The transition from dirty to clean industries: optimal fiscal policy and the environmental Kuznets curve

This paper investigates privately and socially optimal patterns of economic development in a two-sector endogenous growth model with clean and dirty goods. We consider a second-best fiscal policy framework in which distortionary taxes jointly influence economic growth and environmental quality. In this policy setting, three conditions produce an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC): (i) dirty output is bounded; (ii) clean output grows endogenously; and (iii) growth in the dirty sector reduces growth in the clean sector. These conditions do not arise with a consumption externality, but can emerge with a production externality. Endogenous labor supply implications are also investigated. Although not necessary for producing an EKC, endogenous labor supply provides additional linkages that produce an EKC under circumstances in which it would otherwise not appear.     

Strategic climate policy with offsets and incomplete abatement: Carbon taxes versus cap-and-trade

This paper provides a first analysis of a “policy bloc” of fossil fuel importers which implements an optimal climate policy, faces a (non-policy) fringe of other fuel importers, and an exporter bloc, and purchases offset from the fringe. We compare a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade scheme for the policy bloc, in either case accompanied by an efficient offset mechanism for reducing emissions in the fringe. The policy bloc is shown to prefer a tax over a cap, since only a tax reduces the fuel export price and by more when the policy bloc is larger. Offsets are also more favorable to the policy bloc under a tax than under a cap. The optimal offset price under a carbon tax is below the tax rate, while under a cap and free quota trading the offset price must equal the quota price. The domestic carbon and offset prices are both higher under a tax than under a cap when the policy bloc is small. When the policy bloc is larger, the offset price can be higher under a cap. Fringe countries gain by mitigation in the policy bloc, more under a carbon tax since the fuel import price is lower.     

Analysis of the trade-off between economic growth and the reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions in the Poyang Lake Watershed, China

Lake eutrophication leading to water pollution is a major global concern. In recent years, rapid economic growth and the increase in the intensity of resource exploitation in China have caused the influx of nitrogen and phosphorus into lakes. This in turn has led to more severe lake eutrophication, more frequent outbreaks of algal blooms, and the degradation of lake ecosystems. An effective plan balancing economic growth with the reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions is greatly needed. The design and implementation of such a plan requires the collection and analysis of pertinent data. In this paper, we use the environmental computable general equilibrium (ECGE) model to identify the most effective way to balance economic growth with the reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions. For the multiregional analysis, we use social accounting matrices (SAMs) and a provincial trade matrix based on the assumptions of the gravity model. We consider the Poyang Lake Watershed as a case study to illustrate the utility of the model. Based on present conditions in the Poyang Lake Watershed, restricting nitrogen and phosphorus emissions from sectors with the highest emissions is more effective for balancing economic growth and the reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions than restricting nitrogen and phosphorus emissions from all sectors.     

Analyzing the effectiveness of international environmental policies: The case of the Kyoto Protocol

We study the effectiveness of emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol with respect to reducing CO₂ emissions. Using country-level and US state-level panel data and employing the synthetic control method, we find very little evidence for an emission reduction effect for the major emitters among the Annex B countries with binding emission targets. More generally, we also show that evaluating the effectiveness of international environmental policies at the country level comes with a number of empirical challenges that may invalidate findings based on more traditional panel data approaches.     

Self-enforcing environmental agreements and trade in fossil energy deposits

The literature on self-enforcing environmental agreements (SIEAs) focuses on de- mand-side emission-reduction policies. To our knowledge, Harstad (2012) is the only study on SIEAs, in which countries purchase fossil-energy deposits to prevent their exploitation. He finds that for any coalition size there exists a (small) subset of parameters, different for each size, such that the coalition of that size is stable. However, the comparison of Harstad's results with the prevailing demand-side SIEA analyses is hampered by major differences in the structure of the respective game models. This paper develops a game model with a deposit market and deposit purchases for preservation that is in line with some demand-side SIEA literature. It turns out that either no coalition is stable or the grand coalition is the only stable coalition. We compare the outcome of our model not only with Harstad's model but also with Eichner and Pethig's (2015) model of the formation of SIEAs in which climate policy takes the form of (demand-side) emissions taxes.     

Renewable electricity policies,heterogeneity, and cost effectiveness

Renewable electricity policies promote investment in renewable electricity generators and have become increasingly common around the world. Because of intermittency and the composition of other generators in the power system, the value of certain renewable – particularly wind and solar – varies across locations and technologies. This paper investigates the implications of this heterogeneity for the cost effectiveness of renewable electricity policies. A simple model of the power system shows that renewable electricity policies cause different investment mixes. Policies also differ according to their effect on electricity prices, and both factors cause the cost effectiveness to vary across policies. We use a detailed, long-run planning model that accounts for intermittency on an hourly basis to compare the cost effectiveness for a range of policies and alternative parameter assumptions. The differences in cost effectiveness are economically significant, where broader policies, such as an emissions price, outperform renewable electricity policies.     

