co2 emission abatement cost and its decomposition a directional distance function approach accurately estimating carbon dioxide co2 abatement costs and effectively identifying the factors impacting those costs can improve the applicability and effectiveness of policy implementation this paper proposes a new method to estimate co2 abatement costs cac based on the directional distance function the method theoretically decomposes cac into carbon productivity and output elasticity of substitutions this decomposition can identify the types of cac the method also investigates the effects of development mode selection on cac by selecting different directional vectors following the theoretical discussion an empirical study is presented focusing on high energy consumption firms in the united states u s the results were as follows 1 in sustainable development mode changes in the average cac of all firms were caused both by carbon productivity and output elasticity of substitution carbon productivity dominated cac differences among different firm types 2 in general the amelioration potential of firm technology and environmental management was gradually explored by firms during sample period corresponding environmental regulatory strategies are needed for firms with different cac characteristics 3 firms selecting different development modes will realize significant differences in cac firms in the sustainable development mode had the highest cac levels however this mode was best for achieving a win win between economic benefits and environmental protection

modeling charitable giving using a box cox standard tobit model there is a large literature investigating the determinants of charitable giving in particular price and income elasticities we find that many of the most often reported results from this literature rely on a model specification that is inappropriate when applied to recent federal tax file data we develop a standard tobit model with a box cox transformation parameter that nests a number of other specifications the box cox model yields estimates of price elasticities and expected charitable contributions that differ from those obtained using the typical specification additionally we find that the use of sample weights provides potentially important policy insights copyright 1991 by mit press

a derivation of the marginal abatement cost curve abstract the relationship between a firm s technology and its marginal abatement cost mac curve is explored even under the simplest specifications the mac curve will be kinked at some point except under a special assumption which in reality could easily be violated the nondifferentiability implies that the choice of instrument under uncertainty may depend on the targeted level of emissions reduction also stability conditions for dynamic tax mechanisms may be violated in the neighborhood of the kink point a policy implication is that in some cases output restrictions are as efficient as emissions restrictions in contrast to previous results

directional shadow price estimation of co2 so2 and nox in the united states coal power industry 1990 2010 abstract shadow prices also termed marginal abatement costs provide valuable guidelines to support environmental regulatory policies for co 2 so 2 and no x the key contributors to climate change this paper complements the existing models and describes a directional marginal productivity dmp approach to estimate directional shadow prices dsps which present substitutability among three emissions and are jointly estimated we apply the method to a case study of co 2 so 2 and no x produced by coal power plants operating between 1990 and 2010 in the united states we find that dsp shows 1 1 times the maximal shadow prices estimated in the current literature we conclude that estimating the shadow prices of each by product separately may lead to an overestimation of the marginal productivity and an underestimation of the shadow prices

power sector reform and co2 abatement costs in korea abstract the current korean administration is driving change in the power sector by gradually phasing out nuclear power plants expanding the use of renewable energy and imposing restrictions on the operation of coal power plants considering these changes the marginal abatement cost mac curve would provide crucial information to determine an appropriate greenhouse gas reduction target especially for 2030 this study derives the mac curves for the korean power sector in 2030 using a bottom up optimization model with three scenarios based on different carbon pricing schedules in addition the carbon price required to achieve the co2 emission targets in the korean power sector in 2030 are estimated the results show that a carbon price of 135 157 us tco2 would be required to achieve the 2030 emission target for the power sector by comparing the mac curves of three different scenarios we can reiterate the fact that early action regarding climate change mitigation is more effective and efficient than delayed action

an economic analysis of the possibility of reducing pesticides in french field crops the paper aims to study the effects of reducing pesticide use by farmers in the arable sector in france and the feasibility of a policy target of reducing pesticide use by half the originality of the approach is to combine statistical data and expert knowledge to describe low input alternative techniques at the national level these data are used in a mathematical programming model to simulate the effect on land use production and farmers income of achieving different levels of pesticide reduction the results show that reducing pesticide use by 30 could be possible without reducing farmers income we also estimate the levels of tax on pesticides necessary to achieve different levels of reduction of pesticide use and the effect of an incentive mechanism combining a pesticide tax with subsidies for low input techniques

analysis of the economic impact of different chinese climate policy options based on a cge model incorporating endogenous technological change abatement cost is the main concern for climate change mitigation and the key factor for mitigation cost is technological change this study established an integrated economic energy environmental dynamic computable general equilibrium cge model representing endogenous technological change for china s climate change policy analysis this study analyzed and compared the economic impact of different approaches to mitigation commitments as well as the potential role of technological change in the formulation of mitigation targets and commitments taking into account china s climate policy making needs based on the current international climate negotiation process the results show that absolute emission limits similar to the kyoto protocol will seriously impede the future economic development of china while the impact of an 80 reduction in carbon intensity forecast for 2050 based on the 2005 level is relatively small technological change can promote economic growth improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon intensity per unit of output through the substitution of production factors consequently it can reduce marginal abatement cost and related gdp loss by mitigation at the same time it can increase mitigation potentials and extend the emission reduction amount showing that consideration of the impact of technological change when deciding the emission reduction targets is necessary

marginal abatement costs of co2 emissions in the thermal power sector a regional empirical analysis from china abstract quantifying marginal abatement costs of co2 emissions are beneficial to estimate mitigation potentials and costs of china s regional thermal power sector based on the panel data of 30 provinces from 2004 to 2013 this study estimates the technical efficiency reduction potential and marginal abatement costs of co2 emissions from the thermal power sector in china using a parametric quadratic directional output distance function a regression analysis is undertaken to identify the factors that drive marginal abatement costs the main results are 1 the mean value of directional output distance function in china s thermal power sector is 0 0449 indicating that inefficient production of chinese thermal power sector accounts for 4 49 co2 emissions could be mitigated by accumulated 1 22 billion ton in the past ten year which is approximate 4 49 of total co2 emissions 2 the national weighted average marginal abatement costs of co2 emissions are 316 51 yuan ton which is far higher than carbon price in the current ets emission trading system pilots in china implying that carbon price does not inflect supply and demand of carbon allowance 3 the regression results show that the marginal abatement costs positively connect with regional power scale namely a 1 increase in power scale will result in a 13 8 increase technology level coal supply and power structure are negatively correlated with marginal abatement costs namely a 1 increase in technology level coal supply and power structure will result respectively in a 30 41 4 38 and 77 7 decrease

counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression we propose a method to decompose the changes in the wage distribution over a period of time in several factors contributing to those changes the method is based on the estimation of marginal wage distributions consistent with a conditional distribution estimated by quantile regression as well as with any hypothesized distribution for the covariates comparing the marginal distributions implied by different distributions for the covariates one is then able to perform counterfactual exercises the proposed methodology enables the identification of the sources of the increased wage inequality observed in most countries specifically it decomposes the changes in the wage distribution over a period of time into several factors contributing to those changes namely by discriminating between changes in the characteristics of the working population and changes in the returns to these characteristics we apply this methodology to portuguese data for the period 1986 1995 and find that the observed increase in educational levels contributed decisively towards greater wage inequality copyright 2005 john wiley sons ltd

what are the key drivers of mac curves a partial equilibrium modelling approach for the uk marginal abatement cost mac curves are widely used for the assessment of costs related to co2 emissions reduction in environmental economics as well as domestic and international climate policy several meta analyses and model comparisons have previously been performed that aim to identify the causes for the wide range of mac curves most of these concentrate on general equilibrium models with a focus on aspects such as specific model type and technology learning while other important aspects remain almost unconsidered including the availability of abatement technologies and level of discount rates this paper addresses the influence of several key parameters on mac curves for the united kingdom and the year 2030 a technology rich energy system model uk markal is used to derive the mac curves the results of this study show that mac curves are robust even to extreme fossil fuel price changes while uncertainty around the choice of the discount rate the availability of key abatement technologies and the demand level were singled out as the most important influencing factors by using a different model type and studying a wider range of influencing factors this paper contributes to the debate on the sensitivity of mac curves

estimating the marginal abatement cost curve of co2 emissions in china provincial panel data analysis abstract this paper estimates the marginal abatement cost curve macc of co2 emissions in china based on a provincial panel for the period of 2001 2010 the provincial marginal abatement cost mac of co2 emissions is estimated using a parameterized directional output distance function four types of model specifications are applied to fit the mac carbon intensity pairs the optimal specification controlling for various covariates is identified econometrically a scenario simulation of china s 40 45 carbon intensity reduction based on our macc is illustrated our simulation results show that china would incur a 559 623 yuan t roughly 51 57 increase in marginal abatement cost to achieve a corresponding 40 45 reduction in carbon intensity compared to its 2005 level

estimating tax noncompliance with evidence from unaudited tax returns this article estimates the degree of tax noncompliance using evidence from unaudited tax returns measurements of noncompliance are derived from the relationship between reported charitable contributions and reported income from wages and salary as compared to alternative reported income sources such as self employment farm and other small business income assuming that the source of one s income is unrelated to one s charitable inclinations and that the ratio of true income to taxable income does not vary by income source any difference in the relationship between charitable contributions and the source of income can be attributed to relative underreporting by the individual we find that the implied amount of noncompliance is significant and that it varies by source of income as well as between positive and negative values of each type of income tax evasion creates horizontal inequity and if opportunities for evasion are correlated with income complicates the attempt to achieve vertical equity evasion also imposes economic costs because taxpayers expend resources to facilitate evasion and the tax agency expends resources to contain it the equity and efficiency implications of tax evasion and optimal policy to address it depend on its magnitude and nature which for obvious reasons is difficult to ascertain this article contributes to that effort by developing a new method for estimating the extent and nature of tax noncompliance based on evidence from unaudited tax returns this evidence is derived from the relationship between reported charitable contributions and reported taxable income from various sources such as wages and salaries selfemployment nonfarm small business and farm income and is based on the assumptions that the source of one s income is unrelated to one s charitable inclinations and that the ratio of true income to taxable income does not vary by income source we find that the implied amount of noncompliance on non wageand salary income is substantial and that it varies among these sources of income as well as between positive and negative values of each type of income on average reported positive self employment nonfarm small business and farm income must be multiplied by a factor of 1 54 4 54 and 3 87 respectively in order to obtain true income even those individuals who report zero income for a specific income source but file the schedule for that source are estimated to have true positive income finally those households that report negative schedule income may actually have greater true income than those households that report positive income

a new approach to measuring shadow price reconciling engineering and economic perspectives abstract shadow price is one of the most important pieces of information in environmental decision making two different approaches namely economic and engineering have been applied to obtain the shadow price of undesirable outputs while using different methodological backgrounds and perspectives the current study proposes a new conceptual framework and an economic estimation model to reconcile the shadow price estimates derived via the two approaches we also suggest a new mapping rule that incorporates the concept of abatement level which is a basic element in the engineering approach as a result the proposed model generates continuously changing estimates i e comprising a shadow price curve based on the abatement level we further investigate the determinant factors of shadow price by using second step regression the suggested methodology is used to investigate the shadow price of carbon emissions in south korean electricity generating plants thus yielding relevant policy implications

the hotspots reference routes and research trends of marginal abatement costs a systematic review abstract as one of the most effective means of evaluating environmental policies marginal abatement costs macs have been adopted in a growing body of research this study characterizes the mac related literature from 1993 to 2018 on web of science based on a systematic review bibliometric analysis and mind mapping the results classify the research hotspots into influential factors methods and empirical applications the three most frequently mentioned influential factors are technical change discount rates and energy prices compared with top down models bottom up models including engineering model and expert based method are the most widely used improvements in the former focus on strengthening market behavior effect while those in the latter aim to overcome the weaknesses of negative costs and lack of interaction across measures mac applications focus on environmental policies with two new research areas recently emerging co benefits and sectoral abatement costs furthermore a reference route is proposed by summarizing the applicability of methods and matching relationships among influential factors methods and empirical problems finally potential research directions are summarized based on the identified research hotspots and a similar co word analysis in marginal cost field such as considering the effects of both multiple influential factors and the interaction among factors on maccs

valuation of marginal co2 abatement options for electric power plants in korea the electricity generation sector in korea is under pressure to mitigate greenhouse gases as directed by the kyoto protocol the principal compliance options for power companies under the cap and trade include the application of direct co2 emission abatement and the procurement of emission allowances the objective of this paper is to provide an analytical framework for assessing the cost effectiveness of these options we attempt to derive the marginal abatement cost for co2 using the output distance function and analyze the relative advantages of emission allowance procurement option as compared to direct abatement option real option approach is adopted to incorporate emission allowance price uncertainty empirical result shows the marginal abatement cost with an average of 14 04 ton co2 for fossil fueled power plants and confirms the existence of substantial cost heterogeneity among plants which is sufficient to achieve trading gains in allowance market the comparison of two options enables us to identify the optimal position of the compliance for each plant sensitivity analyses are also presented with regard to several key parameters including the initial allowance prices and interest rate the result of this paper may help korean power plants to prepare for upcoming regulations targeted toward the reduction of domestic greenhouse gases

