Download or read book Environmental and Public Economics written by Wallace E. Oates and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of essays honoring the work of Wallace E. Oates, contributors apply his ideas and insights to a range of problems. Chapters on environmental economics assess environmental policy in today's conservative era and analyze environmental taxes, environmental federalism, and policy instruments. Chapters on public economics investigate vouchers for private schools, capitalization, and urban growth controls. Other subjects examined include intergovernmental grants in South Africa, and public pensions in the EU. The editors are affiliated with the University of Maryland-College Park, and Resources for the Future in Washington, DC. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Essays on Environmental and Public Economics written by Holly Anne Odell Monti and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is a collection of three essays in the fields of environmental and public economics. The first essay assesses the effect of government spending on charitable donations to environmental causes. Using a theoretical model, I solve for changes in private donations due to increased government spending and contrast this with changes due to direct grants to nonprofit organizations. Depending on the nonprofit's fundraising response, government spending may result in the crowding out or in of private giving. I empirically investigate this topic using data from the tax returns of environmental charities as well as a panel survey data set on the philanthropic behavior of individuals. My results indicate that government expenditures on the environment actually crowd in private giving, partly due to the increased fundraising response by charities. The second essay examines the incidence of a pollution tax scheme in which tax revenue is returned to low-income workers. Using a general equilibrium model with both skilled and unskilled labor, a decomposition of the real net wage effects shows the effect of the tax rebate, the effect on the uses side of income (higher product prices), and the effect on the sources side of income (relative wage rates). Numerical examples show that returning the revenue to the low-skilled workers is still not enough to offset the effect of higher product prices; in almost all cases, the rebate does not prevent a reduction in the real net wage. The third essay studies the distributional effects of the SO2 allowance market. Even if low-income households do not have large budget shares for the polluting good, grandfathered permit systems may still be regressive since the permit rents accrue disproportionately to wealthy shareholders in the polluting industry. I estimate the burden imposed on different income groups under a grandfathered permit policy and compare this with the burden under an auctioned policy. Using Monte Carlo techniques, I calculate the 5th and 95th percentiles of the distribution of possible results. I find evidence of regressivity for grandfathered permits whereas an emissions tax/auctioned permit system can be progressive if the scarcity rents are distributed in lump sums.

Download or read book The Public Economics of the Environment written by Agnar Sandmo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-04-06 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise, well-focused text identifies the failure of the market mechanism in the face of environmental problems, showing how economic policy should be designed to overcome them. Special attention is paid to possible benefits from green tax reform.

