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  Subjects -> CONSERVATION (Total: 128 journals)
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Environmental and Resource Economics
Journal Prestige (SJR): 1.186
Citation Impact (citeScore): 2
Number of Followers: 28  
 
  Hybrid Journal Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 1573-1502 - ISSN (Online) 0924-6460
Published by Springer-Verlag Homepage  [2467 journals]
  • A Novel HydroEconomic - Econometric Approach for Integrated Transboundary
           Water Management Under Uncertainty

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      Abstract: Abstract The optimal management of scarce transboundary water resources among competitive users is expected to be challenged by the effects of climate change on water availability. The multiple economic and social implications, including conflicts between neighbouring countries, as well as competitive sectors within each country are difficult to estimate and predict, to inform policy-making. In this paper, this problem is approached as a stochastic multistage dynamic game: we develop and apply a novel framework for assessing and evaluating different international strategies regarding transboundary water resources use, under conditions of hydrological uncertainty. The Omo-Turkana transboundary basin in Africa is used as a case study application, since it increasingly faces the above challenges, including the international tension between Kenya and Ethiopia and each individual country’s multi-sectoral competition for water use. The mathematical framework combines a hydro-economic model (water balance, water costs and benefits), and an econometric model (production functions and water demand curves) which are tested under cooperative and non-cooperative conditions (Stackelberg “leader–follower” game). The results show the cross-country and cross-sectoral water use—economic trade-offs, the future water availability for every game case, the sector-specific production function estimations (including residential, agriculture, energy, mining, tourism sectors), with nonparametric treatment, allowing for technical inefficiency in production and autocorrelated Total Factor Productivity, providing thus a more realistic simulation. Cooperation between the two countries is the most beneficial case for future water availability and economic growth. The study presents a replicable, sophisticated modelling framework, for holistic transboundary water management.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • Behavioural and Welfare Analysis of an Intermediary in Biodiversity Offset
           Markets

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      Abstract: Abstract This paper provides a behavioural and welfare analysis of an intermediary in biodiversity offset markets. These markets are characterised by high information requirements and transaction costs, threatening economic efficiency and even biodiversity outcomes. Specialised intermediaries facilitate trading by providing information and brokering services. By buying, holding and selling offset credits from storage, the intermediary can decrease both financial and ecological risks in the market. As a drawback, the intermediary may exploit market power upstream or downstream due to ecological features of the offset market. Intermediaries decrease the trading parties’ transaction costs by offering specialised information, reduce uncertainty, and decrease the costs of offsetting by increasing liquidity in the market and offering certain offset credits. When the intermediary has market power, selling and buying prices deviate from the competitive equilibrium. This welfare loss may be lower than the loss from transaction costs and trade ratios in decentralised trade, even in the case of the intermediary having both monopoly and monopsony power. The intermediary is the most useful when trade ratios are high and when the intermediary stores mature credits, which eliminates ecological uncertainty and thereby offers cost savings for developers, and may result in a higher level of biodiversity.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • Diverging Beliefs on Climate Change and Climate Policy: The Role of
           Political Orientation

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      Abstract: Abstract Using longitudinal data from two household surveys in 2017 and 2019, we analyze attitudes toward climate change and climate policy in Germany. We find that nearly 20% of respondents state that they do not believe in climate change, and more than 30% are doubtful that climate change is mainly caused by human action. Moreover, we detect that political orientation is strongly correlated with these attitudes, as respondents inclined to Germany’s right-wing populist party AfD are substantially more climate-skeptical and object to climate policies more frequently. Even though our results show that climate change skepticism increased between 2017 and 2019, coinciding with the rise of the Fridays for Future movement, AfD voters did not move further away from the average respondent during this period. Moreover, fixed-effects estimations show that the climate attitudes of voters who switch to AfD during the study period hardly change, indicating that the orientation towards the AfD does not change climate attitudes. Instead, AfD might attract people who were already climate skeptical.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • Adjusting and Calibrating Elicited Values Based on Follow-up Certainty
           Questions: A Meta-analysis