the cost of reducing co2 emissions integrating abatement technologies into economic modeling we explore two methods of incorporating bottom up abatement cost estimates into top down modeling an economy wide method and a sector specific method carbon emissions generally depend on technology and scale given the technology options abatement is possible without a substantial reduction in scale otherwise the change must come purely through a reduction in demand our analysis shows that the cost of environmental policy is considerably overestimated by top down models if a bottom up abatement cost curve is not included using the data for the swiss economy we demonstrate two techniques of representing an abatement function explicitly in a computable general equilibrium model a traditional and a hybrid discrete technology modeling approach the results suggest that the current climate policy in switzerland will not be able to move the economy towards the required 10 co2 reduction both approaches provide virtually the same results when the calibration process is precisely executed which contradicts the results of previous studies

cultivating disaster donors using data analytics nonprofit organizations use direct mail marketing to cultivate one time donors and convert them into recurring contributors cultivated donors generate much more revenue than new donors but also lapse with time making it important to steadily draw in new cultivations the direct mail budget is limited but better designed mailings can improve success rates without increasing costs we propose an empirical model to analyze the effectiveness of several design approaches used in practice based on a massive data set covering 8 6 million direct mail communications with donors to the american red cross during 2009 2011 we find evidence that mailed appeals are more effective when they emphasize disaster preparedness and training efforts over post disaster cleanup including small cards that affirm donors identity as red cross supporters is an effective strategy whereas including gift items such as address labels is not finally very recent acquisitions are more likely to respond to appeals that ask them t

household consumption of cheese an inverse hyperbolic sine double hurdle model with dependent errors the dependent double hurdle model is generalized by an inverse hyperbolic sine transformation of the dependent variable the resulting specification features a flexible parameterization accommodates heteroskedastic errors and nests a range of common limited dependent variable models results for u s household cheese consumption suggest that the homoskedastic and normal double hurdle model is misspecified income elasticities are small and vary across household groups foodstamp recipients are more responsive to income changes than nonrecipients foodstamp recipients are also less likely to consume cheese but conditional on consumption spend more than nonrecipients

cross section estimation of us demand for alcoholic beverage a flexible limited dependent variable model is used to examine us demand for alcoholic beverage parameterization and distributional assumptions of the double hurdle model cragg 1971 and tobit model tobin 1958 are rejected findings suggest that price income household composition and other characteristics have significant effects on alcohol consumption income and own price elasticities are significant but relatively small

a nonparametric method to estimate a technical change effect on marginal abatement costs of u s coal power plants the literature usually assumes that technical change reduces marginal abatement cost however recent results suggest that precisely the opposite occurs this paper proposes a nonparametric method to determine the effect of technical change on marginal abatement cost the method decomposes nox marginal abatement cost changes in 2000 2004 and in 2004 2008 for 325 boilers operating in 134 u s bituminous coal power plant into technical and non technical change effects we find that technical change reduces the nox marginal cost about 28 3 in 2000 2004 and 26 5 in 2004 2008 however more stringent regulations enacted the nox budget program results in lower nox emission levels as plant operators install more advanced nox abatement equipment which in turn causes an overall increase in marginal abatement cost

quantifying co2 abatement costs in the power sector co2 cap and trade mechanisms and co2 emission taxes are becoming increasingly widespread to assess the impact of a co2 price marginal abatement cost curves maccs are a commonly used tool by policy makers providing a direct graphical link between a co2 price and the expected abatement however such maccs can suffer from issues related to robustness and granularity this paper focuses on the relation between a co2 emission cost and co2 emission reductions in the power sector the authors present a new methodology that improves the understanding of the relation between a co2 cost and co2 abatement the methodology is based on the insight that co2 emissions in the power sector are driven by the composition of the conventional power portfolio the residual load and the generation costs of the conventional units the methodology addresses both the robustness issue and the granularity issue related to maccs the methodology is based on a bottom up approach starting from engineering knowledge of the power sector it offers policy makers a new tool to assess co2 abatement options the methodology is applied to the central western european power system and illustrates possible interaction effects between e g fuel switching and renewables deployment

project cost comparison under the clean development mechanism to inform investment selection by industrialized countries this is the first study that comprehensively evaluates and compares the average costs of six types of 4061 registered clean development mechanism cdm projects the projects were conducted from 2005 to 2014 by industrialized countries investing in host countries that had various technology and income levels specifically this study compares the average costs of emission reduction for each type of project projects were used by industrialized countries to achieve specific emission reductions commitments the lowest average cost per ton of reduced emissions found in renewable energy projects fuel switch projects supply side energy efficiency improvements and demand side energy efficiency improvements all of which were effectively reduced emissions by less than 1 million tons in host countries with high technology levels and upper medium income levels the average cost for the other two project types methane reduction and methane avoidance showed that these projects were more effective at reducing emissions by more than 50 million tons in host countries with upper middle technology levels and upper medium income levels these lowest average costs for different project types can guide project selection by industrialized countries seeking the lowest total emission reduction costs selection of cdm project investments by industrialized countries should account not only for the technology and income levels of host countries but also for the amounts by which industrialized countries have committed to reducing their emissions

two stage estimation to control for unobservables in a recreation demand model with unvisited sites the role of unobserved site attributes is a growing concern in recreation demand modeling one solution in random utility models rums involves separating estimation into two stages where the rum is estimated with alternative specific constants ascs in the first stage and the estimated ascs are regressed on the observed site attributes in the second stage prior work estimates the second stage with ordinary least squares ols and two stage least squares regression we present an application with censored regression in the second stage we show ols produces inconsistent parameters when there are unvisited sites with no estimable ascs and that censored regression avoids this problem