Download or read book Essays on Environmental Economics written by Qu Tang and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract Essays on Environmental Economics by Qu Tang Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural and Resource Economics University of California, Berkeley Professor Gordon C. Rausser, Chair This dissertation is comprised of three essays that apply microeconomics theory and econometric methods to study important issues in environmental economics. In the first essay, I investigate the impacts of imposing inter-state trade restrictions on the compliance costs of coal-fired electric generating units (EGUs) in the context of a U.S. SO2 emissions trading program (the Acid Rain Program). Over the past decade, tremendous efforts have been devoted to modifying emissions trading programs to address cross-state air pollution problems. The modification involves imposing more restrictions on emissions trading across geographical areas. The empirical question is how severe trade restrictions affect the regulated firms' compliance costs. Using rich data from the Acid Rain Program, this essay developed a discrete-continuous model to estimate electric generating units' compliance strategies and marginal abatement costs associated with the nationwide uniform emissions trading as the program was implemented in practice. Based on the estimation results, this essay then simulated units' compliance behaviors and the corresponding compliance costs if interstate trading had been prohibited. The results show that the aggregate compliance costs would increase more than one and a half times for the same emissions reduction goal due to the narrower trading markets in the counterfactual policy design with trade restrictions, and the costs would vary dramatically across space. Combined with the analysis on the benefit side, the results of this essay could be used to predict welfare impacts associated with trade restrictions at both national level and state level. And it may shed light on the future modification and implementation of EPA's cross-state air pollution regulations. The second essay applies an equilibrium sorting model to a brand-new housing market in Beijing, China to estimate household preferences for neighborhood public goods provision, including public transportation services, public primary schools, and environmental amenities. The equilibrium sorting model is based on a discrete choice model of household residential location decisions. Relying on a unique, detailed data set on housing location, price, and other household characteristics, I estimate the model following the two-step BLP method, taking into account the heterogeneity of household preferences, incorporating neighborhood-specific unobservable characteristics, and addressing the endogeneity of housing prices using instrumental variables. The results suggest that in general, lower housing price, better environmental amenities, and being closer to job centers will increase the choice opportunity of a neighborhood, and public transportation systems play a more important role in the neighborhoods far away from urban centers. Moreover, different households show varying preferences for these public goods. A distinct fact is that in addition to income, people's preferences vary greatly with generation (head age of households) and job type (whether there are public employees), which reveal the significant differences between generations and illustrate the welfare for public employees within the context of the transitional economy in China. This preference heterogeneity implies that future policies should be more geographically asymmetric, locally targeted and tailored based on specific socio-economic characteristics. The third essay estimates the impact of climate change on the crop yields in China. I use a 11-year county-level panel data set covering more than 1,000 counties to estimate the effects of random year-to-year variation in weather on three major crops yields, including rice, wheat, and corn. Because it is not easy for small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change quickly in short time, these estimates could be used to plausibly predict the short to medium-run impacts of climate change on crop yields in China. The essay finds that over the period 2040-2060, projected climate change would reduce rice yield by 1.18% under a comparatively high emission scenario and by 0.08% under a medium-low scenario, reduce corn yield by 2.21% and 1.64% under the two emission scenarios, respectively, and increase wheat yield by 6.68% and 5.48% under the two emission scenarios, respectively. These findings may shed light on future policy designs to enhance the adaptive capacity of agriculture in China and thus ensure food security in the context of climate change.

Download or read book Ecology Economy and Society written by Vikram Dayal and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-30 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with not just complex linkages, interactions and exchanges that form the relationship between the economic activities, human society and the ecosystems, but also the influences and impacts that each causes on the other. In recent times, this ecology–economy–society interface has received unprecedented attention within the broader environment–development discourse. The volume is in honour of Kanchan Chopra, one of the pioneers of research in these areas in India. She has recently been awarded the coveted Kenneth Boulding Award by the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) and is the first Asian to receive it. The four sub-themes of the book reflect some of the important areas in the environment–development discourse — sustainability of development, institutions and environmental governance, environment and well-being, and ecosystem and conservation. Within each of the sub-themes, the policy and the practice as well as the macro and micro aspects are addressed. With contributions mainly from ecological economists and ecologists, the book’s approach is interdisciplinary, both in spirit and content, reflecting the honoree's work, which went not just beyond the mainstream ideology of economics, but also the way she listened to ideas from disciplines like ecology and sociology. The volume also includes two reflective essays on academic life and works of Kanchan Chopra. The book is a valuable resource for students, teachers, researchers, practitioners and policy makers in the areas of development economics, ecological economics, environmental economics and related disciplines such as conservation, development, ecology, economics, environment, governance, health, sociology and public policy.

Download or read book Environmental Resources and Applied Welfare Economics written by V. Kerry Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1988, provides an overview of the diverse work that was being done in applied and theoretical environmental and resource economics. Some essays reflect upon the background of the work of John Krutilla, one of the founders of Resources for the Future and a leading scholar of environmental economics, and the development of the field to date. Other essays examine and convey findings on particular resource problems and theoretical issues and resource policies and the practice of applied welfare economics. This title will be of interest to students of economics and environmental studies.

Download or read book Economic Theory for the Environment written by Karl-Göran Mäler and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text investigates many of the contemporary advances in economics, in terms of the management of natural resources and environments. The authors also concentrate on other important issues such as control theory for non-convex economic problems, duopoly theory, game theory, local public finance, patent races and population control. In addition, they investigate the difficulties involved in constructing environmental agreements, and detail the potential benefits of marrying together the disciplines of ecology and economics. As a whole, the book illustrates both the power and limitations of economics to shed light on many of today's pressing environmental issues.

