Bio-economic modeling of water quality improvements using a dynamic applied general equilibrium approach

An integrated bio-economic model is developed to assess the impacts of pollution reduction policies on water quality and the economy. Emission levels of economic activities to water are determined based on existing environmental accounts. These emission levels are built into a dynamic economic model for the Dutch economy and subsequently coupled to a national water quality model. The modular approach has the advantage that the impacts on the economy and water quality are evaluated simultaneously, but each within their own domain based on the appropriate scale and level of detail. The dynamic nature of the economic model allows us to also evaluate a derogated water policy as foreseen in the European Water Framework Directive. The indirect costs of different water quality improvement policy scenarios are at least as high as the direct costs related to investments in pollution abatement technology. The stricter the policy scenario, the more important the role of economic adjustment and restructuring mechanisms at the macro-economic level. Significant water quality improvements can be achieved through stringent domestic emission reductions. However, reaching water quality standards is highly dependent on water quality improvement policy in surrounding river basin countries and climate change.     

Benefits of a Reallocation of Nitrate Emission Reductions in the Rhine River Basin

In an attempt to improve ecological conditions of theRhine, emission reduction targets have been set fordifferent substances. For most substances targets havebeen met. However, nutrient emission reductions arebehind schedule. It may be clear from intuition, andhas also often been described in economic literature,that a flat reduction rate applied to all emittingsectors, though appealing because of equity reasons,may not be cost-effective. This paper explores theleast cost allocation of nitrate emission reductionsfor the Rhine river basin, analysing differentagricultural sectors and wastewater treatment plants.Results show that costs of meeting emission reductiontargets can be brought down by almost 20% through aclever allocation of these targets.     

Fresh surface water resource allocation between Bulgaria and Greece

This paper addresses the important issue of transboundary sharing of fresh surface water resources, including quantity and quality dimensions. It carves a simple economic model of the benefits which can be generated by maximizing the joint profits earned, when the resource is shared efficiently between two countries. The appropriate policy instrument towards this end is a bilateral agreement to charge the same water price to all water users in a given sector. Market clearance will then follow to determine the optimal water price. The case of the Nestos river flowing through Bulgaria and Greece, but overexploited by Bulgaria, in the Balkans is used as a case study. The empirical estimation of a fixed proportions production function for corn derives a marginal water value of the Nestos water for Greece. This value, which applies under the current non-cooperative solution, is higher than the optimal water price in the cooperative solution.     

行业视角下减排成本估算及减排路径研究

碳达峰碳中和是中国经济发展环境治理的战略目标,减排成本与减排路径是该战略实施中两大现实问题。基于行业视角,利用投入产出方法,对行业减排成本、技术减排效应及减排路径展开研究,基本结论如下：①行业减排成本差异大,整体减排成本逐年上升。在三个代表性年份行业最高与最低减排成本相差40-60倍,减排成本绝对差值在1500-3000$/t。在2000-2010年间, 32个行业减排成本均有不同程度的上升, 全社会整体减排成本上升了56.98%。②技术进步的减排贡献较大,部分行业技术减排有限。在产出固定假设下,2000-2010年技术进步实现累计减排57.09亿t,累计技术减排率达到47.88%；但在旅游、住宿餐饮等行业技术减排率为负,技术因素导致的排放不减反增。③行业减排路径应遵循从高碳到低碳的顺序。基于减排成本与技术减排两大因素的减排路径规划显示,优先和重点减排行业主要集中在能源生产供给、加工制造、交通运输、采矿及设备制造等高能耗高排放行业；可相对延后和非重点减排行业主要为食品烟草等传统加工制造业以及金融、房地产等现代服务业。     

Impacts of EU carbon emission trade directive on energy-intensive industries — Indicative micro-economic analyses

The cost impacts from the European emission trading system (ETS) on energy-intensive manufacturing industries have been investigated. The effects consist of direct costs associated to the CO₂ reduction requirements stated in the EU Directive, and of indirect costs of comparable magnitude that originate from a higher electricity price triggered by the ETS in the power sector. The total cost impacts remain below 2% of the production value for most industries within the ETS in the Kyoto period. In the post-Kyoto phase assuming a 30% CO₂ reduction, the total cost impact may raise up to 8% of production value in the heaviest industry sectors. In steel and cement industries the cost impacts are 3-4 fold compared to the least affected pulp and paper and oil refining. Electricity-intensive industries outside the ETS will also be affected, for example in aluminum and chlorine production the indirect cost impacts from ETS could come up to 10% of production value already in the Kyoto period. As industry sectors are affected differently by the ETS some correcting mechanisms may be worthwhile to consider in securing the operation of the most electricity-intensive sectors, e.g. balancing taxation schemes that may include as income source a levy on the wind-fall profits of the power sector due to ETS. A future improvement in ETS for industries within the scheme could be scaling of the emission reduction requirement so that the relative total emission reduction costs are at about the same level.     