regional differences in china s co2 abatement cost abstract under a framework of output distance function with multiple outputs the study discusses the carbon abatement cost at provincial and regional levels in china using the shadow price analysis the findings show that the abatement cost reflecting the marginal opportunity cost of carbon reduction varies greatly among the provinces on average the abatement cost of the eastern region was much higher than that of the mid western region during the observed period the findings provide evidence that the carbon prices in the current ets pilots have been much lower than desired levels implying inefficiency of the markets the wide range of the abatement cost estimates supports that the equi marginal principle does not hold for the regulations on carbon pollution at regional levels the regional cost differences indicate the huge potential for china to minimize the total abatement cost with policy instruments that may motive the emissions moving from areas of low abatement cost to where the abatement cost is higher for a few undeveloped provinces that are environmentally fragile and have high abatement cost supplementary measures will be needed to reduce the negative impact of carbon cutbacks on the poor to the minimum

marginal co2 abatement costs findings from alternative shadow price estimates for shanghai industrial sectors abstract shanghai one of the most developed cities in china is implementing a pilot regional carbon emission trading scheme estimating the marginal abatement costs of co2 emissions for the industrial sectors covered in shanghai s emission trading scheme provides the government and participating firms useful information for devising compliance policies this paper employs multiple distance function approaches to estimating the shadow prices of co2 emissions for shanghai industrial sectors our empirical results show that the overall weighted average of shadow price estimates by different approaches ranges between 394 5 and 1906 1 yuan ton which indicates that model choice truly has a significant effect on the shadow price estimation we have also identified a negative relationship between the shadow price of co2 emissions and carbon intensity and the heavy industries with higher carbon intensities tend to have lower shadow prices it has been suggested that shanghai municipal government take various measures to improve its carbon market e g using the marginal abatement costs of participating sectors firms as a criterion in the initial allocation of carbon emission allowances

evaluating public policy mechanisms for climate change mitigation in brazilian buildings sector abstract this paper applies a multi criteria analysis mca and marginal abatement cost curves macc to evaluate public policies mechanisms to promote the dissemination of energy efficiency ee and on site renewable energy sources res technologies in brazilian buildings sector the objective here is to bring together the advantages of both methods in order to provide more valuable insights to policy makers the mca results show that in the case of more integrative policies which considers for instance potential of jobs creation the mechanisms to foster distributed res and solar water heaters are better ranked than in macc analysis where only cost effectiveness of each option is evaluated other key finding is that 1 there is a significant cost effective potential that could be reached through alternative mechanisms not implemented yet in the country such as public procurement regulation and building codes and 2 minimum energy performance standards meps could be broader in scope and more stringent and include the use of energy in standby mode and tubular fluorescent lamps in particular some important appliances such as large air conditioning devices should have more aggressive meps

marginal abatement costs of carbon dioxide emissions in china a parametric analysis this paper investigates the technical inefficiency shadow price and substitution elasticity of hbox co 2 emissions of china based on a provincial panel for 2001 2010 using linear programming to calculate a quadratic parameterized directional output distance function we show that china s technical inefficiency increases over the period implying further scope for hbox co 2 emissions reduction in the medium and longer term at best by 4 5 and 4 9 respectively our results notwithstanding regional differences highlight increases in the shadow price of hbox co 2 abatement 1 000 yuan ton in 2001 to 2 100 yuan ton in 2010 additionally increasingly steep substitution elasticity highlights the difficult reality of reducing china s hbox co 2 emissions

marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions from european agriculture cost effectiveness and the eu non ets burden sharing agreement abstract we propose a quantitative assessment of the marginal abatement costs mac of greenhouse gas emissions from european agriculture and analyze the implications of the non ets burden sharing agreement bsa for this sector this assessment is based on mac reduced forms the generic specification of which enables simple parameterization and numerical computations such mac curves are parameterized for each member state using the outputs of a detailed model of the european agricultural supply they are then used to compute total and marginal abatement costs involved by the bsa targets as well as the cost effective effort sharing the corresponding emission price and abatement costs the main findings are i flexibility mechanisms such as a cap and trade system for agricultural emissions could reduce the total costs of meeting the 10 eu abatement target by a factor two to three relative to the strict implementation of each country s target ii the corresponding equilibrium emission price is found to be 32 42 tco2eq depending on the assumption regarding business as usual emissions and iii a cap and trade system with allowances based on the bsa targets would involve substantial transfers from eu 15 countries to new member states an important share of which being made of hot air

the need for policy to address the food system lock in a case study of the finnish context abstract the introduction of synthetic fertilizers transformed the food system into the one we know today in the western world the present paper argues that this transformation has become an irreversible self feeding process referred to as food system lock in which threatens planetary boundaries of nitrogen and phosphorus hence the food security in the future a system in a lock in state can undermine its own existence by deteriorating the capacity to cope with upcoming crises of resource scarcity and environmental instability in this paper the roots of lock in are explored and empirically grounded in the historical narrative of the food system transition in finland in the past 60 years the theoretical framework builds on socio technical studies and the economic theory of increasing returns the aim of the paper is to identify through an evolutionary analysis the processes of increasing returns that have become path inefficient and have reinforced the lock in in the food system three separate but interdependent processes in the production in the policy and institutions and in the supply chain create systematic resistance towards sustainability transition these findings indicate that more attention should be paid at the public policies that are currently too narrow in their scope and do not effectively bridge the entire system from food production to consumption public intervention is critical for the unlocking but individuals in the various parts of the food system are those who create new paths

why are grain legumes rarely present in cropping systems despite their environmental and nutritional benefits analyzing lock in in the french agrifood system grain legume plants fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil and thus do not need nitrogen fertilizers therefore grain legumes can potentially decrease global warming as nitrogen fertilization is responsible for half of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions moreover grain legumes have many functional and nutritional properties both as feed and food despite the fact that the european union has granted considerable subsidies to promote grain legume cultivation their production continues to fall and there has been no satisfactory explanation as to why this study provides an answer by showing that a situation of technological lock in has resulted from the co evolution of crop systems based on an agrochemical paradigm public policies and market dynamics that promote cereals this process began with the historical choice by european and french public institutions to relegate grain legumes to feed in direct competition with imported soybeans moreover interrelated factors such as breeding selection public subsidies and food systems have favored increasing returns to adoption for cereals to the detriment of grain legumes finally the evolutionary economics approach used here identified several actions that must be implemented together such as agricultural cost accounting methods nitrogen management institutional innovations and market outlets to promote grain legumes and move towards more sustainable agriculture