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      Abstract: Abstract Researchers have proposed many methods to reduce hypothetical bias (HB) in stated preference studies. One of the earliest and most popular is Certainty follow-up, in which the respondent states how sure they are of their response to the valuation question they just responded to. Certainty follow-up enables the use of several cutoffs to calibrate for HB, whereas the efficacy of other popular HB mitigation methods, such as Cheap Talk, have no such flexibility. Even given a cutoff level, its ability to reduce HB may vary with characteristics of the Certainty follow-up and of the study. Using a meta-analysis, we find that Certainty follow-up is more effective than Cheap Talk at adjusting for potential HB and that value elicitation method, mode of data collection, as well as whether other HB mitigation methods are used in a study could affect Certainty follow-up efficacy. Using and recoding Certainty follow-up questions quantitatively or qualitatively can be equally effective when compared to unadjusted hypothetical values where potential HB may occur or to values elicited with real binding conditions in which the actual magnitude of the HB is known. There is strong evidence that HB can be completely calibrated for or even overcorrected, but we encourage more Certainty follow-up studies with binding elicitations to fully explore the potential of this method.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • The Achievement of Multiple Nationally Determined Contribution Goals and
           Regional Economic Development in China

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      Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we develop a multiregional dynamic computable general equilibrium model, in which the technical details of the power sector are enriched by endogenizing nonfossil energy technological change. We then examine the impact of China’s carbon peaking and energy transition goals in 2030 on regional economic development. The results show that the carbon pricing policy will have a negative impact on the economy and aggravate the regional economic imbalance but will be conducive to total energy control. The targeted power investment policy promotes economic development and alleviates the regional economic imbalance; further, clean power investment also provides incentives for developing nonfossil energy technologies. It seems to be natural to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon intensity goals in 2030, whereas it will be more challenging to realize the total energy control and clean energy development goals. Targeted power investment adjusting combined with flexible carbon pricing does well in reconciling the attainment of multiple policy goals and the balance of reginal economic development.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • Concerns for Long-Run Risks and Natural Resource Policy

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      Abstract: Abstract The legislature in many countries requires that short-run risk and long-run risk be considered in making natural resource policy. In this paper, we explore this issue by analyzing how natural resource conservation policy should optimally respond to long-run risks in a resource management framework where the social evaluator has (Duffie and Epstein in Econometrica 60:353–394, 1992; Schroder and Skiadas in J Econ Theory 89:68–126, 1999) continuous-time stochastic recursive preferences. The response of resource conservation policy to long-run risks is reflected into a matrix whose coefficients measure precaution toward short-run risk, long-run risk and covariance risk. Attitudes toward the temporal resolution of risk underly concerns for long-run risks as well as the response of resource conservation policy to future uncertainty. We formally compare the responses of natural resource policy to long-run risks under recursive utility and under time-additive expected utility. A stronger preference for early resolution of uncertainty can prompt a more conservative resource policy as a response to long-run risks. In the very particular case where the social evaluator preferences are represented by a standard time-additive expected utility, long-run risks are not factored in resource conservation policy decisions. Our work also contributes to the so-called Hotelling Puzzle by formally showing that the fundamental Hotelling’s homogeneous resource depletion problem (one without extraction costs, without new discoveries, and without technical progress) can lead to a decreasing shadow price when attitudes toward the temporal resolution of risk are accounted for.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • Can Transverse Eco-compensation Mechanism Correct Resource Misallocation
           in Watershed Environmental Governance' A Cost-benefit Analysis of the
           Pilot Project of Xin’an River in China

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      Abstract: Abstract Correcting resource misallocation that creates productivity and welfare losses is the key to correcting transboundary basin pollution. China has proposed a transverse eco-compensation mechanism (TECM) based on the traditional Coase scheme to solve the pollution of transboundary watersheds. But whether it can correct the misallocation of resources that cause productivity and welfare losses has been ignored in existing literature. This paper first conducts a theoretical analysis of the TECM’s resource allocation effect and operation mechanism. And on this basis, we use the cost–benefit analysis (CBA) method to show how TECM produced actions in relevant upstream regions towards correcting excessive pollution, and how TECM provided economic incentives for these regions to undertake these actions. The CBA analysis results are consistent with the theoretical analysis. The TECM project will benefit the upstream region with a discount rate of 3%, and the present value of the net income is 96.4 million yuan. The conclusion still holds in the case of different discount rates. The above results show that the TECM can correct the resource misallocation that creates productivity and welfare losses in cross-basin environmental governance, and provide economic incentives for upstream areas to correct environmental resource misallocation (excessive pollution). Finally, the TECM model has important policy implications for solving the problem of cross-basin pollution in other similar countries.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • Sunspots That Matter: The Effect of Weather on Solar Technology Adoption