Estimating the economic benefits of acidic rock drainage clean up using cost shares

This paper reports the results of a stated preference study that estimates the economic value for cleaning up acid rock drainage in Colorado's Snake River watershed. In contrast to much of the existing literature, the present study emphasizes benefit estimation for three implementing projects rather than benefit estimation for general changes in water quality or large scale water quality policy. The focus on implementing projects delivers information that is specifically relevant to current decisions being faced in the watershed. While valuation questions in most stated preference studies present costs that have no relation to actual project costs, this study presents a new cost share approach. Project costs are estimated and then valuation questions present different local cost shares to subjects. This approach facilitates stated cost variation necessary for estimating the mean of the distribution of project values without resorting to experimentally designed, fictitious stated costs. In addition to estimating the mean value, which facilitates benefit cost analysis, the study also provides median value estimates, which provide insights into the political feasibility of these projects. Study results suggest that local cost shares on the order of 20%-40%, depending on the project, are politically feasible.     

External Costs of Aquaculture Production in West Virginia

Temperate hill-lands of the U.S.A. such as those in West Virginia are areas from which increasing output of farm-raised fish may be possible. However, the downstream economic impacts of current and projected future effluent as a result of aquaculture production have not been extensively studied. Using an externality framework and a combination of primary and secondary data, this study determines pollution prevention costs (PPC), and downstream pollution damage costs resulting from fish farm wastewater effluent measured as willingness to pay (WTP) for restoring water quality. PPC is estimated at $0.11 per kg of trout produced (which would add 6% to private production cost), and WTP is estimated at $0.49 per kg of trout produced (representing 25% of private production cost) at current production and price levels. This study shows that installation of filtration units is a low-cost (less than 6% of total cost) and an effective technology for controlling pollution at the source. Internalizing external costs (adding this 6% to private production costs) is one strategy that could contribute to sustainable growth of the aquaculture industry.     

The relationship between pollution abatement costs and environmental regulation: Evidence from the Chinese industrial sector

Since the 2000s, China has been trying to strengthen emission controls in response to increasing pollution problems. However, strict implementation of emission controls generates pollution abatement costs. Using regional data for 29 provinces in the Chinese industrial sector from 1995 to 2010, this study estimated the pollution abatement costs for each province through the measurement of environmental efficiency, by applying a directional distance function approach. Moreover, using panel data analysis, this study clarified whether there is a nonlinear relationship between pollution abatement costs and environmental regulations. The empirical results are as follows. The study confirmed that the burden of abatement costs tended not only to occur in the central and western regions but also to increase in the eastern region. Moreover, the nonlinear relationship is inverted U‐shaped; thus, pollution abatement costs increase, as a negative effect of environmental regulations, until a certain inflection point, after which they decrease.     

Assessment of regional trade and virtual water flows in China

The success of China's economic development has left deep marks on resource availability and quality. Some regions in China are relatively poor with regards to water resources. This problem is exacerbated by economic growth. Flourishing trade activities on both domestic and international levels have resulted in significant amounts of water withdrawal and water pollution. Hence the goal of this paper is to evaluate the current inter-regional trade structure and its effects on water consumption and pollution via ‘virtual water flows’. Virtual water is the water embedded in products and used in the whole production chain, and that is traded between regions or exported to other countries. For this assessment of trade flows and effects on water resources, we have developed an extended regional input-output model for eight hydro-economic regions in China to account for virtual water flows between North and South China. The findings show that the current trade structure in China is not very favorable with regards to water resource allocation and efficiency. North China as a water scarce region virtually exports about 5% of its total available freshwater resources while accepting large amounts of wastewater for other regions' consumption. By contrast, South China a region with abundant water resources is virtually importing water from other regions while their imports are creating waste water polluting other regions' hydro-ecosystems.     

