institutions and the environmental kuznets curve for deforestation a crosscountry analysis for latin america africa and asia abstract the relationship between deforestation and income across 66 countries of latin america africa and asia is examined institutional characteristics as well as macroeconomic policies of each country are hypothesized to impact deforestation results show strong evidence of an environmental kuznets curve ekc relationship between income and deforestation for all three continents institutional structure and macroeconomic policy significantly affect the tropical deforestation process improvements in political institutions and governance significantly reduce deforestation the factors leading to deforestation differ across regions however and there is no one size fits all global policy recommendation for restraining the tropical deforestation process

frontiers and sustainable economic development exploiting new resource frontiers such as agricultural land and mineral reserves is a fundamental feature of economic development in poor economies yet frontier based development is symptomatic of a pattern of economy wide resource exploitation in developing economies that a generates little additional economic rents and b what rents are generated are not being reinvested in other sectors such development is inherently unsustainable the following paper explains this phenomenon and provides evidence that long run expansion of agricultural land and oil and natural gas proved reserves across poor economies is associated with lower levels of real income per capita the paper proposes a frontier expansion hypothesis to explain why the structural economic dependence of these economies on frontier land expansion and resource exploitation is not conducive to sustained long run growth the key to sustainable economic development in poor economies will be improving the economic integration between frontier and other sectors of the economy targeting policies to improved resource management in frontier areas and overcoming problems of corruption and rent seeking in resource sectors

res and risk renewable energy s contribution to energy security a portfolio based approach abstract during the first decade of the 21st century renewable energy sources res had been gaining momentum due to environmental issues concerns about pollution and climate change have raised public awareness encouraging governments to adopt policies to preserve and protect the environment regarding energy res promotion together with energy efficiency measures has been the main policy response to address such concerns as a consequence res development during the first decade of the 21st century has been remarkable although res deployment has been mainly focused on achieving environmental goals its potential contribution to energy security went not unnoticed however it is worth noting that while the trade off between environmental goals and the use of res to accomplish them and competitiveness has been widely explored the relationship between energy security and res has received less attention both at the conceptual and energy policy levels this article tries to address such a relationship the present article focuses on renewable electricity imports as illustrated by the case of the mediterranean solar plan after introducing the energy security energy risk concept and its dimensions the article focuses on the contribution of res in terms of security of supply for a given energy mix using the portfolio theory most of the analyses of the interactions between res and energy security focus on the national level with res being mainly conceived as a substitute for fuel imports to produce electricity and reduce so called energy dependence however new transmission technologies allow the import of electricity directly from neighbouring countries far out of the range of regular electricity lines therefore this article tries to broaden the analysis of energy security to international res trade flows applying the previous discussion to the main project involving significant international green electricity trade the mediterranean solar plan

land clearance and social capital in mountain agro ecosystems the case of opuntia scrubland in ayacucho peru abstract opuntia scrublands are important ecological economic systems in rural andean areas they provide goods for peasants diet and animal feed as well as cochineal insects a highly valued source of dyes land clearance on these scrublands promotes changes in land use from nonproductive wilderness to cochineal and fruit harvest areas grazing lands and fuel wood supply zones here we empirically explore the role of social capital on land clearance based on a case study of the humanga region of ayacucho peru the literature on social capital is showing evidence of the positive effect of social capital on development actions and on environmental conservation in rural areas of developing countries such as participatory forest management here the notion of social capital is captured by the idea that some features of social organization such as networks facilitate coordination and cooperation within the peasant communities that help in managing different economic activities both on and off farm the habilitation of the scrublands in the andean mountain environment could be generating negative externalities as a consequence of altering the vegetation cover such as soil erosion because the benefits arising from land clearance activities are obtained by cochineal collecting households and the negative environmental effects are costs imposed upon noncochineal collectors the social capital associated with scrubland habilitation could be perverse from an agro environmental viewpoint and a revision of some government policies and of some ngos actions for rural development through the promotion of various community networks in this deprived area could be needed

energy security and renewable electricity trade will desertec make europe vulnerable to the energy weapon abstract solar power imports to europe from the deserts of north africa as foreseen in the desertec concept is one possible way to help decarbonising the european power sector by 2050 however this approach raises questions of threats to european energy security in such an import scenario particularly in the light of increasing import dependency and russia s use of the energy weapon in recent years in this paper we investigate the threat of north african countries using the desertec electricity exports as an energy weapon we develop and use a new model to assess the interdependence the bargaining power symmetry operationalised as costs of a disruption in a future renewable electricity trade between north africa and europe if europe maintains current capacity buffers some demand response capability and does not import much more than what is described in the desertec scenario it is susceptible to extortion and political pressure only if all five exporter countries unite in using the energy weapon europe is not vulnerable to extortion by an export cut from only one country as the european capacity buffers are sufficient to restore the power supply no single exporter country would have sustained bargaining power over europe

spatial structure inequality and trading community of renewable energy networks a comparative study of solar and hydro energy product trades abstract renewable energy trade is booming and has formed complicated networks worldwide however our knowledge of the spatial structures and evolution of these networks is limited in this paper network analyses are used to examine the geographic characteristics of selected renewable energy trades and their evolution based on the united nations comtrade database from 1988 to 2013 the results show that the networks are expanding to include more and more countries and relationships and scale of the networks is larger than ever a tripartite confrontational renewable energy trading system has been forming and is strengthening europe the usa china and other asian countries are the main players and china has overtaken the usa and europe as the leading player inequality and small world characteristics appear in renewable energy trade solar energy trade presents a triadic community structure with europe the usa and china as the dominant players while hydro energy trade presents a smaller and more dispersed structure the core periphery structure strongly suggests a trade dependency between hubs and peripheral elements in renewable energy trade developing countries should design appropriate incentives and contribute to particular segments in renewable energy value chain to accelerate and benefit from the south south renewable energy trade

