduction of renewable electricity curtailment is simulated during 2021 2030 from the curtailment rates of 2015 2017 we found that the reduction of renewable electricity curtailment would lead to a significant expansion in the output of renewable electricity and a moderate decrease in non renewable electricity production among the renewable electricity wind power has the most significant output gain over 9 with solar power and hydropower outputs rising by over 5 and 1 5 respectively however without the cost neutrality assumption the impacts of reducing electricity curtailment would be largely over estimated with cge models simulated by improved technology the disparity between results from the models with alternative nesting constant elasticity of substitution ces functions for electricity sectors is highly dependent on the difference between their substitution elasticities accompanying the changes in electricity generation the reduction of renewable electricity curtailment would bring multiple green co benefits like significantly reducing co2 and air pollutants emitted from electricity sectors and improvements in real gdp and employment

the lmdi approach to decomposition analysis a practical guide in a recent study ang energy policy 32 2004 compared various index decomposition analysis methods and concluded that the logarithmic mean divisia index method is the preferred method since the literature on the method tends to be either too technical or specific for most potential users this paper provides a practical guide that includes the general formulation process summary tables for easy reference and examples

drivers of stagnating global carbon intensity of electricity and the way forward abstract despite the signing of the paris climate agreement there is still great uncertainty regarding the world s ability to decarbonize and meet the 2 c target in this regard the electricity production sector deserves particular attention the sector has the largest decarbonization potential and its share of the world s co2 emissions from fuel combustion increased from 30 in 1990 to 36 in 2014 to better understand global trends this study analyses the factors influencing changes in the global aggregate carbon intensity aci of electricity a measure of the level of co2 emissions per unit of electricity produced over the last 25 years using multidimensional index decomposition analysis it finds that global aci barely improved since 1990 because of a shift in electricity production from developed to developing countries with higher acis this geographical shift offset consistent improvements to power generation efficiency worldwide and is likely to persist in the future to keep the 2 c target realisable it is imperative to enhance international cooperation to lower the acis of emerging economies and deepen the penetration of renewables which have thus far performed below expectations

a multi region structural decomposition analysis of global co2 emission intensity abstract this paper studies changes in global and national co 2 emission intensities using the multi region structural decomposition analysis sda technique emission intensities such as the ratio of co 2 emissions to gdp have lately been widely used to characterize national emission performance meanwhile the impact of international trade has been found to be important in global emission accounting it is therefore important to analyze changes in emission intensities by taking trade into consideration in this study we first propose two sda models one at the global level and the other at the country level to quantify both the domestic and trade related effects on an intensity indicator the models are then used to study changes in global and countries co 2 emission intensities from 2000 to 2009 the results show that sectoral emission efficiency improvement was the main contributor to the slight decrease in global emission intensity during the period while international trade marginally hampered improvement of global emission intensity comparisons of the performance between emerging economies and advanced economies reveal the importance of production structure and final demand structure in emission intensity reduction the policy implications of the findings are presented

analysis of electricity consumption in china 1990 2016 using index decomposition and decoupling approach abstract electricity consumption accounts for a significant portion of final energy consumption in countries worldwide and has a close relationship with economic growth this paper explores the factors influencing electricity consumption in china during 1990 2016 using index decomposition analysis and analyses the decoupling status between economic growth and electricity consumption in addition to the influencing factors these analyses are conducted at both national and sectoral levels the results reveal that 1 the economic activity effect was the main driving force increasing total electricity consumption in china while the energy intensity effect hindered it 2 both diversity and aggregation existed at the sector level the power generation chemicals and non ferrous sectors were the top three contributors to increased electricity consumption 3 the change of electricity consumption caused by gdp growth in china showed three decoupling states during 1990 2016 expansive negative decoupling expansive coupling and weak decoupling in particular the energy intensity effect stimulated the occurrence of decoupling 4 industrial sectors played a significant role in decoupling in china while service sectoral electricity consumption showed expansive coupling with its sectoral gdp in recent years

naive diversification strategies in defined contribution saving plans there is a worldwide trend toward defined contribution saving plans and growing interest in privatized social security plans in both environments individuals are given some responsibility to make their own asset allocation decisions raising concerns about how well they do at this task this paper investigates one aspect of the task namely diversification it is shown that some investors follow the 1 n strategy they divide their contributions evenly across the funds offered in the plan consistent with this naive notion of diversification it is found that the proportion invested in stocks depends strongly on the proportion of stock funds in the plan

