Environmental Economics and Policy Studies最新文献

Using a two-period general equilibrium model with an open economy, this paper shows under which conditions bioprospecting might work for the conservation of biodiversity and under which conditions it might fail. The paper emphasizes the importance of a systematic search process using prior information on the plant species and the health characteristics for successful bioprospecting. The paper reinforces the usual factors that affect land conservation through bioprospecting. Lower costs of the bio-prospecting process or manufacturing of drugs; large royalty payments and a low discount rate in the South will lead to conservation through bioprospecting. Strategic pricing in the model provides some novel findings. A large number of bio-prospected drugs; and the invention of drugs that cure high occurrence or high disutility diseases—lead to conservation through bioprospecting. On the other hand, free trade impacts can increase the alternative use value of conserved land and lead to land conversion. Long delays in successful bioprospecting; the strategic nature of the market and general equilibrium impacts ruling out a larger set of bio-prospected drugs; and drug companies’ ignorance of many southern-specific diseases for low earning potentials—may also result in failure of the bioprospecting process. The paper concludes that bioprospecting is a weak tool for biodiversity conservation in the South and other biodiversity conservation tools have to be used to reinforce the benefit generated by bioprospecting.

Since the introduction of the OECD innovation and green growth strategies in 2007 and 2011, respectively, the OECD countries have been actively engaged in supporting green energy R&D to accelerate the development of clean energy technologies. Specifically, the OECD recognizes that both renewable energy R&D and energy efficiency R&D are key components of a low-carbon and sustainable energy system. This study aims to assess the impact of disaggregated energy R&D on green growth in 21 high-income OECD countries, from 1990 to 2021. Two key green growth indicators, namely energy productivity and CO₂ productivity, are used as response variables. The long-run CS-ARDL model results show that renewable energy R&D and fossil fuel R&D have a positive and significant impact on energy productivity in all model specifications, with renewable energy R&D exhibiting a relatively stronger impact compared to fossil fuel R&D. The long-run effects of the disaggregated energy R&D variables on CO₂ productivity align with the results of the energy productivity model. Based on the study's findings, policymakers should consider reallocating the energy R&D budget towards renewable energy R&D, fostering international collaboration between OECD countries in renewable energy R&D, and implementing technology-specific policies to encourage investment in renewable energy technologies.

This paper investigates the optimal environmental policy for non-point source pollution in a Cournot duopoly competition with product differentiation. Under linear price and cost functions, the optimal environmental policy is determined. In the case of non-point source pollutants, the standard policies cannot be applied since the government has limited information about the individual emissions; only the total size of the pollution is known. The firms want to earn as high as possible profits by selecting most appropriate output levels and abatement technologies. The government wants to maximize the social welfare by the selection of the uniform tax rate. The optimal decisions are determined in a two-stage process. In the second stage, the firms determine their outputs, taking the technologies and the tax rate as given. In the first stage, the firms select abatement technologies with a given tax rate, and the government selects the optimal tax rate with the given choices of the firms. Under asymmetric information, the government constructs the welfare function with uncertainty on the firms’ outputs and determines the optimal tax rate by maximizing the welfare expectation and minimizing the welfare variance. Since the best reply of the government has a complicated form, the Nash equilibrium is numerically and graphically determined. It is shown that ambient charge tax charge effectively controls the total concentration of NPS pollution.

Recent advancements in choice modelling practice include the embedding of individual heterogeneity in the modelling procedure by matching subjective perceptions about the status quo with experimentally designed choice cards. Beyond potentially mitigating bias in welfare estimations, we argue that the process of eliciting status quo information increases the engagement of respondents with the survey, rendering them more prepared to receive context-specific information and conduct hypothetical trade-offs. Moreover, it enables the researcher to utilise the perceived status quo information to provide choice sets that are specific to each respondent. To assess the gains of the practice, we ran a choice experiment survey with two separate samples that followed distinct preference elicitation procedures, the main difference being whether respondents were asked or not to state their perceived status quo prior to or following the choice task. By conducting independent hypothesis testing for each sample, we found that respondents who were asked to state their perceptions prior to the choice task made likely better use of the provided information while their decision-making was less likely to be governed by an anti-status quo effect. On the other hand, respondents who did not state their perceptions prior to the choice task made inconsistent choices, particularly by opting for scenarios inferior to their perceived status quo.