measuring the energy security implications of fossil fuel resource concentration abstract economic assessments of the welfare effects of energy insecurity are typically uncertain and fail to provide clear guidance to policy makers as a result governments have had little analytical support to complement expert judgment in the assessment of energy security this is likely to be inadequate when considering multiple policy goals and in particular the intersections between energy security and climate change mitigation policies this paper presents an alternative approach which focuses on gauging the causes of energy insecurity as a way to assist policy making the paper focuses on the energy security implications of fossil fuel resource concentration and distinguishes between the price and physical availability components of energy insecurity it defines two separate indexes the energy security price index espi based on the measure of market concentration in competitive fossil fuel markets and the energy security physical availability index espai based on the measure of supply flexibility in regulated markets the paper illustrates the application of espi and espai with two case studies france and the united kingdom looking at the evolution of both indexes to 2030

comparing carbon capture and storage ccs with concentrating solar power csp potentials costs risks and barriers abstract coal power coupled with carbon dioxide capture and storage ccs and concentrating solar power csp technologies are often included in the portfolio of climate change mitigation options intended to decarbonize electricity systems both of these technologies can provide baseload electricity are in early stages of maturity and have benefits costs and obstacles we compare and contrast ccs applied to coal fired power plants with csp at present both technologies are more expensive than existing electricity generating options but costs should decrease with large scale deployment especially in the case of csp for ccs technological challenges still remain storage risks must be clarified and regulatory and legal uncertainties remain for csp current challenges include electricity transmission and business models for a rapid and extensive expansion of high voltage transmission lines the need for international cooperation may impede csp expansion in europe

vulnerability to terrorist attacks in european electricity decarbonisation scenarios comparing renewable electricity imports to gas imports the decarbonised future european electricity system must remain secure reliable electricity supply is a prerequisite for the functioning of modern society scenarios like desertec which partially rely on solar power imports from the middle east and north africa may be attractive for decarbonisation but raise concerns about terrorists interrupting supply by attacking the long unprotected transmission lines in the sahara in this paper i develop new methods and assess the european vulnerability to terrorist attacks in the desertec scenario i compare this to the vulnerability of today s system and a decarbonisation scenario in which europe relies on gas imports for electricity generation i show that the vulnerability of both gas and electricity imports is low but electricity imports are more vulnerable than gas imports due to their technical characteristics gas outages and potentially resulting blackouts are the very unlikely consequence even of very high number attacks against the gas import system whereas short blackouts are the potential consequence of a few attacks against the import electricity lines as the impacts of all except extreme attacks are limited terrorists cannot attack energy infrastructure and cause spectacular fear creating outages both gas and electricity import infrastructure are thus unattractive and unlikely terrorist targets

do property rights promote investment but cause deforestation quasi experimental evidence from nicaragua abstract many policymakers argue that property rights decrease deforestation some theoretical papers also make this prediction arguing that property rights decrease discount rates applied to a long term investment in forestry however the effect is theoretically ambiguous the paper takes a novel instrumental variables approach based on nicaragua s agrarian reform to test for the effect using a new dataset nicaragua s 2001 agricultural census it finds that property rights significantly increase deforestation the model supported by the data suggests a likely mechanism for this relationship property rights increase investment increasing agricultural productivity and therefore the returns to deforestation

electricity supply reliability estimating the value of lost load the office of electricity regulation offer reviews the performance of electricity distribution companies on reliability of supply while physical indicators of supply reliability such as number of outages and minutes of electricity lost per customer per year are readily available little is known about the monetary value placed on supply reliability by customers this paper briefly reviews different methods to derive monetary values of power interruptions avoided before arguing that a method which values the lost utility to consumers from outages is the most appropriate a contingent ranking method is used to derive such lost utility values from a survey of industrial firms the value customers place on outages avoided is higher than that currently used in appraisals of infrastructure investment and in the determination of electricity prices in the uk

regulation in the european community all governments regulate economic activity in their own countries the single european market will involve a significant transfer of regulatory activity from member states to the european community as well as the initiation of regulatory activity in certain areas that have not previously been subject to regulation at all including the activities of member states themselves as in taxation or the provision of subsidies to industry why should governments wish to make such a transfer of powers what do they have to gain

forest resource trade between japan and southeast asia the structure of dual decay abstract forest resource trade between southeast asia and japan has been noteworthy because of its documented effects on the deforestation of southeast asia s environment this paper expands the focus of this issue to include an examination of the effects of this trade on japanese domestic forests our goal is to redefine the scope of discussions of trade environment issues we assert that the environmental problems of the importer and the exporter can be understood as a set of structurally connected phenomena which we refer to as dual decay we examine the underlying dynamics of renewable resource trade and the effects of trade liberalization on both importers and exporters environments

information capacity and innovation adoption researchers of innovation adoption and diffusion often have tested the hypothesis that firms with greater capacities to gather and evaluate information should adopt sooner however the data generally do not support this hypothesis a theoretical model of innovation adoption under uncertainty is developed to show that greater information capacity implies not only faster learning which tends to reduce the expected delay until adoption but also a more stringent adoption criterion which tends to increase the expected delay the resulting ambiguity provides an explanation for the lack of empirical support for this hypothesis