co2 emissions from electricity generation in seven asia pacific and north american countries a decomposition analysis abstract the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi method of complete decomposition is used to examine the role of three factors electricity production electricity generation structure and energy intensity of electricity generation affecting the evolution of co2 emissions from electricity generation in seven countries these seven countries together generated 58 of global electricity and they are responsible for more than two thirds of global co2 emissions from electricity generation in 2005 the analysis shows production effect as the major factor responsible for rise in co2 emissions during the period 1990 2005 the generation structure effect also contributed in co2 emissions increase although at a slower rate in contrary the energy intensity effect is responsible for modest reduction in co2 emissions during this period over the 2005 2030 period production effect remains the key factor responsible for increase in emissions and energy intensity effect is responsible for decrease in emissions unlike in the past generation structure effect contributes significant decrease in emissions however the degree of influence of these factors affecting changes in co2 emissions vary from country to country the analysis also shows that there is a potential of efficiency improvement of fossil fuel fired power plants and its associated co benefits among these countries

upgrading or downgrading china s regional carbon emission intensity evolution and its determinants one of china s major national targets is to environmentally upgrade its economy in this paper we define environmental upgrading as lowering the carbon intensity the disparities among china s regions suggest to examine china s carbon emission performance at the regional level for this purpose we use inter regional input output tables for 2002 2007 and 2012 that distinguish processing exports from ordinary exports the regional emission intensities eis show environmental downgrading in the period 2002 2007 and upgrading during 2007 2012 to identify the determinants of the evolution of regional eis we have employed a multiplicative structural decomposition analysis changes in direct emission coefficients and changes in production technology are found to be the major determinants however next to these standard determinants we also evaluate the effects on the changes in regional eis of changes in inter regional trade and changes in inter regional spillovers changing inter regional trade is found to have increased the ei significantly in western and central regions this suggests that more dirty production was shifted from coastal to inland regions our study yields clear policy recommendations for achieving china s transformation to a low carbon economy c 2020 elsevier b v all rights reserved

swedish co2 emissions 1993 2006 an application of decomposition analysis and some methodological insights this study undertakes a decomposition analysis to identify the drivers of carbon dioxide emissions change in the swedish business and industry sectors 1993 2006 on aggregate energy intensity decreased but this does not seem to have been very important for reducing emissions rather fuel substitution seems to have been more important which is in line with findings from the decomposition literature on sweden however at the sectoral level we find no clear pattern of the effect of fuel substitution and energy intensity on emissions we also draw some methodological conclusions decomposition analysis should be undertaken at the most disaggregate level possible assessing decomposition results by summing results over several time periods leads to biased results and decomposition analysis should not be based only on some initial and final years of a long time period furthermore we address the problem of double counting energy flows in decomposition analysis of aggregate effects when the energy sector is included and point out potential problems related to output measured in monetary terms

social security national policies with international implications social security policies within individual countries are determined independently by national governments but the resulting outcome is inefficient compared with what would result from the international co ordination of policies this is because national social security policies produce international externalities via their effects on world interest rates an illustrative example suggests that the gains from co ordination are potentially significant virtually all countries operate social security or redistributive policies each chooses policies independently and to my knowledge no one either in a policymaking context or in the large literature on international policy co ordination has suggested that such decisions would benefit from international coordination 1 however a simple argument suggests that independent national social security policies are inefficient more specifically in the long run national governments make policy decisions which are too egalitarian this holds provided that social security lowers national saving in this case each national government faces a trade off between income redistribution and national saving and can be assumed to locate at the nationally optimal point on this trade off taking as given the world interest rate the latter is clearly not independent of the combined effect of all countries policies however if all countries expand social security the resulting fall in world saving will raise the world interest rate with adverse consequences for each national economy each country rationally ignores its own small contribution to the global outcome if this international externality were internalised by co ordination countries would relocate on the trade off between income redistribution and national saving demonstrating the existence of an externality says nothing about its quantitative significance i address this with an example which focuses on pay as you go payg retirement pensions in an economy with a mixture of forward looking and myopic individuals the pensions prevent destitution among retired myopes and thus effectively redistribute life time welfare but they also lower saving because of payg financing for all parameter values considered international co ordination of pensions policy decisions generates welfare gains which are larger for many parameter values substantially larger than recent estimates of the welfare gains from either the entire elimination of all cyclical fluctuations or the reduction of inflation and nominal interest rates from suboptimally high to optimal levels hence the issues addressed in the paper are quantitatively significant when judged against other frequently advocated i am grateful to two anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions they are not responsible for the present version