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      Abstract: Abstract This paper tests for the presence of behavioral biases in household decisions to adopt solar photovoltaic installations using exogenous variation in weather. I find that residential technology uptake responds to exceptional weather, defined as deviations from the long-term mean, in line with the average time gap between decision-making and completion of the installation. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in sunshine hours during the purchase period leads to an approximate increase of 4.7% in weekly solar PV installations. This effect persists in aggregate data. I consider a range of potential mechanisms and find suggestive evidence for projection bias and salience as key drivers of my results.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • The environmental effects of the “twin” green and digital
           transition in European regions

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      Abstract: Abstract This study explores the nexus between digital and green transformations—the so-called “twin” transition—in European regions in an effort to identify the impact of digital and environmental technologies on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions originating from industrial production. We conduct an empirical analysis based on an original dataset that combines information on environmental and digital patent applications with information on GHG emissions from highly polluting plants for the period 2007–2016 at the metropolitan region level in the European Union and the UK. Results show that the local development of environmental technologies reduces GHG emissions, while the local development of digital technologies increases them, albeit in the latter case different technologies seem to have different impacts on the environment, with big data and computing infrastructures being the most detrimental. We also find differential impacts across regions depending on local endowment levels of the respective technologies: the beneficial effect of environmental technologies is stronger in regions with large digital technology endowments and, conversely, the detrimental effect of digital technologies is weaker in regions with large green technology endowments. Policy actions promoting the “twin” transition should take this evidence into account, in light of the potential downside of the digital transformation when not combined with the green transformation.
      PubDate: 2023-04-01
       
  • Can We Love Invasive Species to Death' Creating Efficient Markets for
           Invasive Species Harvests

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      Abstract: Abstract Bounties and rebranding are an increasingly popular tool to control or eliminate invasive species that have consumptive values. However, there is concern that such policies will undermine eradication efforts and may exacerbate the spread of these species. We develop and apply an optimal dynamic harvesting model to identify policies that correct market failures associated with commercially valuable invasive species. Competing market failures imply that welfare-enhancing policies may either encourage or discourage harvesting of the invasive species. A species’ dual role as both a pest and commodity creates a nonconvexity that alters incentives to eradicate or exacerbate an invasion. We apply the model to the invasion of silver carp in the United States to show that many current carp subsidies are too low and identify a threshold level of rebranding effectiveness necessary to make rebranding a cost-effective policy choice compared to harvest subsidies.
      PubDate: 2023-03-26
       
  • Spatial Trade-Offs in National Land-Based Wind Power Production in Times
           of Biodiversity and Climate Crises

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      Abstract: Abstract Energy generated by land-based wind power is expected to play a crucial role in the decarbonisation of the economy. However, with the looming biodiversity and nature crises, spatial allocation of wind power can no longer be considered solely a trade-off against local disamenity costs. Emphasis should also be put on wider environmental impacts, especially if these challenge the sustainability of the renewable energy transition. We suggest a modelling system for selecting among a pool of potential wind power plants (WPPs) by combining an energy system model with a GIS analysis of WPP sites and surrounding viewscapes. The modelling approach integrates monetised local disamenity and carbon sequestration costs and places constraints on areas of importance for wilderness and biodiversity (W&B). Simulating scenarios for the Norwegian energy system towards 2050, we find that the southern part of Norway is the most favourable region for wind power siting when only the energy system surplus is considered. However, when local disamenity costs (and to a lesser extent carbon costs) and W&B constraints are added successively to the scenarios, it becomes increasingly beneficial to site WPPs in the northern part of Norway. We find that the W&B constraints have the largest impact on the spatial distribution of WPPs, while the monetised costs of satisfying these constraints are relatively small. Overall, our results show that there is a trade-off between local disamenities and loss of W&B. Siting wind power plants outside the visual proximity of households has a negative impact on W&B.
      PubDate: 2023-03-21
       
  • Welfare Effects and the Immaterial Costs of Coastal Flooding

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      Abstract: Abstract A flood can be a severe event, causing not only material damage but also immaterial, such as stress and discomfort. Yet, the risk of flooding may not always be known to house buyers before purchase. In this paper, we estimate the immaterial cost of flood risk from coastal flooding using the hedonic house price approach. The analysis is based on a rich house price dataset that identifies flooded houses using insurance data. The design of the insurance mechanism makes it possible to separate material and immaterial damage as all houses are insured independently of the flood risk. Applying a difference-in-differences design, we study the effect of changes in flood risk information, namely the publication of flood maps, and a flood event in Denmark in 2013. By estimating a time-variant house price function, we can infer the welfare implications of non-marginal changes in flood-risk perception. We find that households have a maximum WTP of 21% of the house price to avoid being flooded after a flood event and that this effect diminishes over time. Houses located in a flood risk zone are sold with an 8.4% price discount but controlling for inundation removes the impact of the flood map.
      PubDate: 2023-03-20
       
  • Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Game Harvests in Sweden

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      Abstract: Abstract The benefits and costs of wildlife are contingent on the spatial overlap of animal populations with economic and recreational human activities. By using a production function approach with dynamic spatial panel data models, we analyze the effects of human hunting and carnivore predation pressure on the value of ungulate game harvests. The results show evidence of dynamic spatial dependence in the harvests of roe deer and wild boar, but not in those of moose, which is likely explained by the presence of harvesting quotas for the latter. Results suggest the impact of lynx on roe deer harvesting values is reduced by 75% when spatial effects are taken into account. The spatial analysis confirms that policymakers’ aim to reduce wild boar populations through increased hunting has been successful, an effect that was only visible when considering spatial effects.
      PubDate: 2023-03-17
       
  • Floods, Agricultural Production, and Household Welfare: Evidence from
           Tanzania

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      Abstract: Abstract Floods affect more than 21 million people yearly, principally in poor countries. Using 3-year panel microdata from Tanzania and satellite flood data, this paper investigates the impacts of two successive large floods on households’ value of crop production, income, expenditures and life satisfaction. Using a kernel weighting difference-in-differences approach, we find a 34% decrease in the value of crop production for households living in affected villages or clusters in the year following the shock. We find no effects on total expenditures or child nutrition, but a significant negative effect on self-employment income and a persistent decrease in life satisfaction. Finally, access to safety nets or transfer income, and to forests in a village appears to have important mitigating effects.
      PubDate: 2023-03-13
       
  • Catastrophic Damages and the Optimal Carbon Tax Under Loss Aversion

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      Abstract: Abstract Recently, economists have begun to incorporate tipping points and catastrophic events into economy-climate models. It has been shown that the inclusion of tipping points amplifies the economic impacts of climate change and leads to much higher estimates of the social cost of carbon compared to the model that includes only non-catastrophic damages. All the estimates under catastrophic damages come from studies that assume full rationality. However, there is ample evidence that consumers exhibit loss aversion, meaning that they feel losses more strongly than equivalent gains. In this paper, we derive the optimal carbon tax in the Ramsey model under loss aversion and tipping points. We calibrate the model to generate a similar rate of return on capital, and thus pathways of capital and consumption, as a model with rational consumers in the business-as-usual scenario. We find that such a calibrated model generates an optimal carbon tax that is about three times higher than in the model with rational consumers in the optimal (OPT) scenario. A catastrophic event, which reduces the productivity of capital, results in a greater utility loss of loss-averse consumers compared to rational consumers. The optimal tax makes loss-averse consumers increase their precautionary savings before the shock, smoothing their consumption, which reduces welfare loss after the catastrophic event.
      PubDate: 2023-03-02
       
  • Population, Ecological Footprint and the Sustainable Development Goals

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      Abstract: Abstract The Anthropocene can be read as being the era when the demand humanity makes on the biosphere’s goods and services—humanity’s ‘ecological footprint’—vastly exceeds its ability to supply it on a sustainable basis. Because the ‘ecological’ gap is met by a diminution of the biosphere, the inequality is increasing. We deploy estimates of the ecological gap, global GDP and its growth rates in recent years, and the rate at which natural capital has declined, to study three questions: (1) at what rate must efficiency at which Nature’s services are converted into GDP rise if the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for year 2030 are to be sustainable; (2) what would a sustainable figure for world population be if global living standard is to be maintained at an acceptably high level' (3) What living standard could we aspire to if world population was to attain the UN’s near lower-end projection for 2100 of 9 billion' While we take a global perspective, the reasoning we deploy may also be applied on a smaller scale. The base year we adopt for our computations is the pre-pandemic 2019.
      PubDate: 2023-03-01
       
