SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Policies to promote energy efficiency in household appliances have different impacts, depending on the structure of market supply. If provision is perfectly competitive, markets will offer the variety of energy efficiency levels that consumers demand. However, if producers can price discriminate, using energy intensity to help segment consumer demand, consumers of low-end appliances are offered too little energy efficiency so that high-end consumers can be charged more for efficient appliances. Minimum energy efficiency standards can then improve welfare. We also consider average intensity standards, energy prices, and innovation and identify important differences in their effects on energy intensity, welfare, and consumers, depending on market structures....

Once-and-for-All Costs and Exhaustible Resource Markets

Palavras-chave: Energy efficiency; Appliance; Standards; Price discrimination; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Q40; Q55; Q58; O3.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10473

This paper analyzes the impact on exhaustible resource markets of setup or shut-down costs, a sparsely analyzed category of nonconvex production technologies. This paper proves that, even under idealized circumstances for competition, a competitive equilibrium will fail to exist in the presence of setup costs, for any utility and cost functions such that a planner would exploit exhaustible resource pools sequentially.

Multinational Taxation and International Emissions Trading

Palavras-chave: Natural resources; Setup costs; Shutdown costs; Nonconvexities; Competitive equilibrium; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Q3; C62.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10623

Many studies have shown that the activities of multinational corporations are quite sensitive to differences in income tax rates across countries. In this paper I explore the interaction between multinational taxation and abatement activities under an international emissions permit trading scheme. Four types of plans are considered: (1) a single domestic permit system with international offsets; (2) separate national permit systems without trade; (3) separate national permit systems with limited offsets; and (4) an international permit trading system. For each plan, I model the incentives for the multinational firm to choose abatement activities at home and abroad and to transfer emissions credits between parent and subsidiary. Limits on trading across...

Using Emissions Trading to Regulate U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Overview of Policy Design and Implementation Issues

Palavras-chave: Emission permits; Transfer pricing; Taxation; Multinational corporations; Environmental Economics and Policy; Public Economics; H2; F2; Q2.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10816

Fischer, Carolyn; Kerr, Suzi; Toman, Michael.

In Kyoto in 1997, the US government agreed that between 2008 and 2012 it would limit average annual emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to seven percent below 1990 levels. As participants in the climate policy debate consider various means by which limits on US GHG emissions might be undertaken in the wake of the Kyoto agreement, there is considerable interest but also some confusion about how a GHG trading program could be organized and operated in practice. In this paper we address several aspects of policy design for a US system, such as who and what is covered by regulation, the organization of the trading system, how carbon permits are allocated, and how a system could be initiated and changed over time. The paper synthesizes existing analyses and...

Carbon Abatement Costs: Why the Wide Range of Estimates?

Palavras-chave: Climate change; Emissions trading; Environmental policy design; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q25; Q28.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10501

Fischer, Carolyn; Morgenstern, Richard D..

Estimates of marginal abatement costs for reducing carbon emissions in the United States by the major economic-energy models vary by a factor of five, undermining support for mandatory policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We use meta analysis to explain these cost differences, holding policy regimes constant and focusing on the role of baseline emissions projections and structural characteristics of the models. The results indicate that certain assumptions, like freer trade and greater disaggregation of regions and nonenergy goods, lead to lower estimates of marginal abatement costs, while more disaggregated energy goods raise them. Other choices, like myopic optimization by households or the inclusion of an international finance sector, seem less...

Bioeconomic Model of Community Incentives for Wildlife Management Before and After CAMPFIRE

Palavras-chave: Climate models; Carbon tax; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q4; Q25; D58.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10537

Fischer, Carolyn; Muchapondwa, Edwin; Sterner, Thomas.

This paper formulates a bioeconomic model to analyze community incentives for wildlife management under benefit-sharing programs like the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe. Two agents influence the wildlife stock: a parks agency determines hunting quotas, and a local community chooses to either aid or discourage outside poachers. Wildlife generates revenues from hunting licenses and tourism; it also intrudes on local agriculture. We consider two benefit-sharing regimes: shares of wildlife tourism rents and shares of hunting licenses. Resource sharing does not necessarily improve community welfare or incentives for wildlife conservation. Results depend on the exact design of the benefit shares, the size of...

Read This Paper Later: Procrastination with Time-Consistent Preferences

Palavras-chave: Bioeconomic; CAMPFIRE; Community; Poaching; Wildlife; Benefit sharing; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; H41; Q20.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10717

A model of time-consistent procrastination is developed to assess the extent to which the observed behavior is compatible with rational behavior. When a finite work requirement must be completed by a deadline, the remaining time for leisure is an exhaustible resource. With a positive rate of time preference, the optimal allocation of this resource results in more hours spent working (and fewer in leisure) the closer the deadline. Key qualitative findings of psychological studies of academic procrastination are consistent with the standard natural resource management principles implied by the model, when suitably adapted to task aversiveness, uncertainty, and multiple deadlines. However, quantitatively, the fully rational model requires an extremely high...

Emissions Pricing, Spillovers, and Public Investment in Environmentally Friendly Technologies

Palavras-chave: Procrastination; Natural resource economics; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Q3; D9; J22; D81.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10590

In a second-best world of below-optimal pollution pricing, the public return to R&D may be greater than under Pigouvian pricing, due to excess benefits of increasing abatement, or it may be lower, since private actors lack the incentives to take full advantage of the new, cleaner technologies. This paper uses a simple model to demonstrate the interaction between environmental policies, R&D externalities, and the social return to innovation. The results indicate that strong public support for innovation is only justified if at least a moderate emissions policy is in place and spillover effects are significant. Furthermore, in most cases, policy constraints that limit regulatory burdens tend to further limit the scope for public support, even when...

Combining Rate-Based and Cap-and-Trade Emissions Policies

Palavras-chave: Emissions price; Technological innovation; Spillovers; R&D policy; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q28; O38; H23.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10648

Rate-based emissions policies (like tradable performance standards) fix average emissions intensity, while cap-and-trade policies fix total emissions. This paper shows that unfettered trade between rate-based and cap-and-trade programs always raises combined emissions, except when product markets are related in particular ways. Gains from trade are fully passed on to consumers in the rate-based sector, resulting in more output and greater emissions allocations. We consider a range of policy options to offset the expansion, including unilateral ones when jurisdictional differences require. The cap-and-trade jurisdiction could impose an "exchange rate" to adjust for relative permit values, but marginal abatement cost equalization is sacrificed. Still, that...

Rebating Environmental Policy Revenues: Output-Based Allocations and Tradable Performance Standards

Palavras-chave: Emissions trading; Permit allocation; Tradable performance standards; Climate; Greenhouse gases; Environmental Economics and Policy; H23; H3; Q2; Q48.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10713

Political pressure often exists to earmark environmental tax revenues or permit rents to the industry affected by the regulation. This paper analyzes schemes that rebate revenues based on output shares: tradable performance standards, an emissions tax with market-share rebates, and tradable permits with output-based allocation. All three policies effectively combine a tax on emissions with a subsidy to output. The result is a shifting of emissions control efforts toward greater emissions rate reduction and less output contraction, with higher marginal costs of control and lower output prices compared to the social optimum, given any targeted level of abatement. These welfare costs depend on the degree of output substitutability and are likely to be much...