using logarithmic mean divisia index to analyze changes in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions in mexico s iron and steel industry using international comparisons and log mean divisia index this paper analyzes energy and co2 emission trends of mexico s iron and steel industry during the period 1970 2006 examining co2 emissions related to energy use and production process the decomposition analysis is based on the structure efficiency analysis for international comparisons considering industrial structure and the best available technology results show that for the period 1970 2006 activity drove up primary energy use by 227 instead of the actual 133 while structure and efficiency effects drove it down by 5 and by 90 respectively the important improvement in mexican iron and steel primary energy efficiency reduced the gap between best international practice and actual primary energy consumption from 103 in 1970 to only 15 in 2006 co2 emissions from fuel consumption and production process increased by 134 and in addition to structure and efficiency fuel share effect also drove down emissions by 4 2 in the entire period

a spatial temporal decomposition approach to performance assessment in energy and emissions abstract there has been growing interest among researchers and policymakers in comparing or benchmarking countries on the basis of their performance in energy consumption or energy related co 2 emissions such studies allow variations among countries to be revealed the contributing factors identified and the scope for improvement better understood at the same time tracking changes or quantifying improvements in energy use or emissions over time in a country have long been a focus area of researchers and policy makers to provide a fuller picture on country performance in a multi country study over time it would be of interest to integrate the above mentioned spatial and temporal analyses in a single analysis framework this paper deals with this issue using the technique of index decomposition analysis a spatial temporal approach is introduced and two application cases are presented to illustrate how the approach can be applied the first analyzes variations and changes in the aggregate co 2 intensity of electricity production for ten countries from 1990 to 2010 and the second deals with variations and changes in the aggregate energy intensity for eight economic regions of china from 2002 to 2012 in addition two different ways of presenting the results are introduced our study shows that the proposed approach can supplement studies which are conducted purely on a spatial or temporal basis

power markets in transition decarbonization energy efficiency and short term demand response abstract energy efficiency and short term demand response are key issues in the decarbonization of power markets however their interaction and combined impact on market prices as well as on the supply side is yet to be understood we develop a framework to implement short term demand response and investments in energy efficiency in detailed partial equilibrium power market models we quantify our results using the eu regen model for the european power market under an 80 emission reduction target energy efficiency contributes only 11 of carbon emission reductions intermittent renewable energies such as wind and solar power account for the major share of 53 in comparison to a scenario without short term demand response and energy efficiency investments 70 gw gas power is decommissioned immediately and 180 gw less gas capacity is needed in 2050 which underlines the need for immediate action by policy makers to avoid locking the eu power market into an inefficient path

incorporating life cycle external cost in optimization of the electricity generation mix the present work aims to examine the strategic decision of future electricity generation mix considering together with all other factors the effect of the external cost associated with the available power generation technology options not only during their operation but also during their whole life cycle the analysis has been performed by integrating the life cycle assessment concept into a linear programming model for the yearly decisions on which option should be used to minimize the electricity generation cost the model has been applied for the case of greece for the years 2012 2050 and has led to several interesting results firstly most of the new generating capacity should be renewable mostly biomass and wind while natural gas is usually the only conventional fuel technology chosen if externalities are considered wind energy increases its share and hydro power replaces significant amounts of biomass generated energy furthermore a sensitivity analysis has been performed one of the most important findings is that natural gas increases its contribution when externalities are increased summing up external cost has been found to be a significant percentage of the total electricity generation cost for some energy sources therefore significantly changing the ranking order of cost competitiveness for the energy sources examined

factors shaping aggregate energy intensity trend for industry energy intensity versus product mix understanding the mechanisms of change of energy consumption in industry has attracted much attention since the 1973 world oil crisis a popular line of research has been to decompose changes in the aggregate energy intensity of industry to give the relative impacts arising from energy intensity change and product mix change using a decomposition technique many empirical studies covering a large number of countries have been reported the main objective of this paper is to put together the empirical results reported in these studies in a coherent framework and identify possible systematic features of particular interest are the basic trends in this line of research the relative importance of energy intensity change and product mix change possible variations over time and between country groups in the energy impacts of these changes and inconsistencies in findings among studies an overview of the decomposition technique including its strengths weaknesses and role in industrial energy consumption studies is also presented