strategic timing of adoption of new technologies under uncertainty abstract in this paper we introduce experience effects into a duopoly game of timing of adoption of new technologies which exhibit exogenous technological progress departing from the existing literature with this model we obtain continuous and downward sloping reaction functions we find that a higher level of uncertainty increases the extent of dispersion between the equilibrium timings of adoption furthermore we find that the equilibrium timings are even more dispersed when the leader takes the follower s reaction into account when firm roles are made endogenous we find that if there is an incentive to lead follow the equilibrium timings are more less dispersed finally we show that it is possible for collusive adoption to improve welfare

exit with multiplant firms using an extension of ghemawat and nalebuff s 1985 model i analyze the outcome of industry decline when firms have multiplant operations the analysis reveals that no natural generalization of their strong empirical prediction that the larger of two single plant duopolists exits first holds in a multiplant setting the results also highlight a number of factors that affect the pattern of capacity removal during industry decline and lead to a discussion of the strategic implications of firms plant size choices in general the factors determining the pattern of capacity reduction can be quite complex and prediction in such settings often requires intimate knowledge of industry structure

development of supersmart grids for a more efficient utilisation of electricity from renewable sources abstract if europe is serious about reaching its target to keep global mean temperature increase below 2 c it must strive for a 100 renewable electricity system by 2050 the supersmart grid approach combines what is often perceived as two exclusive alternatives wide area power generation and decentralised power generation we argue that by combining these in fact complementary measures it is possible to address the crucial issue of renewable generation fluctuating supply in a comprehensive as well as in a technologically and economically viable manner thus the supersmart grid simultaneously can contribute to energy security climate security social security and national security

adoption and diffusion of an innovation of uncertain profitability the argument has frequently been made that the pattern of diffusion associated with most new innovations will typically have certain characteristics a diffusion curve for an innovation is usually defined as the proportion of its potential users who have already adopted as a function of time measured from the first adoption many empirical studies by both economists and other social scientists have shown that diffusion curves nearly always have two distinct characteristics i they are s shaped the proportion adopted is an increasing function of time which is initially convex but eventually becomes concave and ii they tend to be right hand skewed the inflection point occurs at a time corresponding to a proportion adopted which is less than one half so that the function is concave over the greatest amount of time in fact this skewing is occasionally severe enough to make the diffusion curve appear concave everywhere the focus of most empirical studies of innovation diffusion has centered on identification of either the major determinants of the speed of diffusion or the characteristics of firms which determine how long they delay adoption the seminal contributions are griliches 6 study of hybrid corn and mansfield s 121 study of 12 industrial innovations these studies and most of the similar ones following conclude that diffusion is faster for innovations with higher profitability and that large firms tend to be the earliest adopters some studies e g mansfield 121 herregat 71 have attempted to ascertain

decarbonization scenarios for the eu and mena power system considering spatial distribution and short term dynamics of renewable generation we use the multi scale power system model limes eu to explore coordinated long term expansion pathways for renewable energy re generation long distance transmission and storage capacities for the power sector of the europe and middle east north africa mena regions that lead to a low emission power system we show that ambitious emission reduction targets can be achieved at moderate costs by a nearly complete switch to re sources until 2050 if transmission and storage capacities are expanded adequately limiting transmission capacities to current levels leads to higher storage requirements higher curtailments and to an increase in temporal and spatial electricity price variations results show an escalation of electricity prices if emission reductions exceed a critical value adequate expansion of transmission and storage capacities shift this threshold from 70 to 90 emission reductions in 2050 relative to 2010

strategic timing of adoption of new technologies under uncertainty a note abstract this note clarifies the circumstances under which ex ante identical firms will choose different dates for the adoption of new technology in particular conditions under which diffusion will arise in both open loop and closed loop games are identified furthermore it is shown that the rents of nonidentical firms are not equalized even if pre emptive adoption is possible finally an example is given in which the reduction of the uncertainty associated with the implementation of new technology leads to a postponement of the adoption by the late adopter

an empirical analysis of forest transition and land use change in developing countries abstract deforestation is a major environmental issue in developing countries and agricultural land expansion is its main cause the objective of this paper is twofold 1 to identify the macroeconomic determinants of ending deforestation and 2 to explain cumulative deforestation and other land uses to do this we first study the probability of a turning point for deforestation i e the switch from decreasing to expanding forest areas based on the forest transition hypothesis second we adapt a land use model to explain the trade off between forest and agriculture during development to take the link between both phenomena into account we estimate a dynamic panel seemingly unrelated regression sur model along with a switching regression model applied to a dataset of 57 developing countries observed over four time periods the estimation results reveal that economic development and institutions play a significant role in long term deforestation our results also suggest that after the first development stage agriculture and forest are not always competing land uses these results provide new insights into public policies such as redd

can economic causes of tropical deforestation be identified at a global level this paper contributes to the literature on the macro scale economic determinants of the increase in global forest depletion by performing a regression analysis based on a panel dataset for fifty tropical countries over an eighteen year period while the initial findings appear at first to confirm a common causality pattern of selected macroeconomic variables in influencing tropical deforestation subsequent statistical tests question the significance of the results more specifically testing for autocorrelation which has been downplayed in previous studies appears to represent a critical issue when the initial results are corrected for autocorrelation the significance of the parameters declines substantially below statistically acceptable levels the implications are twofold first regression analyses that seek to explain deforestation at the global level need to be carefully scrutinised and checked to ensure that they meet standard statistical tests second tropical deforestation might ultimately depend upon case specific factors and further research may render more effective policy suggestions if conducted at a more disaggregated local level

