Search results for "Natural resource economics"
showing 10 items of 189 documents
The Economic Impact of Water Taxes: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis with an International Data Set
2006
Water is scarce in many countries. One instrument to improve the allocation of a scarce resource is (efficient) pricing or taxation. However, water is implicitly traded on international markets, particularly through food and textiles, so that impacts of water taxes cannot be studied in isolation, but require an analysis of international trade implications. We include water as a production factor in a multi-region, multi-sector computable general equilibrium model (GTAP), to assess a series of water tax policies. We find that water taxes reduce water use, and lead to shifts in production, consumption, and international trade patterns. Countries that do not levy water taxes are nonetheless af…
ICT mobility research in Finland: From immaterial consumption to material sustainability?
2015
Optimal growth and land preservation
1997
A model of optimal economic growth with a constant population subject to a constraint on the availability of land is presented. It takes account of the dual character of land as a production factor and as a consumption good (environmental amenities) by determining the optimal intertemporal allocation of land between productive and recreational uses. An extension of the analysis for the case of a growing population with endogenous growth based on human capital accumulation shows that if the rate of discount is not very low then there exists a set of balanced growth paths compatible with a constant allocation of land. En este trabajo se presenta un modelo de crecimiento económico óptimo con u…
The Southern African Power Pool: An Electrifying Project with Untapped Potential
2017
This chapter turns to infrastructure and gives an outstanding analysis of regional electricity cooperation in the SADC within the framework of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). The author illustrates the regional power imbalances in terms of national electricity generation and consumption which fuel the SADC countries’ demand for a regional electricity market and an interconnected regional power grid. It becomes clear that the SAPP’s institutional design is strongly influenced by South Africa as the hub of the existing power network and largest electricity producer. Influence by external actors is supportive of regional electricity cooperation since the EU provides funding for the SAP…
Probiotics in transition: novel strategies
2015
Regulations regarding health claims made for probiotics demand their proven effectiveness and limit the array of microbial species regarded as safe for live consumption. Novel strategies such as moving to postbiotics and genetically modified probiotics may be necessary to increase the effectiveness of microbial products.
Resource consumption and environmental impacts of the agrofood sector: life cycle assessment of italian citrus-based products
2009
Though many studies concern the agro-food sector in the EU and Italy, and its environmental impacts, literature is quite lacking in works regarding LCA application on citrus products. This paper represents one of the first studies on the environmental impacts of citrus products in order to suggest feasible strategies and actions to improve their environmental performance. In particular, it is part of a research aimed to estimate environmental burdens associated with the production of the following citrus-based products: essential oil, natural juice and concentrated juice from oranges and lemons. The life cycle assessment of these products, published in a previous paper, had highlighted sign…
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…
Green and Greenback
2003
The low-cost hypothesis predicts that the strength of effects of environmental concern on environmental behavior diminishes with increasing behavioral costs. Thus, environmental concern influences environmental behavior primarily in situations and under conditions connected with low costs and little inconvenience for individual actors. In a first step, we develop and specify this hypothesis. Referring to two procedures, we then test it on the basis of an environmental survey of a random sample of 2307 respondents from the German population. The empirical evidence is positive. The low-cost hypothesis is not confined to the area of environmental research. It points to general limits of attit…
Consumption and Production Patterns for Agricultural Sustainable Development
2021
Agriculture has always played a key role in feeding the world population and ensuring the development of sustainable food production systems. However, over recent decades, many farmers have over-exploited agricultural ecosystems in order to increase their production and incomes. This has caused a reduction or degradation of environmental sustainability, reducing farmers’ profitability and leading many producers to abandon rural areas. Moreover, currently, over 820 million people in the world are hungry, while a third of the food produced is lost or wasted, with negative implications on economic, social and environmental conditions at a global level, highlighting how different production, ed…
Demand and Supply Model for the Natural Gas Supply Chain in Colombia
2018
Natural gas is considered the transitional fuel for excellence between fossil and renewable sources, considering its low cost, greater efficiency and lesser effects on the environment. This has led to increased demand levels worldwide, requiring the intervention of public and private actors to meet such demand. In this research, we study the natural gas supply chain in Colombia using system dynamics modelling. The results allow to contrast both the behaviour of the production and transport levels and the behaviour of the demand from the consumption sectors, allowing to identify capacity levels to be developed considering implementation times and percentages of coverage in the supply.