decomposing the decoupling of co2 emissions and economic growth in brazil abstract this paper examines the occurrence of a decoupling between the growth rates in economic activity and co 2 emissions from energy consumption in brazil from 2004 to 2009 this decoupling was highlighted when economic activity and co 2 emissions moved in opposite directions in 2009 more generally we observe several periods of relative decoupling in brazil but not to the extent witnessed in 2009 to identify the determinants of emissions change we develop a decomposition model based on a log mean divisia index lmdi framework the results indicate that the carbon intensity and energy mix are the main determinant of emissions reduction in brazil between 2004 and 2009 modifications in the economy structure are also associated to emission mitigation in the period such evidence demonstrates similarities with events of decoupling registered for the interval 1980 1994 in brazil finds from brazil differ from observations in other countries in which improvement in energy intensity has been the most common determinant of emissions reduction

economic costs and impacts of climate induced sea level rise and storm surge in canadian coastal provinces a cge approach abstractwe estimated the economic costs and impacts of future sea level rise slr and storm surge due to climate change in canada s coastal provinces using regional dynamic computable general equilibrium models that track provincial welfare gdp trade prices and inputs over the 2009 2054 period we also assessed the economic costs of coastal adaptation investments to determine whether such investments can be justified on economic grounds results indicated that slr and storm surge could cost canada in the range of 4 6 25 5 billion in present value welfare and between 53 7 and 108 7 billion in present value gdp we found significant variation in costs and impacts across coastal provinces with some provinces such as newfoundland and labrador experiencing only marginal costs impacts and others such as british columbia experiencing costs as high as 21 billion in welfare over the period coastal adaptation investments were supported on economics grounds overall this study provides the first and

risk return preferences in the pension domain are people able to choose this paper presents new evidence for the netherlands on pension preferences and investor autonomy in the pension domain using a representative survey of about 1000 dutch citizens our main conclusions are the following risk aversion is domain dependent and highest in the pension domain the vast majority of respondents favours the currently dominant defined benefit pension system if offered a combined defined benefit defined contribution system the majority would like to have a guaranteed pension income of at least 70 of their net labour income self assessed risk tolerance and financial expertise are important individual explanatory variables of pension attitudes the average respondent considers himself financially unsophisticated and is reluctant to take control of retirement savings investment even when offered the possibility to increase expertise respondents who have chosen a relatively safe portfolio tend to switch to the riskier median portfolio when they are shown future income streams this again suggests that many respondents currently lack the skills to have investor autonomy over investment for retirement

decomposition of co2 emissions over 1980 2003 in turkey abstract there is a multi dimensional need for studying the energy situation in turkey and to obtain insight into the development of co2 emissions on the one hand recent projections of the oecd show that turkey has a yearly gdp growth potential of over 7 on the other hand recent projections of undp and world bank indicate that the level of co2 emission is going to rise six fold by 2025 with respect to the level of emissions in 1990 it is a great challenge to both meet the growth target and keep the co2 under control thereupon this paper tries to unfold factors that explain co2 emissions by undertaking a complete decomposition analysis for turkey over the period 1980 2003 the analysis shows as is common to relatively fast growing economies that the biggest contributor to the rise in co2 emissions is the expansion of the economy scale effect the carbon intensity and the change in composition of the economy which nearly move in tandem also contribute to the rise in co2 emissions albeit at a slower rate the energy intensity of the economy which is decreasing is responsible for a modest reduction in co2 emissions hence in congruence with the scale effect a decoupling of carbon emissions and economic growth is not found in turkey over the period 1980 2003

