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Handbook of Environmental Economics
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ISSN (Print) 1574-0099
Published by Elsevier

[2906 journals]

Chapter 10 - Uncertainty and ambiguity in environmental economics:
conceptual issues
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Geoffrey Heal, Antony MillnerAbstractUncertainty is ubiquitous in environmental economics: the field studies interactions between socio-economic and biogeochemical systems and neither is fully understood. So our grasp of their interactions is necessarily limited. We argue that this pervasive uncertainty is best modeled as ambiguity rather than risk, as a set of situations where multiple prior probability distributions arise naturally and must be considered by the decision maker. We review briefly how this insight can affect our understanding of two iconic issues in environmental economics, climate change and biodiversity loss.
^✶ &rft.title=Handbook+of+Environmental+Economics&rft.issn=1574-0099&rft.date=&rft.volume=">Chapter 9 - Causal inference in environmental conservation: The role of
institutions ✶
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Erin O. Sills, Kelly JonesAbstractThe on-going degradation of global public goods such as biodiversity and climate regulation due to the loss of natural tropical ecosystems has generated demand for evidence on the effectiveness of alternative policy instruments for environmental conservation. Economists initially responded with ex post evaluations using quasi-experimental methods to identify average causal effects on outcomes such as deforestation. In this chapter, we demonstrate how careful attention to institutions enhances both the credibility and the policy relevance of these evaluations. Policy instruments such as protected areas, decentralization, and payments for ecosystem services are designed to change formal property rights institutions. Their causal effects are shaped by both formal and informal institutions, especially when they are applied to ecosystems that are also central to local livelihoods. Program evaluation should consider how these institutions define (1) assignment or selection of people and places, (2) specific treatments, through variation in institutional details that generate heterogeneous effects, (3) moderators that influence potential outcomes both with and without treatment, again generating heterogeneous effects, and (4) mechanisms, or the means by which instruments affect the ultimate outcomes.
Chapter 8 - Environmental macroeconomics: The case of climate change
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): John Hassler, Per KrusellAbstractWe describe the construction of an integrated assessment model of the economy and the climate. The framework is quantitatively oriented—it is constructed to account for the main global macroeconomic and climate facts—and its structure is a dynamic, stochastic general-equilibrium model. It is designed, in particular, for policy evaluation and long-term predictions of joint economy-climate outcomes. The chapter begins with a detailed description of stylized long-run macroeconomic facts and the core framework for replicating them, along with an extension to include an energy sector. Then a climate and a carbon-cycle module are added and economic damages from climate change are explicitly described and included in the model. Methods for solving the model are then discussed and a core setting, allowing a particularly convenient solution, is developed, calibrated, and used. Extensions to endogenous technology choice and multi-regional analysis are briefly discussed as well.
^✶ &rft.title=Handbook+of+Environmental+Economics&rft.issn=1574-0099&rft.date=&rft.volume=">Chapter 7 - Quasi-experimental methods in environmental economics:
Opportunities and challenges ✶
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Olivier Deschenes, Kyle C. MengAbstractThis paper examines the application of quasi-experimental methods in environmental economics. We begin with two observations: (i) standard quasi-experimental methods, first applied in other microeconomic fields, typically assume unit-level treatments that do not spill over across units; (ii) because public goods, such as environmental attributes, exhibit externalities, treatment of one unit often affects other units. To explore the implications of applying standard quasi-experimental methods to public good problems, we extend the potential outcomes framework to explicitly distinguish between unit-level source and the resulting group-level exposure of a public good. This new framework serves as a foundation for reviewing and interpreting key papers from the recent empirical literature. We formally demonstrate that two common quasi-experimental estimators of the marginal social benefit of a public good can be biased due to externality spillovers, even when the source of the public good itself is quasi-randomly assigned. We propose an unbiased estimator for the valuation of local public goods and discuss how it can be implemented in future studies. Finally, we consider how to preserve the advantages of the quasi-experimental approach when valuing global public goods, such as climate change mitigation, for which no control units are available.