IMF indicated soaring metal prices, as cleantech firms are witnessing a meteoric rise in demand, and even dirty energy firms are changing their stance towards clean energy. Shock transmission (both positive and negative) is plausible as the world is chasing a net-zero emissions scenario. Therefore, we have investigated the top nine renewable energy companies globally with related metals (Nickel, Copper, Cobalt) from 3rd January 2017 to 3rd January 2022. This period also involves pre-Covid, Covid 1st Wave, Delta and Omicron. Our approach was QVAR, as suggested recently by Gabauer (J Multinatl Financ Manag 60:100680, 2021), which is a logical extension of the initial connectedness approach proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (Int J Forecast 28(1): 57–66, 2012; J Econometr 182(1):119–134, 2014). We found several outcomes. Shock transmission is happening from both cleantech and dirty energy firms to metals. Connectedness (shock transmission) is increasing in tails. Moreover, connectedness in the lower upper quantiles is asymmetric, with clean energy companies tending to transmit positive shocks to metals. Therefore, mean-based connectedness could be ruled out. Metals such as Nickel, Cobalt, and Copper emerged as the net receivers of shocks. The firms with higher market capitalization producing clean energy emerged as significant net transmitters of shocks (Enphase, Orsted and VWS). The total Connectedness Indices (TCIs) are heterogeneous over time. TCI sharply increased immediately after Covid-19 fallout and remained at a relatively higher zone than pre-Covid levels. Wind energy firms (SSE and Orsted) emerged as the net transmitter among all pairwise directional connectedness; furthermost wind energy firms (SSE, ED and EDP) emerged as the moderate net receiver of shocks. This research provides many inputs towards the wind energy sector for researchers, practitioners and policymakers.

We analyze how geoengineering in the form of solar radiation management (SRM), associated with the potential of high collateral damages, affects the governance architecture of climate agreements. We investigate under which conditions signatories to a climate agreement can avoid the deployment of SRM and implement a climate agreement on mitigation. We show that a climate agreement with all countries can be stable with the threat to deploy SRM in case a country free-rides. The threat is deterrent if collateral damages are perceived to be sufficiently high (lower threshold), but only credible if those damages are not too high (upper threshold). SRM deployment is the only threat available to signatories if they choose mitigation levels simultaneously with non-signatories (Nash–Cournot scenario). However, if signatories choose mitigation levels before non-signatories (Stackelberg scenario), an additional punishment option arises. Then if collateral damages are sufficiently large, signatories can reduce their mitigation levels and impose a heavier burden on non-signatories that would find it profitable to avoid the deployment of SRM. We show that our results are robust in two analytical frameworks frequently employed in the game-theoretic analysis of international environmental agreements.

The pressing need to address climate change has resulted in the implementation of environmental regulations, such as carbon taxes, aimed at reducing carbon emissions. However, the impact of these regulations on firm performance, particularly within the U.S. automotive industry, remains inadequately understood. This research empirically examines the potential effects of the carbon tax policy on both financial performance and innovation, with a specific focus on assessing the validity of Porter’s hypothesis. Utilizing firm-level panel data from U.S. automotive companies spanning the years 2000 to 2019, the analysis reveals a crowding-out effect of the carbon tax on both financial and innovation performance in the U.S. automotive industry.

Passive use economic values for wildlife are a missing component in benefit-cost analyses informing decisions on the mitigation of wildlife-vehicle collisions through construction of wildlife crossing structures. The study describes a pilot mail survey of willingness to pay by Minnesota households for exclusionary fencing and passage structures to reduce vehicle/animal collisions in the state to protect deer and turtles. The discrete choice experiment study found strong support for fencing and passage structures, and statistically significant willingness to pay increased taxes to support their construction. A significant share of respondents had previously heard of collision avoidance structures as described in the survey (69%). A very large majority of respondents were supportive of the use of these types of structures to reduce animal/vehicle collisions (56% strongly favored and 28% favored). A large motivating factor in support for funding collision avoidance structures was concern for animal welfare.

Fossil fuels and their transportation networks have become significant concerns for countries, local communities, and international companies in recent decades. This study aims to examine the influence of renewable energy (RE) infrastructure on conflicts and terrorist activities and to explore the varying degrees of threat posed by conflicts and terrorist attacks. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed to analyze the long-term relationship among the variables between 1989 and 2016. Granger’s causality test reveals bidirectional causalities between the variables in the long run. However, in the short term, the test indicates unidirectional causalities as follows: fossil energy and economic growth impacting terrorism, RE impacting economic growth, and military expenditure influencing both economic growth and RE. In the long run, the use of fossil energy increases the risk of terrorist acts, while the consumption of RE contributes to economic growth. Notably, this study demonstrates that, contrary to long-term expectations, economic growth has actually reduced terrorism in Algeria. Consequently, Algeria has made significant investments in both the military and RE sectors to mitigate conflicts and terrorist attacks, thereby fostering economic growth.