the economic effects of climate change greenhouse gas emissions are fundamental both to the world s energy system and to its food production the production of co2 the predominant gas implicated in climate change is intrinsic to fossil fuel combustion specifically thermal energy is generated by breaking the chemical bonds in the carbohydrates oil coal and natural gas and oxidizing the components to co2 and h2o one cannot have cheap energy without carbon dioxide emissions similarly methane ch4 emissions an important greenhouse gas in its own right are necessary to prevent the build up of hydrogen in anaerobic digestion and decomposition one cannot have beef mutton dairy or rice without methane emissions climate change is the mother of all externalities larger more complex and more uncertain than any other environmental problem the sources of greenhouse gas emissions are more diffuse than any other environmental problem every company every farm every household emits some greenhouse gases the effects are similarly pervasive weather affects agriculture energy use health and many aspects of nature which in turn affects everything and everyone the causes and consequences of climate change are very diverse and those in low income countries who contribute least to climate change are most vulnerable to its effects climate change is also a long term problem some greenhouse gases have an atmospheric life time measured in tens of thousands of years the quantities of emissions involved are enormous in 2000 carbon dioxide emissions alone and excluding land use change were 24 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide tco2

opec how to transition from black to green gold global discussions on the reduction of co2 emissions and the increasing interest in alternative energy sources and production technologies have started to concern oil exporting nations international discussions on projects such as desert tec might also have sparked their interest to explore a possible diversification of their energy resource production portfolio however extremely low in country retail prices of fossil fuels to date present a significant economic hurdle to such developments this paper uses a formal model setup accompanied by intuitive graphical illustrations as well as a numerical example to analyze fossil fuel abundant nations potential to transition to a supplier of renewable energy as well as possible pitfalls resulting from their status quo situation

changes in carbon intensity in china empirical findings from 1980 2003 china experienced sustainable rapid economic growth over the period 1980 2003 but at the same time energy related carbon intensity showed a downward trend it begs the question therefore what factors were driving this decline in carbon intensity and will this decline be maintained in future moreover what measures can be adopted to ensure a continual decline in carbon intensity these questions led to increased research in the factors governing co2 emission in china this paper quantifies the driving force behind china s primary energy related carbon intensity and measures the material production sectors final energy related carbon intensity our results show that the overwhelming contributor to the decline of energy related carbon intensity was the reduction in real energy intensity however policies that focus only on the decline in energy intensity are insufficient to further decrease carbon intensity the change of primary energy mix can improve the decline of carbon intensity this should focus on the material production sectors development strategies and final energy use greater emphasis should be given to secondary industry which needs national and regional governments policy support

decomposition of carbon intensity in electricity production technological innovation and structural adjustment in china s power sector abstract china s power generation accounted for 24 of the world s total output ranking first in 2015 as a suitable performance indicator carbon intensity of electricity reflects a variation in the average level of carbon emissions per unit of electricity generated as the largest carbon emitter among various industries power sector is in duty bound to reduce carbon emissions and achieve sustainable development great progress has been made in china s power sector which is reflected by the effects of technological innovation and structural adjustment with logarithm transformation and integral transformation three dimensional decomposition model is proposed to quantitatively measure the changed carbon intensity of electricity due to technological innovation and structural adjustment in the context of three dimensional model the variation of carbon intensity can be decomposed into absolute changes and or relative changes furthermore accumulative decomposition results are obtained by chain linked calculation rules finally the proposed models are implemented in china s power industry to reveal its historical progress during 1980 2014 some important conclusions are also found based on the decomposition results

input output and structural decomposition analysis of singapore s carbon emissions singapore is an island city state it lacks conventional energy resources and is alternative energy disadvantaged in the past decade 2000 2010 its energy related carbon emissions increased from 37 8 to 44 4 million tonnes of co2 this paper analyses the city state s carbon emissions from the demand perspective using the input output i o method and investigate the drivers of emission changes using structural decomposition analysis sda it is the first comprehensive analysis of singapore s emissions using the i o framework the results obtained show that exports accounted for nearly two thirds of its total emissions and growth in its emissions in the last decade was largely export driven emissions increased as export oriented industries and export volume expanded fuel switching and energy efficiency however helped to lower growth in emissions besides exports household related emissions accounted for about a quarter of singapore s total emissions the emissions related to different household groups remained fairly stable as increases in embodied indirect emissions were offset by decreases in direct emissions the high income household group registered the largest increase in direct emissions while the middle income household group registered the largest increase in embodied emissions the policy implications of our findings are discussed