innovation adoption and diffusion when there are competing innovations abstract firms face a choice between two innovations without knowing which of the two is better each firm has a prior that one of the innovations is better which is updated by bayes rule as trials with the innovations are made a simple decision rule indicating which innovation should be tried given any posterior is derived and used to define an expected diffusion curve for the better innovation this curve has the commonly observed ogive shape even in the absence of any external demonstration effect when the distribution of firm priors belongs to a general class

households willingness to pay for safeguarding security of natural gas supply in electricity generation abstract security of energy supply is a major issue for all eu member states due to europe s increasing dependence on imported fossil fuel sources and the continuous rise in energy demand the latter is of particular importance in electricity sector given the continuously increasing use of gas for electricity generation in order to properly tackle with the problem concerted actions are required by the eu member states in several levels i e legislative political etc nevertheless these actions will come at an additional cost paid by the society either through increased electricity bills or through public financing for energy security investments thus such policies should be justified on the basis of cost benefit analysis towards this direction it may be necessary to take into account non market costs and benefits i e the value that consumers place on interruptions avoided in order to explore households perceptions and willingness to pay for securing gas supply for electricity production an empirical study was conducted by means of the contingent valuation method the results indicate that consumers are willing to pay a premium on their electricity bills in order to internalize the external costs of electricity production in terms of energy security which are caused from imported fuels

invention under uncertainty and the threat of ex post entry abstract this article proposes a theoretical framework for studying the invention of new products when demand is uncertain in this framework under general conditions the threat of ex post entry by a competitor can deter invention ex ante asymmetric market power in the ex post market exacerbates the problem the implications of these general results are examined in a series of examples that represent important markets in the computer industry the first is a model that shows how an operating system monopolist by its mere presence can deter the invention of complements to its own detriment as well as that of society the implications of policies such as patent protection price regulation and mandatory divestiture are considered three additional examples consider the ability of a monopolist in one market to commit to bundling an unrelated product a pair of horizontally differentiated firms that can add a new feature to their products and a platform leader that can be challenged in its base market by the supplier of a complementary product

value generation of future csp projects in north africa this paper discusses the value generation potential for local and international industry in different development scenarios of the concentrating solar power csp market in north africa until 2030 it analyzes the economic impact resulting from the participation of north african and european companies during construction and operation of csp plants the assessment is based on a self developed solar technologies market development model stmd that includes economic and technical requirements and constraints for the creation of a local csp market in depth interviews with industry stakeholders provide specific input validate the calculations and complement the quantitative model results and conclusions long term potential for locally generated revenues from csp plant construction are modeled and lead to a share of local revenues of up to 60 potential market size of solar power plants in north africa could reach total revenues of 120 billion euros and thus demand for components and services contribute to national gross domestic products significantly recommendations are given for regional industry cooperation and policy actions for the support of local and international csp industry in north africa in order to improve the investment environment and growth of renewable energies in the region

thinking big politics progress and security in the management of asian and european energy megaprojects this article examines four energy megaprojects two in europe and two in asia for each region a large natural gas pipeline project and an international project involving solar power from the desert is studied the natural gas projects are the nabucco project in europe and the trans asean gas pipeline network in asia the solar power from the desert projects are desertec in europe and gobitec in asia the article probes explanations of megaproject failure along social technical economic political and psychological dimensions we find that these projects though they are very different in nature and pertain to different regions all suffer from a similar set of problems too many stakeholders and stakeholder fragmentation cost overruns and the risk of accidents and attacks massive externalization of costs to third party stakeholders concentration of wealth and corruption and inflated expectations and biased projections we conclude by reflecting on lessons for not only the involved institutions and investors but energy analysts and the public at large

changing political regimes and tropical deforestation expansion of agriculture is a main cause of tropical deforestation government policies and weak property rights contribute to this process by encouraging landowners and landless to accelerate land clearing using panel data common to previous studies we add the dimension of new political regimes democratic and non democratic and investigate how the rate of agricultural land expansion in tropical countries depends on the nature and persistence of each regime we find that both new autocratic and democratic regimes have accelerated the expansion of agricultural land thus yielding support to some of the findings in the earlier literature interesting differences emerge between regions with the impact being most pronounced in latin america we interpret these results mainly in the context of increasing tenure and ownership insecurity which in turn is driven by the tendency of new regimes to implement land reforms as a form of social and economic policy or voter payback the argument is developed more formally using a simple competitive land use model that incorporates political regime dependent confiscation risk and agricultural subsidy policy

public open access and private timber harvests theory and application to the effects of trade liberalization in mexico a common popular assertion is that trade liberalization encourages deforestation but whether this is true depends on how trade policies affect the allocation of land among competing uses and how they influence illegal cutting of public forests a model is presented that allows for forests to be either public or private and public forests are divided into protected or managed and threatened categories effects of price changes are shown on each part of the forest an empirical version of the model is applied to the case of mexico with nafta most scenarios considered show that nafta will have positive long run effects on forest cover in mexico but that this is net of losses on private lands

the real time price elasticity of electricity the real time price elasticity of electricity contains important information on the demand response of consumers to the volatility of peak prices despite the importance empirical estimates of the real time elasticity are hardly available this paper provides a quantification of the real time relationship between total peak demand and spot market prices we find a low value for the real time price elasticity which may partly be explained from the fact that not all users observe the spot market price if we correct for this phenomenon we find the elasticity to be fairly low for consumers currently active in the spot market if this conclusion applies to all users this would imply a limited scope for government intervention in supply security issues