the failure of marginal abatement cost curves in optimising a transition to a low carbon energy supply abstract one of the tools used to optimise actions in reducing the carbon intensity of the economy is to use marginal abatement cost mac curves whilst these are known to be imperfect they are widely used to prioritise actions and often in a way that is incorrect in particular whilst their use for measures which have positive costs and a net reduction in carbon emissions can correctly rank the measures for effectiveness use for ranking measures which have a net negative cost including a wide range of energy efficiency measures is entirely inappropriate and leads to perverse and incorrect outcomes as a result many assessments of low carbon actions are fundamentally flawed in their ranking of effectiveness and action is needed to overcome this and allow an optimum outcome an alternative approach is suggested here

charitable contributions and intergenerational transfers abstract this paper investigates the effects of bequest taxes and the income of children on the lifetime charitable contributions of parents using matched income tax records for parents and children the results show a positive elasticity of 0 6 for contributions with respect to the tax price of bequests the paper also finds that the income of children affects the amount that parents contribute to charity the results show a positive elasticity of up to 0 14 for contributions by parents with respect to the income of children implying that when children are better off parents are likely to increase charitable giving

the case for methodological pluralism abstract ecology and economics share the same greek root both address complex systems ecology consists of numerous approaches to understanding natural systems energetics population biology food web models hierarchy theory to mention just a few within ecology field knowledge and the reporting of new observations are well respected economics on the other hand is dominated by one pattern of thinking and standard of proof the market model and econometrics within economics field knowledge and observations per se are little valued agreement on a correct method is frequently taken as an indication of the maturity of a science the argument is developed in this paper that all the aspects of complex systems can only be understood through multiple methodologies the agreement on method within economics however seems to reflect stronger pressures within the discipline for conformity than for truth relative to ecology since ecological economics seeks to understand a larger system than either economics or ecology seeks to understand a diversity of methodologies is appropriate and pressures to eliminate methodologies for the sake of conformity should be avoided

climate policies for road transport revisited ii closing the policy gap with cap and trade current policies in the road transport sector fail to deliver consistent and efficient incentives for greenhouse gas abatement see companion article by creutzig et al in press market based instruments such as cap and trade systems close this policy gap and complement traditional policies that are required where specific market failures arise even in presence of strong existing non market policies cap and trade delivers additional abatement and efficiency by incentivizing demand side abatement options this paper analyzes generic design options and economic impacts of including the european road transport sector into the eu ets suitable points of regulation are up and midstream in the fuel chain to ensure effectiveness cover all emissions and avoid double counting efficiency incentivize all abatement options and low transaction costs based on year 2020 marginal abatement cost curves from different models and current eu climate policy objectives we show that in contrast to conventional wisdom road transport inclusion would not change the eu ets allowance price hence industrial carbon leakage induced by adding road transport to the eu ets may be less important than previously estimated

an analysis of the costs of energy saving and co2 mitigation in rural households in china abstract households may imperfectly implement energy saving measures this study identifies two factors resulting in imperfect use of energy saving technology by households households often continue to use old technologies alongside new ones and the energy saving technologies have shorter actual lifetimes than their designed lifetimes these two factors are considered when computing marginal energy conservation cost and marginal co2 abatement cost using data collected from a survey of rural households in three provinces in china the results show that there are cost reduction for most space heating technologies and their marginal abatement cost under full implementation ranges from 60 to 15 usd t co2 while the marginal abatement cost of cooking technologies ranges from 12 to 85 usd t co2 the marginal abatement costs of the majority of technologies increased after accounting for the two implementation factors the marginal abatement cost in the imperfect implementation scenario is higher with a range of 1 to 15 usd t co2 for space heating and 18 to 165 usd t co2 for cooking assuming implementation factors are constant until 2035 annually achievable co2 abatement by 2035 is estimated to be 57 11 and 10 mt co2 y in hebei guizhou and guangxi provinces

the ranking of negative cost emissions reduction measures a flaw has been identified in the calculation of the cost effectiveness in marginal abatement cost curves maccs the problem affects negative cost emissions reduction measures those that produce a return on investment the resulting ranking sometimes favours measures that produce low emissions savings and is therefore unreliable the issue is important because incorrect ranking means a potential failure to achieve the best value outcome a simple mathematical analysis shows that not only is the standard cost effectiveness calculation inadequate for ranking negative cost measures but there is no possible replacement that satisfies reasonable requirements furthermore the concept of negative cost effectiveness is found to be unsound and its use should be avoided among other things this means that maccs are unsuitable for ranking negative cost measures as a result maccs produced by a range of organizations including uk government departments may need to be revised an alternative partial ranking method has been devised by making use of pareto optimization the outcome can be presented as a stacked bar chart that indicates both the preferred ordering and the total emissions saving available for each measure without specifying a cost effectiveness

opportunity cost of environmental conservation in the presence of externalities application to the farmed and wild salmon trade off in norway estimation of the opportunity cost is necessary for the economic assessment of environmental conservation policies this paper considers the case where an environmental good is negatively affected in the process of the production of marketable goods in the presence of externalities conservation implies the undertaking of abatement measures by polluters a relevant measure of opportunity cost in these settings is the abatement cost required to preserve or restore a unit of the environmental good in question current economic literature lacks an established methodology for deriving such measures as it commonly focuses on pricing pollutants rather than the natural stocks affected by them this paper uses a non optimal valuation approach suggested by fenichel and abbott jaere 1 1 2 1 27 2014 as a point of departure and develops a framework for deriving the opportunity cost of conservation as the cost of externality abatement per unit of environmental good an empirical illustration is provided for the case of the farmed and wild salmon trade off in norway in light of the current pollution control regulations

low carbon society scenario analysis of transport sector of an emerging economy the aim enduse modelling approach abstract the transport sector of a country is the backbone driving the economy forward thailand s land transport sector is modelled using the aim enduse which is a recursive dynamic optimization model based on bottom up modelling principle the travel demand is divided into two major categories which are passenger travel and freight travel the objective of this paper is to analyse the mitigation possible through low carbon society lcs measures and emission tax et two scenario clusters are devised along with the bau case the lcs scenario cluster has three designed scenarios which are lcs l lcs m and lcs h the emission tax et cluster has four scenarios where the taxes of 50 100 200 and 500 usd t co2 are implemented along with this the marginal abatement costs mac of the counter measures cms and the co benefits in terms of energy security productivity and air pollutant mitigation are also assessed results show that lcs scenarios are possible of mitigating up to 1230 mt co2 cumulatively from 2010 to 2050 in terms of macs new vehicles play a pivotal role along with hybrid vehicles the average abatement cost aac assessment shows that the aac of lcs h scenario is in the order of 100 usd t co2 all the lcs and et scenarios show an enhancement in energy security and also a threefold increase in productivity there is distinct mitigation in terms of air pollutants from the transport sector as well