The relevance of James Lovelock’s research and philosophy to environmental science and academia

James E. Lovelock, famed for his Gaia hypothesis, which views the Earth as a living integrated and interconnected self-regulating system whose equilibrium comes about from complex energy-based interactions and feedback loops, ultimately sustaining life, passed away at the end of July, 2022 at the age of 103. Not only are the adaptive mechanisms of Gaia central to the conversation of environmental homeostasis, they lie at the heart of climate change and global warming. Lovelock is also remembered as the co-inventor of the electron capture detector that eventually allowed for the sensitive detection of chlorofluorocarbons and pesticides. Finally, Lovelock’s free-spirited nature and research independence allow academia to rethink current research’s modus operandi.     

Shifting cultivation, forest fallow, and externalities in ecosystem services: Evidence from the Eastern Amazon

This study examines the value of fallow ecosystem services in shifting cultivation, including hydrological externalities that may affect other farms. Using farm-level survey data from the Brazilian Amazon, I estimate a production function to assess the value of forest fallow and test whether it provides local externalities to agricultural production. Soil quality controls, instrumental variables, and spatial econometric approaches help address endogeneity issues. I use GIS data on external forest cover at the farm level and model the hydrological externality as an upstream-to-downstream process. The estimated parameters indicate that fallow contributes significantly to productivity both on farm and downstream. In addition, most farms allocate sufficient land to fallow, accounting for both the value of hydrological spillovers and the opportunity cost of land left out of cultivation. These results suggest that farming communities may have some self-interest in preserving forest cover locally—a finding that may bolster policy efforts aimed at conserving tropical forests for their global public goods.     

Climate change, humidity, and mortality in the United States

This paper estimates the effects of humidity and temperature on mortality rates in the United States (c. 1973-2002) in order to provide an insight into the potential health impacts of climate change. I find that humidity, like temperature, is an important determinant of mortality. Coupled with Hadley CM3 climate-change predictions, I project that mortality rates are likely to change little on the aggregate for the United States. However, distributional impacts matter: mortality rates are likely to decline in cold and dry areas, but increase in hot and humid areas. Further, accounting for humidity has important implications for evaluating these distributional effects.     

Cross-country electricity trade,renewable energy and European transmission infrastructure policy

This paper develops a multi-country multi-sector general equilibrium model, integrating high-frequency electricity dispatch and trade decisions, to study the effects of electricity transmission infrastructure (TI) expansion and renewable energy (RE) penetration in Europe for gains from trade and carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector. TI can benefit or degrade environmental outcomes, depending on RE penetration: it complements emissions abatement by mitigating dispatch problems associated with volatile and spatially dispersed RE but also promotes higher average generation from low-cost coal if RE production is too low. Against the backdrop of European decarbonization and planned TI expansion, we find that emissions increase for current and targeted year-2020 levels of RE production and decrease for year-2030 targets. Enhanced TI yields sizeable gains from trade that depend positively on RE penetration, without creating large adverse impacts on regional equity.     

Modeling the influence of precipitation and nitrogen deposition on forest understory fuel connectivity in Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forest

Climate change models for California's Sierra Nevada predict greater inter-annual variability in precipitation over the next 50 years. These increases in precipitation variability coupled with increases in nitrogen deposition from fossil fuel consumption are likely to result in increased productivity levels and significant increases in forest understory fuel loads. Higher understory plant biomass contributes to fuel connectivity and may increase future fire size and severity in the Sierra Nevada. The objective of this research was to develop and test a model to determine how changing precipitation and nitrogen deposition levels affect shrub and herb biomass production, and to determine how often prescribed fire would be needed to counter increasing fuel loads. Model outputs indicate that under an increasing precipitation scenario significant increases in shrub and herb biomass occur that can be counteracted by decreasing the fire return interval to 10 years. Under a scenario with greater inter-annual variability in precipitation and increased nitrogen deposition, implementing fire treatments at an interval equivalent to the historical range of 15–30 years maintains understory vegetation fuel loads at levels comparable to the control.     

The endowment effect,discounting and the environment

There is a considerable body of evidence showing that our preferences exhibit both reference dependence and loss aversion, a.k.a. the endowment effect. In this paper, we consider the implications of the endowment effect for discounting, with a special focus on discounting future improvements in the environment. We show that the endowment effect modifies the discount rate via (i) an instantaneous endowment effect and (ii) a reference-updating effect. Moreover we show that these two effects often combine to dampen the preference to smooth consumption over time. What this implies for discounting future environmental benefits may then depend critically on whether environmental quality is merely a factor of production of material consumption, or whether it is an amenity. On an increasing path of material consumption, dampened consumption smoothing implies a lower discount rate. But on a declining path of environmental quality and where we derive utility directly from environmental quality, it implies a higher discount rate. On non-monotonic paths, loss aversion specifically can give rise to substantial discontinuities in the discount rate.     