^✶ &rft.title=Handbook+of+Environmental+Economics&rft.issn=1574-0099&rft.date=&rft.volume=">Chapter 6 - Selection and design of environmental policy instruments ✶
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Thomas Sterner, Elizabeth J.Z. RobinsonAbstractIn this article, we provide an overview of a rather large topic: how economics can inform the selection and design of policy instruments to deal with environmental problems. We first identify (in Sections 1–2) underlying market failures that underscore the need for policy. Then, (in 3) we look at the menu of available policies. After that, we turn to the selection and design of appropriate policy instruments, with attention to the success or failure of policy instruments that have been tried in the past. In order to select instruments, we look to the root causes of the failures that motivate the use of instruments. Unfortunately, there is no single unified theory of policy selection. Instead, we present a series of results based on various special cases. This is complemented with a number of practical and political considerations related primarily to feasibility and the incidence of policy costs, which interact with distributional concerns. In Section 5, we look at several specific examples to bring out the ideas and principles with more concrete, real-life details. Finally, the last section deals with policy making in the Anthropocene – the new period of history we are entering, when the human economy is the main driving force behind many crucial environmental parameters on Earth.
^✶ &rft.title=Handbook+of+Environmental+Economics&rft.issn=1574-0099&rft.date=&rft.volume=">Chapter 5 - The farmer's climate change adaptation challenge in least
developed countries ✶
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Maximilian Auffhammer, Matthew E. KahnAbstractClimate change poses many new risks to people in the developing world. Unlike in standard choice under uncertainty problems, the risks from climate change are both ambiguous and non-stationary. We examine climate projections concerning what scenarios are most likely to unfold. We explore how individual farmers in the developing world are likely to respond to these challenges. This analysis points out data gaps and valuable future research paths. Urbanization offers one possible adaptation channel. We explore the opportunities and challenges posed by climate change induced accelerated Least Developed Country (LDC) urbanization.
^✶ &rft.title=Handbook+of+Environmental+Economics&rft.issn=1574-0099&rft.date=&rft.volume=">Chapter 4 - Through the looking glass: Environmental health economics in
low and middle income countries ✶
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Emily L. Pakhtigian, Erin L. LitzowAbstractHuman interactions with the environment can profoundly impact many outcomes – health being chief among them. While the nature of environmental risks changes across time and space, the burden of disease attributable to environmental risk hovers stubbornly around one quarter of the total global disease burden. Further, environmental risks are particularly damaging to the health of children, but also to the elderly and the impoverished in low and middle income countries (LMICs). This chapter highlights the ways in which economics provides analytical insight about the human–environment relationship and about potential ways to prevent diseases. Specifically, we contend that the household production framework – which focuses on the beneficiary and households – helps us understand when and how households will avert environmental risks. While economists have been mostly on the sidelines of environmental health research, there is a growing literature from LMICs that examines three aspects of reduction in household environmental risks: (i) how households value these risk reductions, (ii) what factors drive household adoption of environmental health technologies, and (iii) what are the impacts of these technologies on household health. At the risk of simplification, our review of this literature finds relatively low values for environmental risk reductions, which is mirrored by limited adoption of environmental health technologies and, accordingly, disappointing impact on health. Economists have made less progress in linking the literatures on valuation, adoption and impacts with each other. We conclude by explaining why the next wave of research should focus on these links and on multiple risks, environmental disasters, and political economy of the supply of interventions.
^✶ &rft.title=Handbook+of+Environmental+Economics&rft.issn=1574-0099&rft.date=&rft.volume=">Chapter 3 - The nature of natural capital and ecosystem income ✶
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Eli P. Fenichel, Joshua K. Abbott, Seong Do YunAbstractThe natural capital concept is generating broad interest that extends well beyond economists. Economics has a long history of applying capital theory to natural resources. However, measurement of the value of ecosystems has mostly focused on income flows rather than valuing stocks of natural assets. While, the two concepts are interconnected, measuring the value of natural capital is important for improving social benefit-cost analysis and to allow nature to be more fully included in sustainability-focused wealth accounts. Typical bookend assumptions of the social planner optimally managing natural capital versus open access driving its marginal value to zero are insufficient to capture the actual spectrum of imperfect institutions. This chapter develops theory and techniques for measuring natural capital shadow prices or asset values in real world situations.
Chapter 2 - Ecology and economics in the science of anthropogenic
biosphere change
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Charles Perrings, Ann KinzigAbstractThis chapter considers the ways in which research at the intersection of ecology and economics has strengthened our understanding of anthropogenic biosphere change. Three dimensions of the problem are addressed. The first is the linkages between the carrying and assimilative capacity of the environment and the substitutability of produced and natural capital. The second is connection between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the valuation of non-marketed environmental goods and services. The third is the resilience of ecological systems and the stability and sustainability of economic states and processes. Work across the two disciplines has affected the spatial and temporal scale at which the problem is addressed, the way in which biophysical processes appear in models of the coupled system, the data used to calibrate and validate those models, and the range of interventions considered. We show where traction has been gained by taking explicit account of processes that have traditionally been neglected or treated parametrically in economic models, or by taking account of stocks whose dynamics play out at different temporal and spatial scales. We also show how application of the ecological concept of resilience has provided both a foundation for sustainability science and a way to test the environmental consequences of demographic, technological, institutional and economic changes in human societies.
