Search results for "Environmental regulation"
showing 10 items of 12 documents
History of chemical weeding from 1944 to 2011 in France: Changes and evolution of herbicide molecules
2012
International audience; Herbicide development in France has been analysed from a historical and agronomical perspective. A database was built up from data collected from the archives of the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries and from French phytosanitary compendia edited since 1961 by the Association de Coordination Technique Agricole. Only herbicides used in cultivated areas were retained. The first organic synthetic herbicides were registered on cereals after the Second World War. Since 1944, a total of 225 herbicidal active ingredients have been registered in France. The number of active ingredients regularly increased with a maximum of 138 in 2002; 104 were still authorized in 2…
Longitudinal Investigation into Genetics in the Conservation of Metabolic Phenotypes in Danish and Chinese Twins
2016
Longitudinal twin studies on long term conservation of individual metabolic phenotypes can help to explore the genetic and environmental basis in maintaining metabolic homeostasis and metabolic health. We performed a longitudinal twin study on 12 metabolic phenotypes from Danish twins followed up for 12 years and Chinese twins traced for 7 years. The study covered a relatively large sample of 502 pairs of Danish adult twins with a mean age at intake of 38 years and a total of 181 Chinese adult twin pairs with a mean baseline age of 39.5 years. Bivariate twin models were fitted to the longitudinal measurements taken at two time points (at baseline and follow-up) to estimate the genetic and e…
Absorptive Capacity and Social Capital: Innovation and Environmental Regulation
2010
Norwegian paper and pulp mills are subject to strict environmental regulation. The mills conduct research and development for reducing pollution. Absorptive capacity indicates their competence. Firms are part of a social network of connections with external actors that include other paper and pulp mills, suppliers, customers, research institutes, and universities that help them in developing technologies. These relations represent their social capital. Some firms have access to more and better resources than other firms. Measuring firms’ absorptive capacity and access to social capital, we analyze their success in reducing pollution levels. There is a strong interaction effect between absor…
Farmers' costs of environmental regulation: Reducing the consumption of nitrogen in citrus farming
2007
Abstract Environmental externalities in agriculture, and the choice of suitable instruments to integrate environmental concerns into agricultural policies, are a matter of interest for the Common Agricultural Policy. In this paper, we use Data Envelopment Analysis techniques to assess the impact on farms' performance of two environmentally-friendly regulations aimed at abating consumption of inorganic nitrogen in Spanish citrus farming: levies on purchased nitrogen and nitrogen use permits for farms. By comparing farms' short-run maximum profits under both unregulated and regulated scenarios a regulation cost index is computed. Our results show that nitrogen overuse is mostly a matter of ma…
From industrial consensus to environmental regulation: the coming of the Finnish industrial waste-water policy
1998
Abstract The development of the Finnish industrial waste-water policy is examined in the context of the national industrial development and the rise of the environmental movement. It is stated that up until the beginning of the eighties, a broad consensus about the principles of the waste-water policy prevailed among decision makers and authorities. It was a consensus uniform with the interests of the forest industry, the most powerful part of the national economy. Unfortunately, the forest industry was a bad source of pollution of the inland waters since the fifties. However, the long lasted hegemonic consensus started to break down in the late seventies and early eighties by an awakening …
Directional distance functions and environmental regulation
2005
Abstract In this paper we use directional technology distance functions to evaluate the impact of environmental regulations on firms’ performance. Following Fare et al. [Fare, R., Grosskopf, S., Lovell, C.A.K., Pasurka, C., 1989. Multilateral productivity comparisons when some outputs are undesirable: a nonparametric approach. The Review of Economics and Statistics 71, 90–98.], we construct an index that measures opportunity costs for individual firms arising from regulations that prevent free disposal of wastes. The methodology is applied to a sample of Spanish producers of ceramic pavements. We assume that firms maximise desirable output simultaneously reducing inputs, with no change in t…
On the social value of publicly disclosed information and environmental regulation
2018
Abstract This paper presents an analysis of environmental policy in imperfectly competitive market with publicly disclosed and privately-held information about costs. We examine the potential asymmetry-reducing role of disclosure and its impact on setting environmental taxes. From a policy perspective, our findings show that disclosure with verifiable reports, is a valuable public good, provides greater transparency in the market, and is generally efficiency enhancing. Results suggest that access to publicly disclosed information enables the fine-tuning of the tax rules towards specific environmental circumstances and improves the ability of the regulator to levy firm-specific environmental…
Agricultural externalities and environmental regulation: evaluating good practice in citrus production
2006
Economic activity takes place in a scenario characterized by an increasing number of environmental regulations aimed at bringing under control the emission of contaminating wastes. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of transforming a code of good practice in nitrogen fertilization on Spanish citrus fruit farms into an environmental regulation of compulsory fulfilment. Using data envelopment techniques, we calculate unrestricted and environmentally regulated short-run maximum profits. Both profit values are then used to compute an index of the cost of regulation. Our results suggest that the cost of shifting from a merely recommended practice to a binding rule is low. On average, the loss…
Biological nutrient removal in a UCT-MBR pilot
2010
In the last years, there has been an increasing awareness about the environment pollution protection. As a consequence, the Environmental Regulation has increased the emission limits imposing, for instance, lower concentrations at the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) outlets. As a consequence of this fact, several WWTPs are not able to respect the emission limits and need to be upgraded. In view of such needs new technology are emerging and new WWTP solution schemes are being realized. With respects to the nutrient removal enhancing, a possible solution can be the UCT-MBR which couples the University of Cape Town scheme with a Membrane Bioreactor. In the light of such considerations, the s…
The management of sewage sludge: technologies, critical issue and perspectives
2022
The management of sludge produced by urban wastewater treatment plants has long been a problem for plant managers. This is due both to the growing costs for their disposal, and to the possible consequences that incorrect management may have on the performance of the wastewater treatment plant and on the environment. Further difficulties arose following the evolution of the European and national legislations, which regulates the management of sludge and its possible agronomic uses that introduced further checks and restrictions for this use. Several studies have been underway since last decades to reduce the extent of the problem. These focus on alternative objectives being aimed on the one …