Environmental Economics and Policy Studies最新文献

Abstract

The available literature has ignored farmers’ perceptions on the benefits and drawbacks of adopting climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in favor of focusing primarily on profitability and economic constraints. We use the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey (ESS) and the General Household Survey from 2018 and 2019 to compare Nigeria and Ethiopia, both of which have sizable rural populations to assess farmers’ climate change perception and their adaptation options in promoting CSA. We first hypothesize that farmers with high tolerance for risk and stable financial resources are more likely to adopt CSA techniques, relying on the adopter perception theory of agricultural innovations and technologies. We address potential selection bias using the Heckman selection model, and estimate our data using multinomial logistic estimator, as well as standard logistic regression for robustness checks. We find that in both Ethiopia and Nigeria, household income and plot size influence farmers’ adaptations to climate change mitigation practices. However, farmers with bigger plots who run the risk of massive production loss tend to adopt measures of coping with climate change. We show that in both Ethiopia and Nigeria, rural farmers’ adaptation decisions are heavily influenced by agricultural extension programs and community social networks. Overall, our work highlights the important role of income, farm size, and climate-related information for investing in climate-smart agricultural methods to curb food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The surge in economic and human development has led to increasing concerns about environmental degradation, thus necessitating effective strategies to enhance sustainability and environmental quality. Therefore, this study empirically examines the impact of environmental fiscal policies, environmental technologies, and research and development (R&D) expenditures on achieving environmental sustainability in the G7 countries. Using advanced econometric techniques, including the Cross-Sectionally Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lags (CS-ARDL) model and the Dynamic Common Correlated Effects (DCCE) approach, the study identifies both short-run and long-run correlations between the aforementioned variables and their impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our findings confirm the inverted U-shaped Kuznets Curve relationship and reinforce the previous literature on the complex dynamics between economic growth and GHG emissions specific to developed countries. The research also supports the effectiveness of well-designed environmental taxes in reducing environmental degradation and GHG emissions, consistent with and extending existing studies in this area. In addition, the study provides empirical evidence of the critical role of environmental technologies and targeted R&D expenditures in improving environmental quality. In terms of policy implications, our research underscores the urgency for policymakers in the G7 countries to fine-tune environmental taxation mechanisms and increase investment in sustainable technological solutions. Specific recommendations include the development of more efficient tax systems that adhere to the polluter-pays principle, as well as financial incentives such as tax credits and subsidies aimed at accelerating green technology adoption and innovation. In doing so, the study seeks to contribute to the broader discourse on environmental policy and sustainable development, providing valuable perspectives for both the academic community and policy actors.

Abstract

Price-based irrigation water-conservation policies are often designed as fixed per unit fees. In groundwater commons, however, this approach presupposes that irrigators assign the same value to each unit of water withdrawn, irrespective of the scarcity levels they individually face. This ignores spatial interdependencies in groundwater commons. In this paper, I examine the effect this possible tax structure misspecification has in measuring the performance of such Pigouvian taxes. I model the price of irrigation water as a non-constant marginal cost function dependent on the constant per unit fee and a variable cost-metric measure of scarcity, namely depth-to-water. Using a difference-in-difference econometric framework with irrigation data from San Luis Valley, results show that irrigators’ response to the constant marginal fee significantly depends on the scarcity levels individual irrigators face. More importantly, the results suggest that models that overlook the spatial element of scarcity would overestimate irrigators’ response to such pumping fee—which can misguide policy decisions.

Climate change is considered as one of the greatest existential threats. The fight against polluting emissions such as CO₂ emissions is a necessary tool to combat this phenomenon. Turkey is one of the countries that is trying hard to achieve its goals of environmental sustainability. To this end, this study analyzes the associations between hydroelectric power generation (HPG), geopolitical risk (GPR), income, foreign direct investments (FDI), financial development, and carbon emissions from 1985 to 2021. To estimate the long-run impacts and causality links, the current analysis applies the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach and the spectral causality for the period 1985–2021. The long-run findings show that GPR, HPG, and FDI reduce carbon emissions. However, income and financial development increase the CO₂ emissions. Moreover, the spectral causal outcomes provide evidence of two-way causality between hydroelectricity and pollutant emissions for the high frequency, and a one-way causality from hydroelectricity to CO₂ both for medium and low frequencies. Furthermore, there is bidirectional causality between FDI and carbon emissions for the low frequency, likewise CO₂ emissions cause FDI for low and medium frequencies. In addition, the main findings reveal the presence of bidirectional causality between pollutant emissions and financial development for high frequency, and a unidirectional causality from financial development to CO₂ emissions for medium frequency. Nevertheless, there is no causality between GPR, income, and CO₂ emissions.

This study examines the relationship between corporate environmental performance (ENP) and financial performance, focusing on US firms from 2001 to 2021. Environmental sustainability has become a pivotal issue facing businesses. However, empirical findings on the ENP–financial performance linkage remain mixed. The sample comprises 2,711 US firms analyzed using ordinary least squares, fixed effects, feasible generalized least squares, generalized method of moments, and quantile regression. Results reveal a significant positive relationship between ENP and firms’ financial performance. These findings are consistent across models, underscoring their robustness. This suggests investments in environmental performance can enhance profitability, valuation, and earnings. This paper contributes the empirical evidence to the academic literature on the corporate sustainability-financial performance nexus. It also offers business and policy insights into the financial merits of corporate environmental responsibility, highlighting ENP’s role in delivering sustainable growth.