estimation of a type 2 tobit model with generalized box cox transformation this article considers estimation of a type 2 tobit model with bickel doksum transformation of the dependent variable of the regression equation the basic idea is that while the transformed depend

parametric and semiparametric estimation of sample selection models an empirical application to the female labour force in portugal this paper applies both parametric and semiparametric methods to the estimation of wage and participation equations for married women in portugal the semiparametric estimators considered are the two stage estimators proposed by newey 1991 and andrews and schafgans 1998 the selection equation results are compared using the specification tests proposed by horowitz 1993 horowitz and hardle 1994 and the wage equation results are compared using a hausman test significant differences between the two approaches indicate the inappropriateness of the standard parametric methods to the estimation of the model and for the purpose of policy simulations the greater departure seems to occur in the range of the low values of the index corresponding to a specific group of women copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

solutions to the crisis the green new deal degrowth and the solidarity economy alternatives to the capitalist growth economy from an ecofeminist economics perspective this article deals with three approaches conceived as alternative approaches to the capitalist growth economy the green new deal degrowth and the solidarity economy ecofeminist economics has much to offer to each of these approaches but these contributions remain as of yet unrealized the green new deal largely represents the green economy which holds economic success as contingent upon the ecological restructuring of industrial production the degrowth approach more fundamentally raises questions concerning the relationship between material prosperity and individual and social well being the principles of the solidarity economy involve the immediate implementation of the principles of self determination and cooperation none of these approaches takes into account the claims of ecofeminist economics and none of them clearly view gender equity as essential to economic change the three approaches are however deeply gendered in the sense that they are implicitly based on assumptions concerning women s labor in the sphere of social reproduction this article demonstrates how each approach can be improved upon by the integration of ecofeminist economic principles in order to achieve economic change that also meets claims for gender equity

an assessment of household electricity load curves and corresponding co2 marginal abatement cost curves for gujarat state india gujarat a large industrialized state in india consumed 67 twh of electricity in 2009 10 besides experiencing a 4 5 demand supply short fall residential sector accounted for 15 of the total electricity consumption we conducted load research survey across 21 cities and towns of the state to estimate residential electricity load curves share of appliances by type and usage patterns for all types of household appliances at utility geographic appliance income and end use levels the results indicate that a large scope exists for penetration of energy efficient devices in residential sector marginal abatement cost mac curves for electricity and co2 were generated to analyze relative attractiveness of energy efficient appliance options results indicate that up to 7 9 twh of electricity can be saved per year with 6 7 mt co2 emissions mitigation at negative or very low co2 prices of us 10 t co2 despite such options existing their penetration is not realized due to myriad barriers such as financial institutional or awareness and therefore cannot be taken as baseline options for co2 emission mitigation regimes

the private provision of public goods altruism and voluntary giving abstract a unique data set on exact giving by individual households for the support of a rural health care facility is used to examine the determinants of charitable giving including the role of altruism we examine whether a household s decision to give or not give and the amount it gives are influenced in the same or different ways by the household s characteristics and economic circumstances we also examine whether a household s altruistic history affects its current giving decisions

estimation of a two limit tobit model with generalized box cox transformation and unknown censoring thresholds this article considers estimation of a two limit tobit model with generalized box cox transformation and unknown censoring thresholds the maximum likelihood estimates of the censoring thresholds a

marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions a meta analysis in this paper we carry out a meta analysis of recent studies into the costs of greenhouse gas mitigation policies that aim at the long term stabilisation of these gases in the atmosphere we find the cost estimates of the studies to be sensitive to the stringency of the stabilisation target the assumed emissions baseline the way in which the time profile of emissions is determined in the model the choice of control variable co2 only versus multigas the number of regions and energy sources in the model and to a lesser degree the scientific forum in which the study was developed we find that marginal abatement costs of the stringent long term targets that are currently considered by the european commission are still very uncertain but might exceed the costs that have been suggested by recent policy assessments

consistent estimation of the impact of tax deductibility on the level of charitable contributions when charitable contributions are tax deductible the marginal price of charitable giving in other consumption foregone per dollar of contributions is generally less than unity further if the income tax schedule is a progressive step function the marginal price of contributions is generally a rising step function of the level of contributions the problem of estimating a contributions demand function for individuals is therefore complicated by the spurious correlation between the level of contributions and the observed marginal price we take this econometric problem into account in estimating a contributions demand function using data from the 1972 73 consumer expenditure survey after comparing our results with those of estimation techniques used by other authors we provide evidence on the impacts of alternative tax policies on charitable giving using our estimates of the model parameters

the cost of emission mitigation by legume crops in french agriculture this paper considers the cost of greenhouse gas mitigation potential of legume crops in french arable systems we construct marginal abatement cost curves to represent this mitigation or abatement potential for each department of france and provide a spatial representation of its extent despite some uncertainty the measure appears to offer a significant low cost mitigation potential we estimate that the measure could abate half of the emission reduction sought by a national plan for the reduction of chemical fertilizer emissions by 2020 this would be achieved at a loss of farmland profit of 1 2 considering the geographical heterogeneity of cost we suggest that a policy implementing carbon pricing in agriculture would be more efficient than a uniform regulatory requirement for including the crop in arable systems

the usefulness of marginal co2 e abatement cost curves in austria energy efficiency measures are manifold in all economic sectors these measures can be pictured by a marginal abatement cost curve macc which is a common way to show co2 e abatement potential and its related costs in various fields in this paper we calculated the marginal co2 e abatement cost curve for austria for the first time to fulfill the need for country specific cost curves one of the strengths of such curves lies in their ability to highlight that energy efficiency measures can even have negative abatement costs the weaknesses consist of neglecting a change in energy prices the rate of diffusion and compatibility with existing technologies by using a static bottom up approach we constructed the macc for four economic sectors household service transport energy and found a national mitigation potential of 45 4 million tons co2 e the results further show that even with the measures with negative abatement costs it is possible to make the necessary co2 e mitigation to fulfill the kyoto protocol the conclusions emphasize that the curve makes a contribution to overcome one of the barriers of implementation by providing enhanced information on energy efficiency measures and its costs