the economic importance of non timber forest products ntfps for livelihood maintenance of rural west african communities a case study from northern benin non timber forest products ntfps contribute significantly to a rural household s livelihood in the african semi arid tropics this study examines the income from ntfps and the dependency on these of different socio economic groups in northern benin using survey data from 230 households of two villages we firstly compared incomes of five different ethnic groups being differentiated by their traditional source of livelihood and regional provenance secondly we investigated disparities between three income groups on average income from ntfps accounted for 39 of total household income and had a strong equalizing effect on it however the economic relevance of ntfps differs between households poorer households are relatively more dependent on ntfps in order to fulfill basic needs than wealthier households however the latter extract more ntfps in quantitative terms and have significantly higher cash returns than poorer ones this is mainly due to a significant greater land holding moreover our study revealed that net income from ntfps reflects traditional sources of livelihoods of different ethnic groups in conclusion both conservation and development strategies should take into consideration the socio economic context of different beneficiaries of savanna woodland resources in order to apply appropriate measures to poverty reduction

korean public s preference for supply security of oil and gas and the impact of protest bidders abstract the korean governmental support for supply security of oil and gas via overseas exploration and production e p projects are publicly criticized because of some poor projects lacking of economic feasibility even though it should be expanded from a long term perspective applying the contingent valuation this study investigates the korean public s preferences for governmental support for overseas oil and gas e p projects the result shows that the governmental support for overseas e p projects rather decreases public utility the primary reason behind this utility decrease is that some respondents protested to bid because of their resistance toward tax increase without guaranteeing the efficient government support this result implies that simple tax increases for expansion of the governmental support may bring about public s strong opposition in order to overcome this public opposition this study suggests that it is necessary to arouse public understanding of the necessity of overseas oil and gas e p projects

technology spillovers and land use change empirical evidence from global agriculture we estimate the effects of agricultural technological progress on cropland expansion at various geographical resolutions from the country level to the world as a whole while formally accounting for the international interdependence of national supply responses evidence for these effects has thus far been scant contributing to polarized perceptions about the potential for improving agricultural technologies as a means to slow down deforestation we find that in most countries of the world growth in total factor productivity tfp is either uncorrelated or is positively associated with cropland expansion yet worldwide tfp growth have been an important source of global land savings the divergence between the country level and the global results is explained by the changes in production patterns as countries interact in international markets our preferred point estimate of the elasticity of global cropland to global tfp growth is 0 34 moreover we estimate that satisfying food demand from 1991 to 2010 without observed tfp growth would have necessitated an additional 173 million hectares or close to 10 of the area covered by tropical rain forests

the development of renewable energies and supply security a trade off analysis this paper analyzes the effects of the green transformation on the german electricity sector with respect to the energy political triangle it focuses on how the development of renewable energies will affect security of electricity supply in a cost benefit analysis the value of supply security is compared with its costs of provision more specifically the benefits of maintaining the present quality of electricity supply are the avoided social damages from electricity outages and are compared with the respective investment costs in the low and medium voltage distribution grid it is shown that the transformation process towards a green and decentralized production structure will be costly for society even though the costs can be reduced by different measures

the ecological footprint of poverty alleviation evidence from mexico s oportunidades program abstract we study the consequences of poverty alleviation programs for environmental degradation we exploit the community level eligibility discontinuity for a conditional cash transfer program in mexico to identify the impacts of income increases on deforestation and use the program s initial randomized rollout to explore household responses we find that additional income raises consumption of land intensive goods and increases deforestation the observed production response and deforestation increase are larger in communities with poor road infrastructure this suggests that better access to markets disperses environmental harm and that the full effects of poverty alleviation on the environment can be observed only where poor infrastructure localizes them

privatizing an open access resource and environmental degradation abstract we develop a tractable dynamic model of the exploitation of an environmental resource with endogenous property rights we are able to explain both the evolution of property rights and environmental quality the model demonstrates that the development of property rights may emerge from within a community as a response to the overexploitation of an open access resource in the equilibrium of our model the resource is fully privatized and resource quality is greater than under the open access steady state we show that while environmental quality may initially decline privatizing the resource reduces its exploitation and eventually environmental quality improves

diversity and ignorance in electricity supply investment addressing the solution rather than the problem the need for diversity has been cited as a rationale for important recent investment decisions in the uk electricity supply sector it is invoked as the principal argument for continuing major government intervention yet there exists no formal analytical basis for the concept why is diversity good what is meant by diversification what is it that must be diversified what trade off should be struck between diversity and other measures of performance the resulting ambiguity causes confusion and is vulnerable to special pleading despite this this paper argues that diversification offers a superior alternative to probabilistic approaches towards uncertainty and ignorance in electricity supply investments and proposes a formal analytical approach a quantitative index of diversity is borrowed from information theory and used to derive a value for the government s implicit willingness to pay for diversity in the uk electricity supply mix this is then applied in a pilot exercise to the problem of optimizing the diversity and financial performance of the supply portfolio although provisional the results are relevant to the government s forthcoming nuclear review particularly in assessing the relative levels of support for nuclear power and renewable energy

trade policies economic growth and the direct causes of deforestation by ramon lopez gregmar i galinato please send correspondence to ramon lopez 2200 symons hall university of maryland college park md 20742 email rlopez arec umd edu tel 301 405 1281 fax 301 314 9091 gregmar i galinato 2200 symons hall university of maryland college park md 20742 email ggalinato arec umd edu tel 301 405 0477 fax 301 314 9091

