Three Essays On Environmental And Energy Economics
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Three Essays On Environmental Economics
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Author : Dale S. Rothman
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 1993
Three Essays On Environmental Economics written by Dale S. Rothman and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1993 with categories.
Three Essays On Environmental And Energy Economics
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Author : Onur Sapci
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2014
Three Essays On Environmental And Energy Economics written by Onur Sapci and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014 with Energy conservation categories.
As the economies develop and industrialize, the impact of economic activities on the environment increased, and modern environmental concerns arose. Today most of the countries regulate environmental degradation to some extent. The principal motivation for environmental regulation is the protection of human health. The importance of health and human capital as an engine for economic growth is well-known. Chapter 1 investigates the role of environmental conditions on the link between health and human capital. Factors that reduce the human capital investments distort the economy and impede growth. One key factor that has been under-explored is the interaction of environmental degradation with human capital investments. We know less about how human capital is linked with growth via environmental degradation. This linkage between economic growth and the interaction of environmental degradation with human capital investments matters because if environmental degradation reduces human capital investments, economic growth is slower. This study is among the first to explore the direct impact of pollution on human capital in an economic growth setting. The literature has not addressed how growth-driven environmental degradation has affected human capital--a critical component of economic growth. Chapter 1 presents a two-sector endogenous growth model (AK model) with an environmental externality on human capital. This chapter incorporates the health impacts from the environment on human capital investments and show that the interaction of pollution with human capital investments reduces the optimal growth rate. But when the household ignores the health impacts the resulting growth rate is suboptimal, it is faster than the optimal, and riskier to human health. To achieve efficiency, a Pigouvian tax is proposed. An optimal emissions tax on the firm`s production achieves the socially optimal growth rate. Chapter 2 considers an empirical examination of the proposition on the interaction between environmental degradation and human capital on growth. Using US state-level data, the empirical results support the model of Chapter 1--the interaction between the health impacts of environmental degradation and human capital significantly reduces the growth of real GDP. The results suggest that a 1.03% increase in average annual NOx emissions (1000 metric tons) or a 0.47% increase in average annual SO2 emissions (1000 metric tons) lowers the growth rate by 0.0012 through negative health impacts on human capital. This impact intensifies with a substantial increase in emissions or with pollution accumulation over a long time span. Chapter 3 explores the impact of energy conservation programs on the residential electricity use. Part A of chapter 3 examines the effectiveness of home energy audits conducted by Lower Valley Energy (LVE) in Teton County, Wyoming. These audits assess the energy efficiency of existing structures and propose modifications to reduce electricity consumption. This study examines the factors that influence households to adopt the modifications recommended by the audits and whether these audits lead to significant reductions in electricity use. Using data collected by LVE, household decisions after the audits are recorded along with the corresponding recommended modifications and the offers for co-funding from LVE. A discrete choice model of the household decision after the audit is estimated. The results indicate that the potential improvement in heating efficiency from the proposed modifications increase the probability of implementing an electricity conservation modification in the house. Co-funding offers also significantly raise the odds of accepting the modifications but are relatively less important than anticipated efficiency improvements. Electricity demand models are estimated using data two years before and after each household audit. For households who decide to modify their houses after the audit, monthly average electricity use per square foot decreases 6.6%. While there is an estimated 1.5% reduction in electricity use attributed to the audit by households who decided not to adopt the proposed modifications, this reduction is not statistically significant, casting doubt on the presence of modifications in behavior from the audit information itself. On balance for all households audited, the econometric results suggest that the LVE home energy audit program reduced household electricity use 4.1%. Part B of Chapter 3 presents findings from a large scale household survey. This section provides empirical support that clarifies the mixed results about the connection between household environmental attitudes and real energy consumption behavior. This study combines actual electricity use of 612 households and their opinions, perceptions and attitudes to several environmental issues. The results show that households reflect their stated preferences about environmental issues on their energy use. Environmental attitudes have a direct and observable effect on energy consumption behavior. Environmentally concerned households tend to be more conservative on energy use. These results suggest that the link between household environmental attitudes and patterns of energy consumption is strong.
Three Essays In Energy And Environmental Economics
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Author : Michael Redlinger
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2016
Three Essays In Energy And Environmental Economics written by Michael Redlinger and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016 with Environmental economics categories.