charitable giving by married couples revisited abstract this paper investigates the effect of gender differences and household bargaining on charitable giving i replicate the study of andreoni brown and rischall 2003 using a different data set the recently available panel study of income dynamics psid supplement on charitable giving and test the sensitivity of their results to inclusion of additional control variables and the endogeneity of the tax price of giving first focusing on singles i find that males and females have significantly different tendencies toward giving to different areas of charitable activity next comparing households in which husband and wife make a joint decision on donations with those in which couples separately decide or assign a sole decisionmaker i show that bargaining over giving increases the amount of charitable contributions by almost 7 percent

property rights regimes and natural resources a conceptual analysis the term common property resource is an example of a term repeatedly used to refer to property owned by a government or by no one it is also used for property owned by a community of resource users such usage leads to confusion in scientific study and policy analysis in this paper we develop a conceptual schema for arraying property rights regimes that distinguishes among diverse bundles of rights ranging from authorized user to claimant to proprietor and to owner we apply this conceptual schema to analyze findings from a variety of empirical settings including the maine lobster industry

gender property rights and natural resources abstract attention to gender differences in property rights can improve the outcomes of natural resource management policies and projects in terms of efficiency environmental sustainability equity and empowerment of resource users although it is impossible to generalize across cultures and resources it is important to identify the nature of rights to land trees and water held by women and men and how they are acquired and transmitted from one user to another the paper particularly examines how the shift from customary tenure systems to private property in land trees and water has affected women the effect of gender differences in property on collective action and the implications for project design

the dynamics of changes in the female wage distribution in the usa a quantile regression approach this paper examines the female wage structure focusing on changes at different points in the wage distribution newly developed quantile regression methods are used in analysing data from the march current population survey the results show that while the most significant changes for the less skilled women took place at the bottom of the wage distribution for the more skilled groups changes occurred at both ends of the distribution consequently wage inequality decreased for the high school graduates and increased for the younger college graduates furthermore the more highly skilled women experienced the steepest gain in wages regardless of their position in the distribution 1998 john wiley sons ltd

semiparametric estimation of the intercept of a sample selection model this paper provides a consistent and asymptotically normal estimator for the intercept of a semiparametrically estimated sample selection model the estimator uses a decreasingly small fraction of all observations as the sample size goes to infinity as in heckman 1990 in the semiparametrics literature estimation of the intercept has typically been subsumed in the nonparametric sample selection bias correction term the estimation of the intercept however is important from an economic perspective for instance it permits one to determine the wage gap between unionized and nonunionized workers decompose the wage differential between different socioeconomic groups e g male female and black white and evaluate the net benefits of a social programme

marginal abatement cost curves for policy recommendation a method for energy system analysis abstract the transport sector is seen as one of the key factors for driving future energy consumption and greenhouse gas ghg emissions in order to rank possible measures marginal abatement cost curves have become a tool to graphically represent the relationship between abatement costs and emission reduction this paper demonstrates how to derive marginal abatement cost curves for well to wheel ghg emissions of the transport sector considering the full energy provision chain and the interlinkages and interdependencies within the energy system presented marginal abatement cost curves visualize substitution effects between measures for different marginal mitigation costs the analysis makes use of an application of the energy system model generator times for south africa times geeco for the example of gauteng province this study exemplary shows that the transport sector is not the first sector to address for cost efficient reduction of ghg emissions however the analysis also demonstrates that several options are available to mitigate transport related ghg emissions at comparable low marginal abatement costs this methodology can be transferred to other economic sectors as well as to other regions in the world to derive cost efficient ghg reduction strategies

how to decarbonize the transport sector this article investigates possible evolution pathways for the transport sector during the 21st century globally and in europe under a climate change control scenario we attempt to shed light on the question how the transport sector should best be decarbonized we perform our study with the global bottom up energy systems model tiam ecn a version of the tiam model that is broadly used for the purpose of developing energy technology and climate policy scenarios which we adapted for analyzing in particular the transport sector given the global aggregated perspective of tiam ecn that in its current version yields at every point in time a single co2 price for different forms of energy use across geographic regions and economic sectors it generates a decarbonization process that for the transport sector occurs later in time than for the power sector this merely reflects that emission reductions are generally cheaper for electricity production than for transportation and that it is thus cost minimizing to spend limited financial resources available for co2 emissions abatement in the power sector first in our scenarios the use of hydrogen in internal combustion engines and fuel cells rather than electricity as energy carrier and batteries to store it gradually becomes the dominant transport technology this outcome is in agreement with some recent publications but is at loggerheads with the current popularity of the electric car based on sensitivity analysis we conclude that even if the establishment of a hydrogen infrastructure proves about an order of magnitude more costly than modeled in our base case electricity based transportation only broadly emerges if simultaneously also the costs of electric cars go down by at least 40 with respect to our reference costs one of the explanations for why the electric car is today by e g entrepreneurs often considered the supposed winner amongst multiple future transportation options is that the decision horizon of many analysts is no more than a few decades instead of a full century electric cars fit better the current infrastructure than hydrogen fueled vehicles so that from a short time perspective covering the next decade or two investments are not optimally spent by establishing an extensive hydrogen distribution network hence the path dependency created by the present existence of a vast power transmission and distribution network can make electricity the most efficient choice for transportation but only if the time frame considered is short electric transportation generally proves the more expensive alternative in our long term perspective except when electric car costs are assumed to drop substantially

how costly is mitigation of non co2 greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture a meta analysis this text reviews the assessments of marginal abatement costs of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture we use agricultural emissions and the corresponding prices collected from 21 studies that have assessed abatement potentials and costs using various modeling approaches and assumptions we first highlight the implications of the modeling approach for marginal abatement costs harmonized abatement rates for three emission prices 10 20 and 50 2005 tco2eq are regressed on variables that reflect various modeling assumptions and study characteristics in a second step the emission price is introduced as an explanatory variable when controlling for a few key characteristics of the studies the models explain an important share of the observed variability in abatement rates the type of modeling approach is found to have a significant effect in particular we find that equilibrium models lead to higher abatement rates for a given price the flexibility in nitrogen use and its effect on crop yields also plays a significant role in lowering marginal abatement costs the results of the second step indicate that the price elasticity of the abatement rate is about 0 6 this estimate is found to be robust to several specifications and consistent with previous assessments covering other economic sectors