social security trust fund flows and the welfare costs of rent seeking the current study provides estimates from a parks regression using panel data that suggest that the welfare costs due to rent seeking efforts by interest groups to obtain social security trust fund flows ranged from approximately 132 million per twoyear federal election cycle from 1985 1994 to a theoretical expectation of 66 billion all in real terms these welfare costs are in addition to any other social costs that may be present including the reduced levels of national saving that social security may induce

lmdi decomposition approach a guide for implementation since it was first used by researchers to analyze industrial electricity consumption in the early 1980s index decomposition analysis ida has been widely adopted in energy and emission studies lately its use as the analytical component of accounting frameworks for tracking economy wide energy efficiency trends has attracted considerable attention and interest among policy makers the last comprehensive literature review of ida was reported in 2000 which is some years back after giving an update and presenting the key trends in the last 15 years this study focuses on the implementation issues of the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi decomposition methods in view of their dominance in ida in recent years eight lmdi models are presented and their origin decomposition formulae and strengths and weaknesses are summarized guidelines on the choice among these models are provided to assist users in implementation

the reform of pension systems winners and losers across generations in the united kingdom and germany in this paper we perform simulations with a stylized model of the united kingdom and germany to show which generations might be gainers and which losers from a transition from an unfunded to a funded state pension system we show that it is likely that more than one generation will be direct losers as a result of a transition especially in germany if more than one generation are direct losers then in order for those generations not to be net losers the chain of bequests in the initial equilibrium needs to satisfy a simple condition which we derive and analyse

decomposition analysis for assessing the progress in decoupling industrial growth from co2 emissions in the eu manufacturing sector decomposition analysis is used in this paper not only to explain changes in industrial co2 emissions but also to comparatively evaluate the progress made in 14 eu countries in decoupling emissions from industrial growth the analysis is performed for the period 1990 2003 by distinguishing two time intervals for assessing progress prior to and following the agreement on the kyoto protocol the refined laspeyres model is used to determine the impact of 5 explanatory factors output energy intensity structure fuel mix and utility mix the obtained results are further elaborated in order to assess the real efforts undertaken in each country and their effectiveness in dissociating the economic and environmental dimensions of development moreover a rescaling procedure is implemented in order to adjust efforts to the average progress in the eu and proceed to a fair comparative evaluation it is found that most eu countries made a considerable but not always sufficient decoupling effort while no significant acceleration is observed in the post kyoto period

rear view mirror driving in defined contribution systems the strange formula of the chilean pension funds the pioneering regulation on chilean pension funds under defined contribution program requires private managing institutions to exclusively manage individual accounts and meet a minimum return to their clients the purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the investment behaviour of pension funds and to contribute to the social security debate the findings reveal the benchmark significantly explains funds performance pension funds tend to replicate their asset allocations to exhibit similarities in returns we believe the obligation on fund managers to attain a minimum guaranteed return based on relative performance evaluation encourages them not to deviate from the industry s performance indeed the benchmark explains most of the group performance to hold similar allocations managers may monitor each others through their investment style

energy co2 emissions and value added flows embodied in the international trade of the brics group a comprehensive assessment abstract the brics economies group i e brazil russia india china and south africa has become an important contributor to the growth of the world economy which is increasingly concerned about carbon emissions due to the recent increase in energy use in these countries while the embodied energy use related to emissions of the brics group has been discussed in the literature an integrated analysis of energy carbon footprints and value added flows associated with international trade among the brics group has to date rarely been reported based on an improved multi regional input output model south africa was extracted from the rest of the world in the world input output database wiod to analyze the above mentioned flows embodied in trade within the brics countries as well as between the brics group and other economies the results show that the brics economic entity was a net embodied flows exporter more flows were embodied in intermediate products than in final demand within the brics group compared with other brics economies china which is the largest transit country transferred more embodied flows from russia to other brics countries and drove more embodied flows from major economies including the united states and european countries outside the brics group than those within the brics group however china imported a relatively higher embodied energy and co2 in per unit value added from the brics countries than non brics countries while exporting relative lower embodied energy and co2 per value added to other brics economies than non brics countries the potential policy implications on cleaner development within the brics economies are discussed at the end of this paper