international timber markets and tropical deforestation the evidence from prices some scholars suggest that global timber markets especially those involving high value species are a leading cause of tropical deforestation despite limited empirical evidence this hypothesis rests on the assumption that global timber markets respond to a common equilibrating mechanism that provides strong enough incentives for loggers in the tropical regions of the world this article develops a simple model and taps into a unique data set on timber prices of hardwood and softwood in leading markets to test the global timber markets hypothesis while we find evidence of a global equilibrating mechanism with potentially significant economic incentives to affect tropical deforestation our results do not endorse the common conjecture in the literature that timber price shocks in developed countries lead to a homogeneous response in terms of deforestation everywhere in the tropical world instead they invite further development of structural global timber market models to assess the linkages between ma

effects of asymmetric information and reference emission levels on the emissions from deforestation and degradation abstract reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation plus as an important measure to mitigate climate change can effectively reduce the emissions caused by deforestation and degradation in tropical countries it is particularly important in the projects of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation plus that carbon emission monitoring and reference emission levels are tied to the revenues of a country however how do the reference emission levels and information of emissions influence project performance is still uncertain within a theoretical analysis framework this paper considers the confliction among landholder behaviors goals of policymakers as well as the distortion caused by the existence of asymmetric information the theoretical framework reveals two hypotheses through comparing optimal decisions under different scenarios i an increase in reference emission levels can lead to a decrease in landholders efforts and an increase in actual emissions ii information asymmetry caused by the increase of landholder s forest area results in an increase in emissions the empirical study uses panel data for 75 developing countries to test these hypotheses the results show that a monitoring reporting and verification system can help achieve the social optimum level for emissions and the efforts by landholders an increase in the forest areas owned by landholders and in rel will lead to an increase in emissions the empirical results also confirm this point at a global scale as well as regionally in africa latin america the caribbean and asia oceania as solutions for these problems an effective monitoring reporting and verification system is crucial in successful implementation of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation plus

economic and environmental benefits of eliminating log export bans the case of costa rica an increasing number of tropical timber producing nations have enacted bans on export of logs arguing that this will reduce deforestation expand downstream wood processing and improve the scale efficiency of domestic processing create jobs and retain more value added nationally the theoretical literature is clear that trade restrictions are generally welfare reducing except in special cases such as when there is a potential for an optimal export tax at best a log export ban is a second best policy tool for reducing deforestation and addressing the associated environmental externalities in overall terms the suggestion that log export bans can achieve the objectives expected of them is dubious however very little quantitative evidence exists to demonstrate this claim and the paper attempts to address this gap by looking at the economic and environmental impacts of eliminating a log export ban in costa rica the authors argue that eliminating the export ban is pareto improving and could generate economic gains as high as 14 million per annum with the possibility of relatively modest environmental benefits

consumer s surplus without apology the purpose of this paper is to settle the controversy surrounding consumer s surplus and by so doing to validate its use as a tool of welfare economics i will show that observed consumer s surplus can be rigorously utilized to estimate the unobservable compensating and equivalent variations the correct theoretical measures of the welfare impact of changes in prices and income on an individual i derive precise upper and lower bounds on the percentage errors of approximating the compensating and equivalent variations with consumer s surplus these bounds can be explicitly calculated from observable demand data and it is clear that in most applications the error of approximation will be very small in fact the error will often be overshadowed by the errors involved in estimating the demand curve the results in no way depend upon arguments about the constancy of the marginal utility of income consequently this paper supplies specific empirical criteria which can replace the apologetic caveats frequently employed by those who presently apply consumer s surplus moreover the results imply that consumer s surplus is usually a very good approximation to the appropriate welfare measures to preview below i establish the validity of these rules of thumb for a

conflicts over property rights and natural resource exploitation at the frontier abstract competition for land at the frontier is analyzed by considering a game between a first settler and a contestant although the first settler is the legitimate owner of a plot of land his remoteness from the government s administrative center makes it difficult to prove it this creates incentives for a contestant to dispute his claims both contenders will expend resources in order to secure ownership due to transport costs the more remote a plot of land is the lower its output value this tends to discourage appropriative activities land degradation is sometimes used as a substitute to appropriative activities a lower discount rate may encourage land degradation

cooperation for sustainable forest management an empirical differential game approach we model the role of the world s forests as a major carbon sink and consider the impact that forest depletion has on the accumulation of co2 in the atmosphere two types of agents are considered forest owners who exploit the forest and draw economic revenues in the form of timber and agricultural use of deforested land and a non forest owner group who pollutes and suffers the negative externality of having a decreasing forest stock we retrieve the cooperative solution for this game and show the cases in which cooperation enables a partial reduction in the negative externality we analyze when it is jointly profitable to abate emissions when it is profitable to reduce net deforestation and when it is optimal to do both abate and reduce net deforestation assuming that the players adopt the nash bargaining solution to share the total dividend of cooperation we determine the total amount that the non forest owners have to transfer to forest owners next we define a time consistent payment schedule that allocates over time the total transfer

deforestation property rights and international trade deforestation primarily affects developing countries most developing countries share two characteristics 1 trade liberalization reforms in the last two decades and 2 weak property rights and limited rule of law this paper investigates this second best world first in a stylized model in which trade distortions are eliminated in an economy whose natural resources are subject to open access second empirically in an estimation exercise that disentangles the direct effect of trade on deforestation rates and an indirect effect through its interaction with ownership security in accordance with the theory the results show that only the indirect effect is significant