Three Essays On Energy And Environmental Economics Empirical Applied And Theoretical
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Author :
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2014
Three Essays On Energy And Environmental Economics Empirical Applied And Theoretical written by and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014 with categories.
Three Essays On The Economics Of The Environment Energy And Externalities
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Author : Ceen-Yenn Cynthia Lawell
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2006
Three Essays On The Economics Of The Environment Energy And Externalities written by Ceen-Yenn Cynthia Lawell and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2006 with categories.
Three Essays On Energy Environmental And Resource Economics
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Author : Hyeongyul Roh
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2018
Three Essays On Energy Environmental And Resource Economics written by Hyeongyul Roh and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018 with categories.
Essays In Energy And Environmental Economics
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Author : Arthur Alexius van Benthem
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2012
Essays In Energy And Environmental Economics written by Arthur Alexius van Benthem and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012 with categories.
This dissertation consists of three essays in energy and environmental economics that all have a bearing on various concepts from public economics. The first essay uses fiscal data on 2,468 oil extraction agreements in 38 countries to study tax contracts between resource-rich countries and independent oil companies. We analyze why expropriations occur and what determines the degree of oil price exposure of host countries. We show theoretically and verify empirically that oil price insurance provided by tax contracts is increasing in a country's cost of expropriation, and decreasing in its production expertise. The second essay reveals significant unintended consequences from recent 14-state efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through emissions limits per mile from new cars. While such efforts significantly reduce emissions from new cars sold in the adopting states, they cause substantial emissions increases from new cars sold in other (non-adopting) states and from used cars. Such offsets (or "leakage") reflect interactions between the state-level and federal fuel-economy standards: the state-level efforts loosen the national standard, so that automakers can profitably increase sales of high-emissions vehicles in non-adopting states. Our simulation model estimates that leakage associated with recent legislation is 65-74%. In the third essay, I analyze speed limits. When choosing his speed, a driver faces a trade-off between private benefits (time savings) and private costs (fuel cost and own damage and injury). Driving faster also has external costs (pollution, adverse health impacts and injury to other drivers). I use large-scale speed limit increases in the western United States in 1987 and 1996 to address three related questions. First, do the social benefits of raising speed limits exceed the social (private plus external) costs? Second, do the private benefits of driving faster as a result of higher speed limits exceed the private costs? Third, could completely eliminating speed limits improve efficiency? I find that a 10 mph speed limit increase on highways leads to a 3-4 mph increase in travel speed, 9-15% more accidents, 34-60% more fatal accidents, and elevated pollutant concentrations of 14-25% (carbon monoxide), 9-16% (nitrogen oxides), 1-11% (ozone) and 9% higher fetal death rates around the affected freeways. I use these estimates to calculate private and external benefits and costs, and find that the social costs of speed limit increases are three to ten times larger than the social benefits. In contrast, many individual drivers would enjoy a net private benefit from driving faster. The substantial difference between private and social optimal speed choices provides a strong rationale for having speed limits.
Essays In Environmental And Energy Economics
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Author : Joshua Blonz
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2005
Essays In Environmental And Energy Economics written by Joshua Blonz and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005 with categories.