Fiscal spending and the environment: Theory and empirics

During economic crises, governments often increase fiscal spending to stimulate the economy. While the fiscal spending surge may be temporary, spending composition is often altered in favor of expenditures on social programs and other public goods which may persist over time. We model and measure the impact of fiscal spending patterns on the environment. The model predicts that a reallocation of government spending composition towards social and public goods reduces pollution. However, increasing total government spending without altering its composition does not reduce pollution. We empirically test these predictions for air and water pollutants showing that they are fully supported.     

Societal change and the control of deforestation in Thailand

Thailand underwent a major shift in forest policy in the second half of the 1980s to promote sustainable management and control of deforestation. This paper puts this in the context of earlier changes in forest policy and analyses the underlying causes of the shift by analysing changes in the relative strength of different interest groups within the framework of a policy pressures model. Internal pressures had a stronger impact on Thai forest policy than external pressures. Protectionist groups became more numerous and more powerful in Thailand in the 1980s in relation to exploitative groups, and their rise in influence was facilitated by continuing progress in democratization and pluralization, linked to the consequences of economic development. Such political change could help to explain the apparent link between better environmental management and economic development shown in the Environmental Kuznets Curve.     

Tourism policy,biodiversity conservation and management: a case of the Kruger National Park,South Africa

Management of Kruger National Park (KNP) has recently made considerable progress in developing new policies to address biodiversity conservation and management challenges. These include tourism, water provision and elephant management policies. This study examines the integration of these three policies with regard to biodiversity conservation and management. Findings indicate that in their current fragmented form, the three policies actually undermine opportunities for effective biodiversity conservation and management in the KNP. This can be reversed by adopting a new management approach based on an environmental matrix organizational framework. Such a framework provides a mechanism for integrated policymaking and implementation and for improving biodiversity conservation and management in the KNP. The study concludes that an integrated approach is necessary due to the interlinkages between policies that affect biodiversity conservation at the KNP.     

Clearing the air: The costs and consequences of higher CAFE standards and increased gasoline taxes

Concerns about energy security and climate change have sparked legislators’ interest in reducing gasoline consumption by increasing corporate average fuel-economy (CAFE) standards. Using an empirically rich simulation model and cost estimates for anticipated fuel-economy technologies, we estimate annual costs of reducing long-run gasoline consumption by 10% via a 3.8 miles per gallon increase in the standards, and the potential cost savings from allowing manufacturers to buy and sell fuel-economy credits. Maximum gasoline savings would be realized only after all existing vehicles were replaced, or 14 years in our model. A gasoline tax would produce greater immediate savings by encouraging people to drive less, and eventually to choose more-fuel-efficient vehicles. We demonstrate the advantage of a tax by comparing the cost of the higher CAFE standards over the first 14 years against the cost of a gasoline tax that would save the same amount of gasoline over that time.     

A cultural model of private provision and the environment

This paper analyses an overlapping generations model of environmental externalities and capital accumulation where private contributions to environmental quality are motivated by a desire to socialize others into environmental attitudes. In this framework, the formation of environmental preferences is the result of a cultural transmission process depending on the extent of private contributions. In the short run, we show that three equilibria may arise: a first one where all green agents contribute to the environment, a second one where nobody contributes to the environment and a third interior one. We show that the capital-accumulation process and the change in preferences that occur in this economy lead the interior equilibrium to be selected, in which some, but not all, green agents contribute to the environment. The model thus provides an economic rationale for the gap between the number of people who care about the environment and the number who adopt pro-environmental behaviours. We also show that the fraction of contributors rises with capital, so that we explain the negative relationship between this gap and country income. Last, we show that this gap is particularly detrimental for welfare, and analyse the impact of a number of public policies.     

Heterogeneous firms and the environment: a cap-and-trade program

Currently, cap-and-trade programs are a cornerstone of many countries' climate change policies and proposals. This paper investigates the economic and environmental effects of different climate change policy designs in a general equilibrium setting with heterogeneous firms and monopolistic competition. The analysis predicts that the cap on emissions perfectly defines the environmental quality but has no effect on firms' profits, or decisions to enter or exit the market. In contrast, increasing the share of free allocations of emission allowances, as opposed to auctions, has no effect on environmental quality but reallocates resources among firms toward the most productive ones which has an impact on firms' entry and exit decisions, the mass of firms, and the composition of the market. Firm heterogeneity magnifies these economic effects of changes in the initial allocation of allowances. The paper provides a decomposition of the change in aggregate emissions which takes account of the changes at sector level, across the firms within a sector, and at the firm level.     

Spatial sampling and the environment: some issues and directions

In this paper we summarize research issues for spatial environmental sampling stemming from a NISS/USEPA workshop held on 21-22 September 1994 at Chapel Hill, NC.     

国际互联网上的生态环境资源

Intemet已成为最大的信息载体和传输工具，由于Intemet上生态环境资源具有分布广、数量巨大、高动态的特点，熟悉网上信息的检索是有效开展科研的基本要求。文章介绍互联网上生态环境资源的检索方法，并对目前互联网上所存在的生态环境资源分布状况及其相关站点进行了介绍。