carbon intensity of electricity in asean drivers performance and outlook abstract the association of southeast asian nations asean with its ten member countries has a total population exceeding 600 million its energy related co2 emissions have been growing and in 2013 amounted to 3 6 of total global emissions about 40 of asean s energy related co2 emissions are currently attributable to electricity production in view of this high share we study the co2 emissions of asean s electricity production sector with a focus on the aggregate emission intensity aci given by the level of co2 emissions for each unit of electricity produced drivers of aci are analysed for individual countries and spatial analysis is conducted by comparing factors contributing to differences between the acis of individual countries and that of the asean average arising from these analyses and in light of the current developments it is concluded that drastic actions need to be taken both at the national and regional levels in order to reduce growth in the region s electricity related co2 emissions two key policy issues namely overcoming national circumstances to improve electricity generation mix and improving power generation efficiency are further discussed

how can chile move away from a high carbon economy abstract this paper quantitatively evaluates the performance of chile s co2 emissions between 1991 and 2013 using a complete decomposition technique to examine emissions and their components a decomposition analysis based on log mean divisia index method lmdi i was conducted six decomposition factors were considered carbon intensity effect ci res penetration effect res energy intensity effect ei economy structure effect es income effect yp and population effect p to know how these factors could influence each other in the future the innovative accounting approach iaa was used including forecast error variance decomposition and impulse response functions irfs these two methodologies allow us to identify the drivers of co2 emission changes in the past 1991 2013 test policy measures and learn how these drivers could influence each other in the future to evaluate whether the current measures meet the paris commitments the lmdi analysis results show that the energy intensity factor is the main compensating factor of chile s co2 emissions and the only effect with a clear trend to aid the economy s decoupling iaa and ifrs results react similarly and confirm that carbon intensity reacts to shocks more significantly in the short term the reaction to res has the same and opposite behavior to shocks in es and yp to disappear in the long term

the damage costs of climate change toward more comprehensive calculations it is argued that estimating the damage costs of a certain benchmark climate change is not sufficient what is needed are cost functions and confidence intervals although these are contained in the integrated models and their technical manuals this paper brings them into the open in order to stimulate discussion after briefly reviewing the benchmark climate change damage costs region specific cost functions are presented which distinguish tangible from intangible losses and the losses due to a changing climate from those due to a changed climate furthermore cost functions are assumed to be quadratic as an approximation of the unknown but presumably convex functions results from the damage module of the integrated climate economy model fund are presented next uncertainties are incorporated and expected damages are calculated it is shown that because of convex loss functions and right skewed uncertain ties the risk premium is substantial calling for more action than analysis based on best guess estimates the final section explores some needs for further scientific research

the damage costs of climate change towards a dynamic representation economic assessments of climate change impacts are commonly presented as the effect of a climate change associated with a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide on the current economy this paper is an attempt to express impact as a function of both climate change and socio economic change with regard to climate change issues discussed are level versus rate of change speed of adaptation speed of restoration and value adjustment and symmetry with regard to socio economic change agriculture migration and the valuation of intangible losses are addressed uncertainty and higher order impacts are treated briefly it is qualitatively argued and quantitatively illustrated that these issues matter a great deal for the damage profile over the next century a damage model based on my best guesses is presented in the appendix

a ricardian model of climate change in canada a comparative static ricardian model is used to establish relationships between climate and agricultural land value in canada from these relationships agricultural costs of climate change scenarios are estimated this study is motivated partly by evidence of potential agricultural benefits of climate change from a similar analysis of the united states by mendelsohn nordhaus and shaw and partly by the void of canadian studies furthermore it extends the analysis to non uniform climate change scenarios its finding of a slightly positive upper bound on the agricultural benefits from climate change within a wide margin of error is motivation for further analysis un modele ricardien de changement climatique au canada l auteur utilise un modele statique ricardien classique pour etablir des relations entre le climat et la valeur des terres agricoles au canada a partir de ces relations on calibre les couts agricoles de divers scenarios de changement climatique cette etude a pris forme en partie en reaction aux resultats d une analyse similaire de mendelsohn nordhaus et shaw aux etats unis et en partie en reponse a un manque d etudes de ce genre au canada cet article etend les analyses aux scenarios de changements climatiques non uniformes les resultats suggerent qu il existe une sorte de borne positive superieure aux avantages agricoles du changement climatique a l interieur d une marge d erreur assez vaste voila qui encourage a poursuivre les analyses