Chapter 1 - Modeling coupled climate, ecosystems, and economic systems
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): William A. Brock, Anastasios XepapadeasAbstractHuman economies and ecosystems form a coupled system coevolving in time and space, since human economies use ecosystems services and at the same time affect ecosystems through their production and consumption activities. The study of the interactions between human economies and ecosystems is fundamental for the efficient use of natural resources and the protection of the environment. This necessitates the development and use of models capable of tracing the main interactions, links and feedbacks. In developing this chapter, our objective was to focus on a segment of rapidly developing literature on coupled ecological/economic models with an emphasis on climate change. The advantage of this approach is that it introduces the reader to a very important current research topic, but it also allows, by using climate as the reference ecosystem, the exploration of new modeling approaches which are relevant and useful for the modeling of other types of coupled ecological/economic systems. These include modeling of deep structural uncertainty by using robust control methods, exploring modeling through cumulative carbon budgeting, studying spatial transport phenomena and spatial aspects in economic/ecological modeling.
Introduction to the Series
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2018Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 4Author(s): Kenneth J. Arrow, Michael D. Intriligator
Chapter 30 The Economics of Climate Policy
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Charles D. Kolstad, Michael TomanEconomics has played an increasingly important role in shaping policy, in the United States and elsewhere. This chapter reviews some of the dimensions of the economic approach to analyzing, understanding, and developing solutions to the problem of climate change. We then turn to the issue of designing regulatory instruments to control the problem. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the political economy of greenhouse gas control in an international context.
Chapter 29 The Economics of Biodiversity
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Stephen Polasky, Christopher Costello, Andrew SolowThe conservation of biodiversity is a major environmental issue, one that promises to remain at or near the top of the environmental agenda for the foreseeable future. The loss of biodiversity affects human welfare as well as being lamentable for its own sake. Humans depend on natural systems to produce a wide variety of ecosystem goods and services, ranging from direct use of certain species for food or medicines to ecosystem functions that provide water purification, nutrient retention or climate regulation. Threats to biodiversity include habitat loss and fragmentation, the introduction of nonindigenous species, over-harvesting, pollution, changes in geochemical cycles and climate change. Sustaining biodiversity in the face of increasing human populations and increased human economic activity promises to be a major challenge. Economists have an important role to play in helping to develop and evaluate conservation strategies. Because biodiversity is at risk in large part because of human activity, finding ways to conserve biodiversity will come from better understanding and management of human affairs, not from better biology alone. Economists can help set priorities to allocate scarce conservation resources where they will do the most good. Economists can help design incentive schemes to make conservation policy both effective and efficient. Economic methods can shed light on what are the most valuable components of biodiversity, including analysis of species existence value, the value of bioprospecting and the value of ecosystem services.
Chapter 28 The theory of international environmental agreements
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Scott BarrettThis chapter presents the theory of international environmental agreements (IEAs). It explains what treaties do (or should do); when and why they succeed or fail; and whether they can be designed better. It focuses on the main questions that the literature on this topic has tried to answer, discusses the different methodological approaches that have been used, and shows how these approaches relate to one another. The chapter pays greatest attention to the constraint of self-enforcement and to the institutional aspects of IEAs. Topics discussed include: the relationship between international environmental cooperation problems and other cooperation problems; the problems IEAs are meant to address; the non-cooperative and full cooperative benchmarks; IEAs as stage games; the empirical implications of the theory; alternative equilibrium concepts; minimum participation in a treaty; pollution abatement as a strategic substitute and as a strategic complement; the difference between compliance and participation enforcement; IEAs as repeated games; the trade-off between the depth and breadth of cooperation; the distributive and strategic roles of side payments; issue linkage; trade leakage; and enforcement relying on trade restrictions. The chapter also shows how the theory can illuminate real problems, including acid rain, ozone depletion, and global climate change. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.