Download or read book Three Essays at the Intersection of Public Finance and Environmental Economics written by Antung Anthony Liu and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is comprised of three essays which explore environmental economics topics using public finance tools. The first and third essays are applied theory papers examining two overlooked factors -- tax evasion and the shadow economy -- which sharply alter the calculus of carbon tax reform. The basic finding is that carbon taxes are much less costly than has previously been found, particularly in developing countries. The second essay is an empirical paper studying how China's tax system has impacted its rollout of sewage treatment plants.

Download or read book Environment and Development Economics written by Scott Barrett and published by . This book was released on 2014-04 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book honours Partha Dasgupta, and the field he helped establish; environment and development economics. It concerns the relationship between social systems and natural systems. Above all, it concerns the poverty-environment nexus: the complex pathways by which people become or remain poor, and resources become or remain overexploited.

Download or read book The Theory and Practice of Environmental and Resource Economics written by Karl-Gustaf Löfgren and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of specially commissioned papers pays tribute to Karl-Gustaf Lofgren's significant and diverse contribution to theoretical and empirical research within the field of environmental and resource economics over the past two decades. A number of distinguished scholars examine a broad range of topics including sustainability, risk and uncertainty, demand theory and issues related to public goods. The book also contains analyses of more specific resource problems concerning fisheries, forestry management, wildlife and pollution. Together, the seventeen chapters provide an innovative and cutting-edge analysis of a smorgasbord of both old and new environmental and resource problems, including, amongst others: local public goods and income heterogeneity self-selection and the value of lives saved international fisheries agreements salmon and hydropower discrete versus continuous harvesting timber supply voluntary road pricing economic impacts of environmental regulations in California. Academics, researchers and students within the fields of environmental, resource and public economics will find this book to be a fascinating read.

Download or read book Public Economics and the Environment in an Imperfect World written by Lans Bovenberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing populations and economies have increased the public's awareness that the world's environmental resources are finite. The issues of global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer have given universal significance to what were once local and regional pollution problems. What is evident from Public Economics and the Environment in an Imperfect World is that Coasian negotiations fail to internalize the costs of environmental degradation, often calling for public intervention through the market mechanism. In its consideration of such issues the book includes contributions on assessment problems, institutional aspects, the need for coordination and efficiency, and distribution issues.

Download or read book Essays in Public and Environmental Economics written by Nicolas Chanut and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays in Energy and Environmental Economics written by Arthur Alexius van Benthem and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays in energy and environmental economics that all have a bearing on various concepts from public economics. The first essay uses fiscal data on 2,468 oil extraction agreements in 38 countries to study tax contracts between resource-rich countries and independent oil companies. We analyze why expropriations occur and what determines the degree of oil price exposure of host countries. We show theoretically and verify empirically that oil price insurance provided by tax contracts is increasing in a country's cost of expropriation, and decreasing in its production expertise. The second essay reveals significant unintended consequences from recent 14-state efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through emissions limits per mile from new cars. While such efforts significantly reduce emissions from new cars sold in the adopting states, they cause substantial emissions increases from new cars sold in other (non-adopting) states and from used cars. Such offsets (or "leakage") reflect interactions between the state-level and federal fuel-economy standards: the state-level efforts loosen the national standard, so that automakers can profitably increase sales of high-emissions vehicles in non-adopting states. Our simulation model estimates that leakage associated with recent legislation is 65-74%. In the third essay, I analyze speed limits. When choosing his speed, a driver faces a trade-off between private benefits (time savings) and private costs (fuel cost and own damage and injury). Driving faster also has external costs (pollution, adverse health impacts and injury to other drivers). I use large-scale speed limit increases in the western United States in 1987 and 1996 to address three related questions. First, do the social benefits of raising speed limits exceed the social (private plus external) costs? Second, do the private benefits of driving faster as a result of higher speed limits exceed the private costs? Third, could completely eliminating speed limits improve efficiency? I find that a 10 mph speed limit increase on highways leads to a 3-4 mph increase in travel speed, 9-15% more accidents, 34-60% more fatal accidents, and elevated pollutant concentrations of 14-25% (carbon monoxide), 9-16% (nitrogen oxides), 1-11% (ozone) and 9% higher fetal death rates around the affected freeways. I use these estimates to calculate private and external benefits and costs, and find that the social costs of speed limit increases are three to ten times larger than the social benefits. In contrast, many individual drivers would enjoy a net private benefit from driving faster. The substantial difference between private and social optimal speed choices provides a strong rationale for having speed limits.