parametric and semi parametric estimation of the binary response model of labour market participation this paper compares the familiar probit model with three semiparametric estimators of binary response models in an application to labour market participation of married women this exercise is performed using two different cross section data sets from switzerland and germany for the swiss data the probit specification cannot be rejected and the models yield similar results in the german case the probit model is rejected but the coefficient estimates do not vary substantially across the models the predicted choice probabilities however differ systematically for a subset of the sample the results of this paper indicate that more work is necessary on specification tests of semiparametric models and on simulations using these models

the determinants of donative revenue flows from alumni of higher education an empirical inquiry institutions of higher education are increasingly relying upon alumni giving and endowment earnings as sources of funding this paper utilizes a new database on average alumni donations at the institutional level and institutional characteristics to explore the role that lagged institutional characteristics and policy have on subsequent donations to the institution our results confirm the noncontemporaneous effects of variations in the average scholastic achievement of matriculated students a proxy for both student quality and student socioeconomic status on subsequent donative revenue flows and indirectly address some of the open questions left by previous theoretical inquiries

cost effectiveness of greenhouse gas mitigation in transport a review of methodological approaches and their impact abstract a review is given of methodological practices for ex ante cost effectiveness analysis cea of transport greenhouse gas ghg mitigation measures e g fuel economy and co2 standards for road vehicles in the us and eu besides the fundamental differences between different types of policies and abatement options which inherently result in different cea outcomes differences in methodological choices and assumptions are another important source of variation in cea outcomes fourteen methodological issues clustered into six groups are identified on which thirty three selected studies are systematically reviewed the potential variation between lower and upper cost effectiveness estimates for ghg mitigation measures in transport resulting from different methodological choices and assumptions lies in the order of 400 per tonne co2 eq the practise of using cea for policy making could improve considerably by clearly indicating the specific purpose of the cea and its strengths and limitations for policy decisions another improvement is related to the dominant approach in transport ghg mitigation studies the bottom up financial technical approach which assesses isolated effects implying considerable limitations for policy making a shift to welfare economic approaches using a hybrid model has the potential to establish an improved assessment of transport ghg mitigation measures based on realistic market responses and behavioural change

the applicability of marginal abatement cost approach a comprehensive review abstract the marginal abatement cost mac methodology is widely used in climate change policies policy makers rely on mac to assess feasible strategies and related costs to achieve emission reduction goals this paper introduces a variety of mac methodologies aiming at solving diverse problems which utilizes various calculable logic thus producing different results and implications this study applies a mind mapping method to capture differentiation of mac methods and systematically classify mac methodologies the applicability path analysis was proposed based on principles such as stakeholder type decision making objectives cost concept strategy mode and information scope our goal is to assess the applicability of different methodologies to reduce misuse by policy makers and to serve as a guide for subsequent research which might prompt and lead to the derivation of more consequential results in future studies the results of this study suggest that the complex method is not always better than the simplified method because policy makers are required to select the appropriate method according to the type of information needed it may even be suggested that mac could be reliable by ranking relative value of options compared with baseline rather than focusing on the absolute value of individual measures

a note on the estimation of models with sample selection biases abstract econometric models with sample selection biases are widely used in various fields of economics such as labor economics heckman s two step estimator is widely used to estimates these models this paper points out some limitations and problems of heckman s two step estimator

sprayed to death path dependence lock in and pest control strategies theoretical literature on the economics of technology has emphasized the effects on technological trajectories of positive feedbacks in a competition among technologies that all perform a similar function the presence of increasing returns to adoptions can force all but one technology from the market furthermore the victor need not be the superior technology this paper provides an empirical study of one technological competition which illuminates this theoretical work it uses theoretical results to explain why chemical control of agricultural pests remains the dominant technology in spite of many claims that it is inferior to its main competitor integrated pest management copyright 1996 by royal economic society

estimation and allocation of cost savings from collaborative co2 abatement in china abstract as an increasingly accepted way of relieving global warming collaborative carbon dioxide co2 abatement could improve not only emission performance but also cost effectiveness of abatement in this study we analyze the cost savings and benefits of collaborative abatement in the context of china by using data envelopment analysis dea approach specifically we establish 63 collaborative abatement scenarios by dividing the mainland china into six main regions and then estimate the costs savings in each collaboration abatement scenario through investigating the gains for each region in various scenarios the best collaborative partners for each region are suggested from perspectives of benefit maximization furthermore the contribution of each region to collaborative abatement cost saving is also differentiated with the shapley value approach

estimating the environmental efficiency and marginal co2 abatement cost of coal fired power plants in china abstract we estimate the environmental efficiency reduction potential and marginal abatement cost of carbon dioxide co2 emissions from coal fired power plants in china using a novel plant level dataset derived from the first and second waves of the national economic survey which were implemented in 2004 and 2008 respectively the results indicate that there are large opportunities for co2 emissions reduction in china s coal fired power plants given that all power plants operate fully efficiently china s co2 emissions in 2004 and 2008 could have been reduced by 52 and 70 respectively accompanied by an expansion in electricity output in other words the opportunities for double dividend exist in 2004 the average marginal abatement cost of co2 emissions for china s power plants was approximately 955 yuan ton whereas in 2008 the cost increased to 1142 yuan ton the empirical analyses show that subsidies from the government can reduce environmental inefficiency but the subsidies significantly increase the shadow price of the power plants older and larger power plants have a lower environmental efficiency and marginal co2 abatement cost the ratio of coal consumption negatively affects the environmental efficiencies of power plants

water from basic need to commodity a discussion on gender and water rights in the context of irrigation abstract this paper examines the implications of changing water policies for women s water rights and access to water in irrigation systems with growing water scarcity and programs to increase the efficiency of water allocation and delivery the allocation of water rights becomes critical although women often have informal means and mechanisms to obtain and secure access to water in most systems studied there is no recognition of women s specific water needs especially for production as opposed to domestic consumption current policies to privatize and devolve management of irrigation need to increase responsiveness to specific women s water needs and interests if they are to address efficiency as well as equity concerns

capturing the least costly way of reducing pollution a shadow price approach abstract the production analysis literature is increasingly concerned with estimating marginal abatement costs yet most studies do not emphasize the ways in which pollutants may be reduced and their costs which makes them unable to identify the least costly compliance strategy this paper utilizes the materials balance principle to relate pollution to the employment of material inputs a production model which allows input and output substitution downscaling of operations pollution control and emission permits purchases as compliance strategies is proposed and the implications of joint and non joint pollution controls for the trade off between pollutants and desirable outputs are considered marginal abatement costs reflecting the least costly way of compliance are derived by exploiting the duality between the directional distance function and the profit function