carbon emission intensity in electricity production a global analysis we study changes in the aggregate carbon intensity aci for electricity at the global and country levels the aci is defined as the energy related co2 emissions in electricity production divided by the electricity produced it is a performance indicator since a decrease in its value is a desirable outcome from the environmental and climate change viewpoints from 1990 to 2013 the aci computed at the global level decreased only marginally however fairly substantial decreases were observed in many countries this apparent anomaly arises from a geographical shift in global electricity production with countries having a high aci increasingly taking up a larger electricity production share it is found that globally and in most major electricity producing countries reduction in their aci was due mainly to improvements in the thermal efficiency of electricity generation rather than to fuel switching estimates of the above mentioned effects are made using lmdi decomposition analysis our study reveals several challenges in reducing global co2 emissions from the electricity production sector although technically the reduction potential for the sector is known to be great

the abatement of carbon dioxide intensity in china factors decomposition and policy implications to deal with the challenges brought about by climate changes china decided to reduce the carbon dioxide co2 intensity by 40 45 per cent from 2005 to 2020 using the decomposition technique this study finds that energy intensity is the most important force to drive the decline of co2 intensity between 1980 and 2008 followed by structural factors such as the adjustment of energy and industrial structure therefore any environmental policy to promote energy efficiency will play the biggest role in achieving the target of abating co2 intensity in 2020

a multi region multi sector decomposition and attribution analysis of aggregate carbon intensity in china from 2000 to 2015 abstract index decomposition analysis ida has been used to analyze driving forces of aggregate carbon intensity aci however previous studies mostly explained changes in aci from either sectoral or regional perspective but rarely looked into driving forces of aci from both sectoral and regional perspectives under a unified and consistent framework to fill the research gap this study proposed a multi region multi sector decomposition and attribution approach to analyze driving forces of aci from both sectoral and regional perspectives the empirical results in china show that the aci declined by 33 from 2000 to 2015 from the sectoral perspective the decline can be mainly attributed to the significant energy efficiency improvement in six high energy intensive industries however the rapid growth in electricity consumption especially in chemicals and iron and steel and the expansion of iron and steel industry during 2000 2005 greatly offset the negative effect from energy efficiency from the regional perspective the aci decline can be primarily due to an extensive improvement in energy efficiency in most regions on the contrary the increasing dependency on coal particularly in shandong inner mongolia and guangdong and the increased share of carbon intensive industries in some provinces such as guangxi and sichuan markedly increased aci based on the results the effectiveness of underlying sectoral and regional level policies and measures implemented for aci reduction in china were evaluated

decomposition of aggregate carbon intensity for freight trends from 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1993 abstract historical patterns of aggregate carbon intensity from freight are different than those from other sectors while aggregate carbon intensity declined for all other sectors aggregate carbon intensity for freight increased the adaptive weighted divisia rolling base year index specification is applied to carbon emissions from the freight sector of 10 oecd countries for the period 1970 1993 increases in aggregate carbon intensity for nine of the countries range from less than 20 to over 150 and may be primarily attributed to shifts in modal structure toward more carbon intensive modes these increases in aggregate carbon intensity are driven primarily by an increase in activity which parallels the growth in gdp furthermore changes in fuel price and vehicle purchase taxes do not appear to be effective instruments for reducing energy consumption for this end use alternative policy options including less carbon intensive fuels and technologies and reduced congestion appear to be better choices

the impacts of carbon pricing on coastal megacities a cge analysis of singapore abstract pricing carbon is a widely used policy instrument for climate change mitigation quantitative analysis of carbon pricing are mainly conducted at the regional and national level rarely at the city level due to data availability as a representative of coastal megacities that are vulnerable to both climate change and climate policies singapore has announced to impose carbon tax on large direct emitters as a complementary mitigation option to technical measures a city level computable general equilibrium cge model is developed to simulate potential impacts of carbon pricing on the city including paying border carbon adjustment bca on exports or introducing a domestic carbon tax different sector coverages and carbon tax revenue recycling schemes are investigated for domestic carbon tax the simulation results show that a domestic carbon tax is a more cost effective option than paying bca given an identical carbon price at s 10 t co 2 gdp total exports and household consumption would decline less and average abatement cost is much smaller in the carbon tax scenarios compared to the bca scenario in terms of absolute emissions reduction a carbon tax that covers energy manufacturing and land transport sectors would be preferred making emissions around 2 7 lower than 2010 baseline level