  • Fish Protein Transition in a Coastal Developing Country

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      Abstract: Abstract In low-income food-deficit coastal countries, fish forms a critical source of animal protein. Yet, capture fisheries, which provide fish protein to the local populations, are typically overcapitalized and exhibit classical signs of biological overfishing, threatening the livelihoods of communities. With the high and increasing fishing pressure, the rate of stock depletion may continue to intensify, thereby tilting households’ preferences towards consumption of other types of animal protein depending on whether (or not) they have strong preferences for those types of protein. This, however, may have implications for the environment as the different types of protein have different environmental footprints. By employing a variant of the Suits Index (1977) and an Almost Ideal Demand Systems (AIDS) model, we found strong evidence that wealthier households in Ghana spend a lesser proportion of their protein budget on fish than their poorer counterparts. In addition, the other types of animal protein, except chicken, serves as substitutes for fish.
      PubDate: 2023-03-01
       
  • Low-Cost Strategies to Improve Municipal Solid Waste Management in
           Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Nepal

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      Abstract: Abstract Many cities in developing countries lack adequate drainage and waste management infrastructure. Consequently, city residents face economic and health impacts from flooding and waterlogging, which are aggravated by solid waste infiltrating and blocking drains. City governments have recourse to two strategies to address these problems: a) ‘hard’ infrastructure-related interventions through investment in the expansion of drainage and waste transportation networks; and/or, b) ‘soft’, low-cost behavioural interventions that encourage city residents to change waste disposal practices. This research examines whether behavioural interventions, such as information and awareness raising alongside provision of inexpensive street waste bins, can improve waste management in the city. We undertook a cluster randomized controlled trial study in Bharatpur, Nepal, where one group of households was treated with a soft, low-cost intervention (information and street waste bins) while the control group of households did not receive the intervention. We econometrically compared baseline indicators – perceived neighbourhood cleanliness, household waste disposal methods, and at-source waste segregation – from a pre-intervention survey with data from two rounds of post-intervention surveys. Results from analysing household panel data indicate that the intervention increased neighbourhood cleanliness and motivated the treated households to dispose their waste properly through waste collectors. The intervention, however, did not increase household waste segregation at source, which is possibly because of municipal waste collectors mixing segregated and non-segregated waste during collection. At-source segregation, a pre-requisite for efficiently managing municipal solid waste, may improve if municipalities arrange to collect and manage degradable and non-degradable waste separately.
      PubDate: 2023-03-01
       
  • Sanctioned Quotas Versus Information Provisioning for Community Wildlife
           Conservation in Zimbabwe: A Framed Field Experiment Approach

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      Abstract: Abstract We investigate the behavioural responses of natural common-pool resource users to three policy interventions—sanctioned quotas, information provisioning, and a combination of both. We focus on situations in which users find utility in multiple resources (pastures and wild animal stocks) that all stem from the same ecosystem with complex dynamics, and management could trigger a regime shift, drastically altering resource regrowth. We performed a framed field experiment with 384 villagers from communities managing common-pool wildlife in Zimbabwe. We find that user groups are likely to manage these natural resources more efficiently when facing a policy intervention (either a sanctioned quota, receiving information about a drastic drop in the stocks’ regrowth below a threshold, or a combination of both), compared to groups facing no intervention. A sanctioned quota is likely to perform better than providing information about the existence of a threshold. However, having information about the threshold also leads to higher efficiency and fewer depletion cases, compared to a situation without any intervention. The main contribution of this study is to provide insights that can inform policymakers and development practitioners about the performance of concrete and feasible policy interventions for community wildlife conservation in Southern Africa.
      PubDate: 2023-02-22
       
  • Marginal Damage of Methane Emissions: Ozone Impacts on Agriculture

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      Abstract: Abstract Methane directly contributes to air pollution, as an ozone precursor, and to climate change, generating physical and economic damages to different systems, namely agriculture, vegetation, energy, human health, or biodiversity. The methane-related damages to climate, measured as the Social Cost of Methane, and to human health have been analyzed by different studies and considered by government rulemaking in the last decades, but the ozone-related damages to crop revenues associated to methane emissions have not been incorporated to policy agenda. Using a combination of the Global Change Analysis Model and the TM5-FASST Scenario Screening Tool, we estimate that global marginal agricultural damages range from ~ 423 to 556 $2010/t-CH4, of which 98 $2010/t-CH4 occur in the USA, which is the most affected region due to its role as a major crop producer, followed by China, EU-15, and India. These damages would represent 39–59% of the climate damages and 28–64% of the human health damages associated with methane emissions by previous studies. The marginal damages to crop revenues calculated in this study complement the damages from methane to climate and human health, and provides valuable information to be considered in future cost-benefits analyses.
      PubDate: 2023-02-21
       
 
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