Chapter 27 International Trade, Foreign Investment, and the Environment
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Michael RauscherThe 1990s produced a large literature on foreign trade and the environment, including both theoretical and empirical contributions. The paper surveys this literature. It starts by looking at the traditional Heckscher–Ohlin type models of international trade and then moves to noncompetitive models and the strategic use of environmental policy in open economies. A shorter section is devoted to public-choice approaches to environmental policy. Moreover, the paper deals with factor mobility and interjurisdictional competition, with intertemporal issues such as renewable resources and foreign indebtedness, with the empirical evidence, and with institutional issues related to the World Trade Organization and international environmental agreements.Basically three questions are addressed from different points of view:–Are trade liberalisation and increased factor mobility good or bad for the environment'–Are there larger incentives to relax environmental policies if economies are more open'–Do we have to expect a race towards the bottom in environmental regulation if trade and international factor movements are liberalised' The answers to all these questions are ambiguous. Since many of the recent contributions to the theoretical literature model second-best worlds, in which the environmental externality is only one of several distortions of the economy, the results depend crucially on the nature of the other distortions. This survey paper gives an overview of this literature and explains the contradictory results. On the empirical side, the results are inconclusive as well. The link between environmental policies on the one hand and international trade and factor movements on the other is much weaker than one might have expected given the intensity and controversy of the policy debate at the turn of the century. Based on the theoretical results and on the empirical evidence, the paper finally tries to identify promising areas of future research. In spite of much progress made in the last decade, much remains to be done.
Chapter 26 Environmental implications of non-environmental policies
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Anil MarkandyaThis chapter seeks to understand the linkages between non-environmental polices and the environment, with a particular focus on taxation and subsidies. In order to understand the quite complex literature on this subject, we draw on the theory of the second best and the theory of optimal taxation. The thrust of the chapter is that there are multiple objectives and interactions among the various policies employed to meet them. In retrospect, one can always ‘do better’ in, say, improving efficiency and environmental quality without worsening the income distribution. What is interesting is to understand what the environmental impacts of the non-environmental policies have been and what lessons one can learn about the formulation of similar policies in the future. That is the central purpose of the chapter. Section 2 examines subsidies in agriculture and transport, as well as policies relating to trade liberalization, privatization, and public infrastructure investment. Section 3 is devoted specifically to energy subsidies. It reviews the results of partial- and general-equilibrium studies on energy subsidies, including environmental impacts (in particular, carbon emissions). Section 4 presents a general-equilibrium model in which energy subsidies and other taxes in the economy are reduced in a revenue-neutral fashion. Two important general-equilibrium effects, the revenue-recycling effect and the tax-interaction effect, are introduced in this section. Sections 5 and 6 continue the discussion of revenue-neutral fiscal policy changes, focusing on the substitution of environmental taxes for other taxes, in particular taxes on labor. This is the “double dividend” debate. Section 5 presents the theory, while Section 6 presents empirical evidence for the European Union. The latter section focuses primarily on employment effects, not welfare effects (the “employment double dividend” vs. “gross welfare dividend”). Section 7 summarizes the main points of the chapter.
Chapter 25 Calculating the Costs of Environmental Regulation
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): William A. Pizer, Raymond KoppDecisions concerning environmental protection hinge on estimates of economic burden. Over the past 30 years, economists have developed and applied various tools to measure this burden. In this chapter, we present a taxonomy of costs along with methods for measuring those costs. At the broadest level, we distinguish between partial and general equilibrium costs. Partial equilibrium costs represent the burden directly borne by the regulated entity (firms, households, government), including both pecuniary and nonpecuniary expenses, when prices are held constant. General equilibrium costs reflect the net burden once all good and factor markets have equilibrated. In addition to partial equilibrium costs, these general equilibrium costs include welfare losses or gains in markets with preexisting distortions, welfare losses or gains from rebalancing the government's budget constraint, and welfare gains from the added flexibility of meeting pollution constraints through reductions in the use of higher-priced, pollution-intensive products. In addition to both partial and general equilibrium costs, we also consider the distribution of costs across households, countries, sectors, subnational regions, and generations. Despite improvements in our understanding of cost measurement, we find considerable opportunity for further work and, especially, better application of existing methods.