中国非农业住户部门循环账户的构建与理论阐述

非农业住户部门经济核算是构建中国住户部门核算体系的重要组成部分。依据SNA1993的相关理论和方法,结合中国的具体国情,本文界定了非农业住户部门生产核算的主体与范围,界定出非农业住户部门在不同国民经济活动阶段与其他机构部门间所发生的所有经济交易。在此基础上设计出非农业住户部门的生产账户、收入初次分配账户、收入再次分配账户和收入使用账户,并在循环账户的基础上构建出非农业住户部门的综合经济账户。     

Beyond fuelwood savings: Valuing the economic benefits of introducing improved biomass cookstoves in the Purépecha region of Mexico

Half of the world population relies on biomass for cooking, with very significant health as well as climate change impacts. Improved cookstoves have been disseminated as an alternative to reduce these impacts. However, few detailed studies about the economic benefits of improved cookstoves (ICS) interventions, including environmental and health co-benefits, exist to date. In this paper we perform a comprehensive economic evaluation of a dissemination program of ICS in rural Mexico. The resulting cost–benefit analysis (CBA) of the Patsari improved cookstove is presented, utilizing estimation of direct costs and benefits, including fuelwood savings, income generation, health impacts, environmental conservation, and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis is based on comprehensive data obtained through monitoring studies carried out in the Study Area from 2003 to the present. Results show that Patsari cookstoves represent a viable economic option for improving living conditions of the poorest inhabitants of rural Mexico, with benefit/cost ratios estimated between 11.4:1 and 9:1. The largest contributors to economic benefits stemmed from fuelwood savings and reductions in health impacts, which constituted 53% and 28% of the overall benefit, respectively.     

GHG mitigation schemes and energy policies: A model-based assessment for the Italian economy

We build up a large scale dynamic general equilibrium model embodying a cap on pollutant emissions, an electricity sector and fuel consumption to analyse climate-energy policies for the Italian economy. Our results show how the trade-off between environmental quality and economic activity can be effectively overcome by recycling the revenues from the sales of emission permits in labour tax reductions. A tax combination aimed at reducing the consumption of fossil fuel, while simultaneously decreasing taxes on labour, is expansionary, but the final outcome is influenced by the underlying GHG emission policy. Tax incentives encouraging the use of clean energy sources, by discouraging the use of fossil fuel, produce a sizeable reallocation of emissions across sectors and are found to be expansionary. Overall the paper highlights the non-trivial interactions between the different fiscal tools in hand to meet the legally binding commitment on emission reduction, while limiting the potential negative fallout on the economy.     

Modelling intervention options to reduce GHG emissions in housing stock — A diffusion approach

The building sector is regarded as having one of the highest benefit-cost ratios from greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction strategies. However, because of uncertainties around household behaviour patterns, it is very difficult to assess and compare the GHG reduction impacts of different intervention schemes for whole housing stock. Intervention schemes include policy instruments such as incentives or rebates for energy efficient appliances or renewable energy, and regulatory building code requirements for energy efficiency. This paper presents a decision support tool based on mathematical diffusion that evaluates the adoption levels of different schemes or pathways towards reducing GHG emissions in housing stock. It is an extension of the Bass diffusion model that accommodates financial and non-financial benefits, ceilings of adoption and interactions between intervention options. The model capability was tested using a case study of seven suburbs in Brisbane, Australia, comprising of 25,000 houses and units. Estimates of GHG emission reductions to 2019 of a household rebate scheme for solar panels and a rebate scheme for solar hot water compared to a base case of no rebates were presented and analysed. Modelling also allowed identification of important characteristics of adoption trends that could assist policy makers and industry to substantially improve the design of effective intervention options.     

Analysis and Forecast of the State of Environmental Protection in Russia

The main purpose of the present study is to analyse the emission dynamics of atmospheric and water pollutants in Russia and cost of their removal in the 1980s and early 1990s, and to forecast them by means of a Dynamic Input–Output Model according to different scenarios of future economic development till 1998. Main results of the work are:– methodological principles have been elaborated for singling out the environmental protection sector within the national economy;– a method has been offered for including the ecological block into a Dynamic Input–Output Model of the Russian economy;– a method of data preparation has been elaborated for the ecological block of the above-named model, the data base which characterizes the ecological situation in Russia has been formed and analysed;– calculations for 1994–1998 have been executed for forecasting the economic and ecological development of Russia using the above-mentioned model and the results obtained have been analysed. The results showed that if the existing tendencies towards low environmental protection capital costs remain the same, then the negative environmental impact will increase. In order to implement ecological programs and international agreements, to increase the proportion of removed pollutants, it is necessary to increase substantially expenditures on purifying water and air resources. The proportion of environmental protection investments in the total amount of the national economy capital costs should increase by up to 12–40% according to different scenarios of the economic development and different purposes of the environmental protection policy.     