Download or read book Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism written by Wallace E. Oates and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wally Oates is one of the most important scholars in both environmental economics and public finance and this new volume of his essays collects together his best recent research in both these areas, covering theory, research and policy. The first half of the book includes papers on the political economy of environmental policy, the analysis of environmental regulation and environmental federalism. The second half deals with fiscal and regulatory competition, state and local government finance and fiscal federalism. This new collection will be essential reading for scholars and students in both environmental economics and public finance.

Download or read book Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics written by Herman E. Daly and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains articles first published in journals in the 1980s and 1990s by a leading commentator on the environment, offering lively criticism of existing work on ecological economics and the economics of ecology. A theme of all the essays is that changes in perspective, attitudes, and policies are required to avoid the impoverishment that results when environmental and social costs of growth exceed benefits. Issues addressed include growth economics, misunderstandings of thermodynamics, economic development and population, globalization, money, and humans in the ecosystem. The author is a professor in the school of public affairs at the University of Maryland. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Essays in Environmental Economics written by Gina Moon Waterfield and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public initiative and referendum voting outcomes provide an opportune setting in which to study the demand for publicly provided goods and services, such as environmental quality and public education. In the first essay, I use census block group level voting outcomes on California statewide ballot propositions from 2006 to 2012 to test whether the relationship between voter support and income depends on a proposition's fiscal implications or the local availability of private substitutes. Support is modestly increasing in income when the proposition is associated with a regulatory change in the context of environmental protection. When propositions are tax or bond-funded, however, I find evidence of a convex or U-shaped relationship between median income and the share of votes in favor, consistent with the combined effects of a low tax burden on poor households and a low marginal utility of wealth among rich households. In the context of public education funding, I further find that the positive marginal effect of income at high income levels is moderated in block groups with greater availability of private substitutes, namely a greater density of nearby private schools. Individuals can express their preferences for public goods, and environmental protection in particular, both as voters by supporting regulation or as consumers by choosing favorable alternatives, thus providing a unique opportunity to compare consumer and voter behavior within the same individual and regarding the same issue. In the second essay, I examine the relationship between willingness to pay a premium for products that avoid a controversial technology associated with environmental risks or externalities, with willingness to vote in favor of a ban or mandatory labeling of the technology. Based on a survey on genetically modified food, I find that the majority of respondents make consumer and voter choices that can be explained by a standard utility maximization framework. However, certain respondent characteristics are correlated with inconsistent choice patterns. In particular, low-income voters appear to be overly supportive of regulation relative to their private willingness to pay. Voters who are uncertain about the safety of genetically modified food also tend to be more in favor of mandatory labeling than their consumer choices would imply. While the first two essays consider the relationship between income and demand for environmental protection at a micro level, there are also much broader implications of this relationship. At the country level, higher GDP is often associated with stricter pollution regulation, which may imply a disproportionate amount of production of pollution-intensive goods in less wealthy countries. The hypothesis that countries with relatively strict pollution regulation will be more likely to import pollution intensive goods from countries with weaker or absent regulation is intuitively appealing and has found moderate support in a number of empirical studies. While these studies focus on the regulation of manufacturing industries, the underlying theoretical argument applies equally to the agricultural sector. The third essay assesses whether cross-country differences in pesticide regulation can induce such "pollution haven'' effects. In particular, I estimate the impact of the international phaseout of methyl bromide on trade flows in agricultural products. I find robust evidence that cross-country differences in allowed methyl bromide usage affect trade flows, and show that the effect varies in magnitude and significance across commodities, largely in line with their baseline reliance on MeBr. The results do not suggest that countries granted exemptions from the phaseout for particular commodities, on the basis of such reliance, gained an unfair competitive advantage.

Download or read book The Economic Approach to Environmental Policy written by A. Myrick Freeman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These papers cover such topics as: the effects of environmental and resources policies on income distribution; the incorporation of distribution effects into environmental policy analysis; the role of economic incentives in environmental policy; the economic valuation of environment changes; and the consideration of risk and uncertainty in economic valuation and policy making. The book also includes papers on the ethical basis of environmental economics and the economic approach to environmental policy.