Chapter 24 CGE Modeling of Environmental Policy and Resource Management
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Lars BergmanComputable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling is an attempt to use general equilibrium theory as a tool for analysis of resource allocation and income distribution issues in market economies. Since the beginning of the 1990s, CGE modeling has been widely used for analysis of environmental policy and natural resource management issues. The purpose of this chapter is to review this branch of CGE modeling.Most existing CGE models are static, but as faster computers and more efficient software have become available, an increasing number of environmental CGE models are dynamic. In addition to the static–dynamic dimension, it is useful to distinguish between single-country, multi-country and global models. Some environmental CGE models are primarily focused on the external effects of production and consumption, while others are designed to elucidate various issues related to the management of natural resources.However, most existing CGE models are focused on externalities, primarily emissions of greenhouse gases. Global “externality” CGE models have been used to estimate the social cost of complying with the Kyoto Protocol, while single-country models, among many other things, have been used for evaluation of the efficiency of emission taxes and other environmental policy instruments.CGE modeling currently is both a field for specialists and an almost standard part of the toolbox of economists concerned with policy-oriented research. A major reason for the widespread use of CGE modeling probably is that a CGE model is an ideal bridge between economic theory and applied policy research. The “bridge” perspective, however, suggests that CGE modeling is a way of using rather than testing economic theory. Yet carefully designed and estimated CGE models have a lot to say about real world economies.
Chapter 23 Economic growth and the environment
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Anastasios XepapadeasEnvironmental pollution is introduced both as a joint product and as a source of disutility in growth models. The purpose is to explore vital questions such as: is environmental protection compatible with economic growth; is it possible to have sustained growth in the long run without accumulation of pollution; what is the impact of environmental concerns on growth, and in particular, how are the levels, the paths or the growth rates of crucial variables such as capital, income, consumption or environmental pollution affected if we take into account the environment; what type of deviations do we observe between market outcomes and the social optimum; what are the policy implications of these deviations; what do data tell us about stylized facts relating environmental quality and economic development (the environmental Kuznets curve); and how can total factor productivity be decomposed into its sources once we account for the fact that an economy produces not only the desired output, but also undesirable output (environmental pollution)'
^⋆ &rft.title=Handbook+of+Environmental+Economics&rft.issn=1574-0099&rft.date=&rft.volume=">Chapter 22 National Income and the Environment ⋆
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Geoffrey Heal, Bengt KriströmIn this chapter, we review the concept of national income and the economic theory of national income accounting. There are two building blocks – the ideas of Fisher, Lindahl, Hicks about income as an expenditure level that can be continued into the future, and the concept of income as a welfare measure that emerges from the welfare economics and general equilibrium of the 1950s and 1960s. The former have led to an extensive literature on the use of Hamiltonians or their first-order approximations as an income measure. After reviewing this body of theory and the connections between the concepts, we suggest extensions and then consider how various proposed green accounting systems match up to the theoretical desiderata. We also review a number of empirical applications. We devote considerable space to the United Nations' proposed System of Economic and Environmental Accounts, and to accounting reforms proposed by the statistical offices of various countries.
Chapter 21 Intertemporal Welfare Economics and the Environment
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Geoffrey HealI review the complex welfare economic issues that arise in environmental decision-making over very long periods, as in cases relating to climate change and biodiversity loss. I also consider the issues that arise in choosing a discount rate to apply to very long-run projects and indicate how such rates should be chosen.
Preface to the Handbook
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Karl-Göran Mäler, Jeffrey R. VincentPublisher SummaryMost environmental problems share the following two characteristics: they are intertemporal and they are local. Soil erosion may cause severe economic losses in the future, but a long time might pass before the soil is eroded enough for its productivity to be affected. And when its productivity is affected, the economic damage will fall primarily on the nearby village of farmers and might be barely felt on a national or international level. Thus, there will be no sign of economic damage until later, and because of the lack of appropriate information and the lack of appropriate property rights, there will be no immediate impacts on agricultural products and their prices. This handbook focuses on environmental goods and services that, because of the property rights failures stemming from externalities and public goods, are not allocated efficiently by markets. Indeed, these environmental resources often lack markets altogether. They include air and water quality, hydrological functions of forests and wetlands, soil stability and fertility, the genetic diversity of wild species, natural areas used for recreation, and numerous others. They are in principle renewable, but in practice they are often subject to excessive degradation and depletion, sometimes to an irreversible degree.
Contents of the Handbook
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s):
Introduction to the Series
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  Abstract: Publication date: 2005Source: Handbook of Environmental Economics, Volume 3Author(s): Kenneth J. Arrow, Michael D. IntriligatorPublisher SummaryThe series Handbooks in Economics produces handbooks for various branches of economics, each of which is a definitive source, reference, and teaching supplement for the use by professional researchers and advanced graduate students. Each handbook provides self-contained surveys of the current state of a branch of economics in the form of chapters prepared by leading specialists on various aspects of this branch of economics. These surveys summarize not only received results but also newer developments, from current journal articles and discussion papers. Some original material is also included, but the main goal is to provide comprehensive and accessible surveys.