This dissertation combines research on three topics in applied Energy and Environmental Economics related to the electricity industry. In the first paper, I study the economic welfare impact of an electricity pricing program that increases the price of electricity for small commercial and industrial customers when the cost of generation is high. The second paper explores an energy efficiency retrofit program that provides free upgrades to low-income households in California. Both of these policy interventions were a result of orders from the California Public Utilities Commission, the energy regulator in California. The final paper examines the cost of air quality regulations on employment in the coal mining sector in Appalachia. These three papers study different important aspects of the electricity sector, from upstream regulation of generation to end use pricing and consumption efficiency. In the first chapter, I study how in electricity markets, the price paid by retail customers during periods of peak demand is far below the cost of supply. This leads to overconsumption during peak periods, requiring the construction of excess generation capacity compared to first-best prices that adjust at short time intervals to reflect changing marginal cost. In this paper, I investigate a second-best policy designed to address this distortion, and compare its effectiveness to the first-best. The policy allows the electricity provider to raise retail price by a set amount (usually 3 to 5 times) during the afternoon hours of a limited number of summer days (usually 9 to 15). Using a quasi-experimental research design and high-frequency electricity consumption data, I test the extent to which small commercial and industrial establishments respond to this temporary increase in retail electricity prices. I find that establishments reduce their peak usage by 13.4% during peak hours. Using a model of capacity investment decisions, these reductions yield $154 million in welfare benefits, driven largely by reduced expenditures on power plant construction. I find the current policy provides of the first-best benefits but that, with improvements in targeting just the days with the highest demand, a modified peak pricing program could achieve 80% welfare gains relative to the first-best pricing policy. In the second chapter, I study energy efficiency retrofits programs, which are increasingly being used to both save on energy bills and as a carbon mitigation strategy. This paper evaluates the California Energy Savings Assistance program, which provides no-cost upgrades to low-income households across the state. I use quasi-experimental variation in program uptake to measure energy savings for a large portion of the treated population in the San Diego Gas & Electric service territory between 2007 and 2012. The results suggest that the overall program is ineffective at delivering energy savings and is not cost-effective. One challenge in implementing efficiency retrofit programs is that each upgrade must be customized to the housing unit on which it is installed. As a consequence, there is a wide range in efficiency upgrade potential across the population of candidate households. To better understand this heterogeneity in measure installation and its potential to drive program outcomes, I use discontinuities in program rules to identify key measure specific savings. This analysis shows that larger upgrades such as refrigerator replacements do provide cost-effective savings when considering the full set of social benefits. Households that do not receive larger upgrades generally see little or no savings. These results suggest that heterogeneity in upgrade potential can drive overall program outcomes when only a small portion of the treated population is eligible for cost-effective efficiency upgrades. In the third chapter, I study the costs of Title IV of the Clean Air Act. This regulation put a cap on sulfur emissions from electric power plants, which reduced the demand for high-sulfur coal. Using a quasi-experimental research design, I estimate how coal mine employment and production in high-sulfur coal-producing counties were impacted by the regulation by comparing them to neighboring counties that produced low-sulfur coal. I find that coal production dropped by 20% and coal sector employment dropped by 14%. I find no evidence of spillovers to employment or wages in the non-coal sectors of the high-sulfur coal counties. The results suggest that the coal sector employment costs of Title IV of the Clean Air Act are highly concentrated in the coal industry, and that the decline does not detectably impact the overall regional economy.
Three Essays In Energy Economics
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Author : William Chi Chiao Leung
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2015
Three Essays In Energy Economics written by William Chi Chiao Leung and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015 with Automobile driving categories.
This dissertation studies our relationship with energy, as individuals and as a society. In the first chapter, I look at individual response to gasoline prices by investigating the relationship between gasoline prices and running out of gasoline. In the second chapter I investigate household level short-run responses to gasoline prices by decomposing the traditional fuel use elasticity into changes in driving and change in average fuel economy. The third chapter looks at policies that comes as responses to environmental externalities associated with fuel use.
Three Essays On Energy Economics And Policy
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Author : Zhi Li
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2015
Three Essays On Energy Economics And Policy written by Zhi Li and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015 with categories.
Many changes are needed to shift the economy from business as usual to a sustainable track in both developed and developing countries. Technology innovation, especially related to clean energy and energy efficient, is needed to meet the requirement of such economy shift, and is receiving considerable and increasing attention. Governments have applied large numbers of energy and environmental policies to stimulate the clean energy innovations and support the development of related industries. Hence, it is important and necessary to better understand and assess the impact of policy instruments and key factors in the clean energy sector.My dissertation include three studies related to the clean energy technologies and the industry development. Several conclusions are drawn. First, by investigating the effect of "innovating-by-implementing" in the context of the US LEED building program, I find that implementation experience of utilizing energy efficient technologies in building construction and renovation makes important contribution to innovations in energy efficient building technologies. The second study examines the impact of a specific industry policy -- export restriction on raw materials -- on rare earth downstream industries, which is related to a lot of clean energy products. The result suggests that China's REEs export restriction policies have worked effectively as an industrial policy to induce FDIs and technology transfer by foreign downstream firms and promote domestic downstream industries. The third study analyzes the US innovation related to REEs technologies in the context of innovation system, and it shows that the US has lost its leadership in downstream innovation in REEs, in response to the removal of upstream producers in the innovation system.