evaluation of electricity supply sustainability and security multi criteria decision analysis approach abstract electricity supply plays a significantly important role in national economy and society development accordingly the evaluation of electricity supply sustainability and security as an early warning method is beneficial for the decision makers policy makers to take various measures to enhance electricity supply sustainability and security this study aims at developing a multi criteria decision analysis framework for electricity supply sustainability and security evaluation and a total of nine metrics i e shannon weiner index electricity import dependence supply adequacy rural electrification rate electric power losses ratio residential consumption ratio electricity per gross domestic product electric power consumption per capita and fossil fuel dependence in four dimensions including availability and security of supply affordability and reliability energy and economic efficiency and environmental stewardship were employed for electricity supply sustainability and security evaluation fuzzy analytic hierarchy process which allows the users to use linguistic terms to express their opinions was used to determine the weights of the criteria which represent their relative importance in the evaluation of electricity supply sustainability and security grey rational analysis was used to prioritize the status of electricity supply sustainability and security of different countries in different years the electricity supply sustainability and security of the five major emerging national economies brazil russia india china and south africa was studied in chinese perspective by the proposed method

can renewable energy power the future fossil fuels face resource depletion supply security and climate change problems renewable energy re may offer the best prospects for their long term replacement however re sources differ in many important ways from fossil fuels particularly in that they are energy flows rather than stocks the most important re sources wind and solar energy are also intermittent necessitating major energy storage as these sources increase their share of total energy supply we show that estimates for the technical potential of re vary by two orders of magnitude and argue that values at the lower end of the range must be seriously considered both because their energy return on energy invested falls and environmental costs rise with cumulative output finally most future re output will be electric necessitating radical reconfiguration of existing grids to function with intermittent re

exploring the relationship between energy usage segregation and environmental degradation in n 11 countries numerous studies regarding the economic growth environmental pollution link have struggled to determine the effects of various forms of energy consumption on environmental degradation particularly in the context of emerging economies this study examines the environmental kuznets curve ekc for co2 emissions in n 11 countries during 1990 2014 by segregating three forms of energy consumption renewable biomass and non renewable urbanization and trade openness are additional explanatory variables that are used in the empirical framework using the generalized moments method gmm the empirical evidence confirms the presence of an n shaped relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation for n 11 countries this study analyzed the interaction effects among trade openness biomass consumption and economic growth these interactions had a negative impact on co2 emissions levels of n 11 countries suitable policy recommendations have been provided based on the detailed results

redd and forest transition tunneling through the environmental kuznets curve abstract international attention is focused on finding ways to reduce emissions from deforestation because of the emerging concerns over climate change however the causes of deforestation are rooted in current economic and development paradigms the causes of deforestation also vary across different geographical regions and have implications for the forest transition attempts to reach an international agreement on curbing deforestation have achieved little success despite over 30 years of un negotiations new initiatives from redd reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation could provide financial incentives to curb deforestation hence alternative development paths for forest cover changes and forest transition are analyzed for the redd policy within the framework of an environmental kuznets curve ekc for deforestation the ekc models are estimated for geographical regions of latin america africa and asia the results based on the panel data analysis of 43 countries covering the period 1970 1994 provides evidence that an inverted u shaped ekc fits for latin america and africa while a u shaped ekc applies to asia the results also indicate that strengthening agricultural and forestry sector policies are important for curbing deforestation the ekc models estimates could provide guidance for decisions on financing the redd policy as specific to each region

what has driven deforestation in developing countries since the 2000s evidence from new remote sensing data summary using newly released and globally available high resolution remote sensing data on forest loss we update the assessment of the cross country determinants of deforestation in developing countries we validate most of the major determinants found in the previous literature generally based on earlier time periods except for the role of institutional quality agricultural trade hitherto relatively neglected is found to be one of the main factors causing deforestation focusing on the effect of international trade we show that countries with different levels of relative forest cover react differently to a shock in agricultural exports value we also emphasize that taking countries development into account may be critical in assessing global deforestation trends the impact of trade is high in countries still endowed with a large proportion of forest cover while it is lower in countries with smaller remaining forest cover we finally estimate through a simple calibration exercise the requirements for a cost effective redd policy for compensating trade losses in an open economy exporting agricultural commodities and endowed with tropical forests we conclude that in a world with increasing global demand it might be costly to compensate totally and thus to offer the right incentives for developing countries to limit deforestation

choice modelling and its potential application to tropical rainforest preservation abstract loss of rainforest occurs in part because of a global market failure problem markets routinely transmit signals about international demands for forest products such as timber but fail to transmit signals about demands for preservation to make efficient resource allocation choices decision makers need some framework to estimate the non use values that might be held by an international community for rainforest preservation non market valuation techniques can be used for this purpose but framing and other problems limit the application of the contingent valuation method cvm an alternative technique choice modelling cm appears to hold some promise because it can be used to model complex situations and to frame choices consistent with real life choices in this paper a cm experiment to assess the values that australians hold for rainforest conservation in vanuatu is reported the experiment disguises effectively the issue of interest rainforest conservation in vanuatu within a pool of other conservation locations also the experiment demonstrates that choice tradeoffs may involve a variety of environmental and socio economic factors rather than be concentrated on some monetary tradeoff the results demonstrate that a variety of predictive and valuation tools can be gained from a cm experiment and suggest that further development is warranted