节能减排政策对城市生态效率的影响——基于NDDF-DID的市级实证研究

采用非径向方向性距离函数测算了2005—2016年我国的城市生态效率,发现我国城市生态效率取得了明显改进,采用双重差分法实证研究了节能减排政策对城市生态效率的影响,结果表明:节能减排政策显著提高了城市生态效率,趋势性检验和安慰剂检验验证了双重差分估计的有效性和稳健性。最后,根据研究结果提出我国应该坚持推进节能减排政策,扩大节能减排政策的覆盖范围,加强节能减排政策的财政支持力度,同时指出城市在执行节能减排政策过程中,应当注重建立长效机制,以更好地实现节能减排政策的效果。     

Dynamics of environmental quality and economic development: the regional experience from Yangtze River Delta of China

This article investigates the dynamic relationship between economic progress and environmental quality at a regional level. An important economic intuition in this context is that environmental degradation will be limited by human behaviour if costs and benefits of such degradation are local since economic agents will then be incentivized to choose appropriate corrective action. Therefore, we note the likelihood that regional economic development can help regions ‘grow out of’ environmental problems. Using a new data set from Yangtze River Delta of China, we find a strong confirmation of the intuition that human can and will resolve the environmental problem by altering the damaging behaviour of economic agents. A very interesting finding of this study is that the relationship between environmental quality and economic progress measured by per capita income can display a wave-like function in the case of water pollution, as opposed to the much dramatized environmental Kuznets curve, with significant policy implications.     

Perfect versus imperfect direct advertising,and market performance

We present a model of economic growth driven by horizontal innovation in which, unlike the existing literature, the final output sector employs a non-specified, non-CES, additive production function. Our motivation in conducting such analysis is based on the recognition that the use of a CES aggregate production function in the final output sector leads to the unrealistic conclusion that the gross markup of price over marginal costs set in the monopolistically-competitive intermediate sector is constant. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for an equilibrium with perfect competition in the final output market to exist even in the presence of a non-CES technology. These conditions generalize the usual properties of the CES case. We also analyze the long-run relation between economic growth and variable markups.     

去产能背景下跨部门产业政策与技术创新

基于政策效果的部际传导视角，建立包含上游能源部门、中游电力部门和下游生产部门的多部门一般均衡模型，对高耗能产业生产函数以施加外生冲击方式刻画中国2015年实施的去产能政策，通过校准模型分析核心内生变量在政策冲击时期相较于平衡增长路径时期的变化。结果显示：①以“短期阵痛”为代价的去产能政策能够实现提振过剩产业产品价格的基础政策目标；②在能源部门技术创新的内生设定下，去产能政策能够提高绿色能源占能源使用总量的比重，实现绿色结构效应；③去产能政策能够降低绿色能源相对价格，实现绿色成本效应。进一步地，引入价格政策进行政策情景模拟，比较实现同一减排目标时内生技术模型和外生技术模型的政策成本，发现内生技术设定能够以更低税率和更小福利损失实现减排目标。研究结论表明，内生的技术创新是完善去产能政策传导、降低政策成本的关键环节，推动了下游过剩产业的市场提振和上游能源部门的绿色转型，为供给侧改革研究提供了产业政策与技术创新互动的新视角。     

去产能背景下跨部门产业政策与技术创新

基于政策效果的部际传导视角，建立包含上游能源部门、中游电力部门和下游生产部门的多部门一般均衡模型，对高耗能产业生产函数以施加外生冲击方式刻画中国2015年实施的去产能政策，通过校准模型分析核心内生变量在政策冲击时期相较于平衡增长路径时期的变化。结果显示：①以“短期阵痛”为代价的去产能政策能够实现提振过剩产业产品价格的基础政策目标；②在能源部门技术创新的内生设定下，去产能政策能够提高绿色能源占能源使用总量的比重，实现绿色结构效应；③去产能政策能够降低绿色能源相对价格，实现绿色成本效应。进一步地，引入价格政策进行政策情景模拟，比较实现同一减排目标时内生技术模型和外生技术模型的政策成本，发现内生技术设定能够以更低税率和更小福利损失实现减排目标。研究结论表明，内生的技术创新是完善去产能政策传导、降低政策成本的关键环节，推动了下游过剩产业的市场提振和上游能源部门的绿色转型，为供给侧改革研究提供了产业政策与技术创新互动的新视角。     

Water pricing and water allocation in israel

Marginal valuation of water is complicated because water authorities in most countries do not equate prices across users. Standard analyses imply that unequal valuation of water by users is inefficient and that economic efficiency can be improved by equating prices after accounting for transportation costs. Such inefficiencies are usually explained by the influence of political interest groups. We suggest alternatively that motivations such as food self-sufficiency, ideological settlement objectives, equity, and long run considerations may take precedence over short-run economic efficiency in Israeli water markets. If so, new peace accords, water projects, and water price equalization appear to have important complementary effects when exploited in combination.