explaining forest transitions the role of governance abstract we analyze how governance may influence competing land uses for forests and thus the occurrence of forest transitions across different low and middle income countries we develop a model of competing land uses that allows for governance to impact the risk of future versus current agricultural and forested land allocations the resulting hypothesis on the relationship between governance and the likelihood of a forest transition is then tested using cross country data the empirical analysis offers strong support for the competing land use framework and indicates that rule of law forest policy and regulatory quality influence forest transitions these findings inform not only the ongoing debate on forest transitions but also policy options for managing such transitions in developing economies

multiplant firms and innovation adoption and diffusion 1 introductionone empirical regularity associated with the adoption of new technology is that large firms tend to adopt sooner than small firms e g see davies 1979 mansfield 1968 mansfield et al 1982 stoneman 1983 1995 or hoppe 2002 the usual explanation of course is that large firms expect a greater return from adoption than small firms however large firms do not always adopt first as can be seen from the diffusion of several new processes in the u s steel industry the basic oxygen furnace and continuous casting adams and mueller 1982 and thin slab casting ghemawat 1993 1995 this article develops a new theoretical model of innovation adoption and diffusion that explains why large firms tend to adopt first but admits conditions under which small firms adopt first the analysis focuses on the adoption of an innovation of uncertain profitability when a firm s size is measured by the number of plants it operates as is well known one reason for operating multiple plants is production costs that are increasing at the margin another reason is the existence of economies of multiplant operations cost savings that result solely from the operation of multiple plants theoretical and empirical support for these economies is mixed theoretically the operation of multiple plants can allow savings in nonproduction costs such as transportation distribution and inventory it can also allow economies of massed reserves cost savings associated with retaining proportionately fewer spare parts backup machines and repair persons in reserve information sharing between plants can reduce production and adoption costs however multiplant operation can also result in greater information costs van zandt and radner 2001 show that because information processing takes time computational constraints limit the amount of information that can be used in reaching a decision this informational crowding out effect can result in decreasing returns to size or diseconomies of multiplant operation in a seminal wide ranging study scherer et al 1975 find little empirical evidence in support of multiplant economies moreover when these economies do exist they involve savings in nonproduction costs more recently in their comparative study of the performance of light water nuclear reactor power plants in the united states and france lester and mccabe 1993 do find empirical support for production cost savings due to information sharing about learning by doing between plants in his study of the adoption of thin slab casting in the steel industry ghemawat 1995 1997 finds that nucor achieved cost savings due to information sharing between plants regarding both construction and production costs however he attributes these multiplant economies to specific aspects of nucor s organizational structure and observes that other steel firms with different organizational structures did not achieve these same cost savings given these conflicting results the analysis in this article assumes that if there are multiplant economies they take the form of savings in nonproduction costs in this case a large firm need not have a greater incentive to adopt first its increase in profit from the adoption of a success in all its plants is certainly greater however the existence of nonproduction cost economies can reduce the incentive of a large firm to adopt first suppose there are two firms a large firm with two plants and a small firm with one plant also suppose that when the innovation is first installed in a plant the adopter must shut down that plant for a finite amount of time in order to learn if the innovation is a success or not this shut down time can be considered as an experimental period during which the firm trains workers produces and tests prototypes attempts to overcome any problems associated with the use of the new technology or makes any necessary changes in its existing organization

the economics of tropical deforestation this paper provides a survey of first wave economic studies of tropical deforestation and land use these studies of tropical forest land conversion are generally at the cross country level we also conduct a synthesis cross country analysis of tropical agricultural land expansion the results show that agricultural development is the main factor determining land expansion but institutional factors have an important influence income effects tend to vary from region to region and do not always display an environmental kuznets curve relationship copyright 2001 by blackwell publishers ltd

the precarious consensus on the importance of energy security contrasting views between swiss energy users and experts abstract consented visions of a secure energy system are a driving force for energy policies and projects but while there used to exist a fairly uniform understanding of energy security in recent years competing visions have emerged examples include autarchic regional energy systems and highly integrated international ones each of these follows its own energy security logic this paper explores linkages between individuals understanding of energy security and their preferences for different energy visions comparing energy users and experts it draws from two consecutive studies in switzerland the first is a series of 12 qualitative interviews among energy system experts who reveal a strong preference for an integrated energy system that is based on high quality infrastructure this stands in contrast to the countries predominant paradigm of independence which is not only present in the public discourse but also in national energy policies the second study is an online survey that finds differences between energy users n 194 and experts n 98 understanding of energy security experts tend to see energy security primarily as the absence of supply disruptions whereas energy users tend to take a long term perspective and to include additional aspects in their considerations such as environmental concerns thus the societal consensus on the importance of energy security is a precarious one conflicts about the meaning of energy security can strip the concept of its power to be a building block of societal energy visions decision makers in policy and the energy sector therefore need to be aware that a shared understanding of energy security cannot be taken for granted they should also recognize energy security as a strong argument for promoting renewables however it will not suffice to refer to a specific renewable project as beneficial for energy security conveying its benefits from an energy security perspective requires knowledge of key actors understandings of this complex concept

welfare impacts of electricity generation sector reform in the philippines abstract this paper reports an empirical investigation into the welfare impacts of the introduction of private sector participation into the philippines electricity generation sector by liberalizing the market for independent power producers ipps during the power crisis of 1990 1993 this study uses a social cost and benefit analysis the main benefits came from ipps who contributed to resolving the crisis and promoted economic and social development consumers and investors were net gainers while the government lost and there was an air pollution cost the paper concludes that the reform with private sector participation increased social welfare