Using technology to improve the management of development impacts on biodiversity

The mitigation hierarchy (MH) is a prominent tool to help businesses achieve no net loss or net gain outcomes for biodiversity. Technological innovations offer benefits for business biodiversity management, yet the range and continued evolution of technologies creates a complex landscape that can be difficult to navigate. Using literature review, online surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we assess technologies that can improve application of the MH. We identify six categories (mobile survey, fixed survey, remote sensing, blockchain, data analysis, and enabling technologies) with high feasibility and/or relevance to (i) aid direct implementation of mitigation measures and (ii) enhance biodiversity surveys and monitoring, which feed into the design of interventions including avoidance and minimization measures. At the interface between development and biodiversity impacts, opportunities lie in businesses investing in technologies, capitalizing on synergies between technology groups, collaborating with conservation organizations to enhance institutional capacity, and developing practical solutions suited for widespread use.     

环境不确定性与企业党员高管的创新“稳定器”效应

本文选取2010—2019年A股上市公司作为研究样本,研究高管党员身份在企业创新面临环境不确定带来冲击时的“稳定器”效应及其内在机制。研究发现：环境不确定性的提升抑制了企业创新,高管党员身份能通过降低研发支出挤出程度和优化融资环境两个渠道有效缓解环境不确定性的创新抑制效应。党员高管的创新“稳定器”效应更多地体现在环境不确定性增加的阶段,在平稳发展时期,应平衡好党组织参与企业治理与企业创新发展自主权的关系。全面从严治党战略的实施使党员高管决策风格更加稳健、保守,降低了企业风险承担,同时强化了面临环境不确定性时高管党员身份的“创新稳定器”作用。在当前企业创新面临高环境不确定性的大背景下,本文研究一方面丰富了党组织参与创新治理的理论依据,另一方面为高不确定性背景下优化企业创新环境提供了可实践路径。     

Piercing the Veil of Uncertainty in Transboundary Pollution Agreements

This paper addresses the question of how uncertainty in costs and benefits affects the difficulty of reaching a voluntary agreement among sovereign states. A measure of difficulty is constructed related to side-payments necessary to make an agreement a Pareto-improving move. Using a simple model, it is shown that uncertainty actually makes agreement easier.JEL classifications: Q5, H4, D7, D8An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Risk and Uncertainty in Environmental and Resource Economics, Wageningen, The Netherlands, June 2002.     

Joint Quantity/Quality Management of Groundwater

Economic literature on groundwater managementhas traditionally been split into two areas: there are papers that evaluate different schemes of dynamicaquifer management, considering that pumping costs vary with stock but ignoring water quality. On the other hand, there are papers that considercontamination problems caused by specificpollutants. This paper presents two alternative models for joint quantity-quality management, and it shows that existing models are in fact special cases of these. The framework isdynamic and considers both the stock of waterquantity and a stock measure of water quality. Optimal taxes are derived, and shown to be different from those in existing quantity-only or quality-only models. Implementationproblems are briefly discussed.     

Liability for Past Environmental Contamination and Privatization

This paper examines the role ofliability for past environmental contaminationin the privatization processes of Central andEastern Europe. In particular, it establishes alink between a risk-averse investor's amount ofinformation regarding the extent of pastenvironmental contamination (and its cleanupcosts) and the investor's willingness to payfor a particular enterprise, i.e., bid. As theinvestor obtains a more precise estimate of theuncertain cleanup costs, the investor facesless risk; therefore, the investor's riskpremium falls and the investor's bid rises.This link generates four hypotheses regarding aprivatization agency's responses to theinvestor's knowledge of clean-up costs.     

Carbon Taxes and Joint Implementation. An Applied General Equilibrium Analysis for Germany and India

Germany has committed itself toreducing its carbon emissions by 25 percent in2005 as compared to 1990 emission levels. Toachieve this goal, the government has recentlylaunched an environmental tax reform whichentails a continuous increase in energy taxesin conjunction with a revenue-neutral cut innon-wage labor costs. This policy is supposedto yield a double dividend, reducing both, theproblem of global warming and high unemploymentrates. In addition to domestic actions,international treaties on climate protectionallow for the supplementary use of flexibleinstruments to exploit cheaper emissionreduction possibilities elsewhere. One concreteoption for Germany would be to enter jointimplementation (JI) with developing countriessuch as India where Germany pays emissionreduction abroad rather than meeting itsreduction target solely by domestic action. Inthis paper, we investigate whether anenvironmental tax reform cum JI providesemployment and overall efficiency gains ascompared to an environmental tax reformstand-alone. We address this question in theframework of a large-scale general equilibriummodel for Germany and India where Germany mayundertake JI with the Indian electricitysector. Our main finding is that JI offsetslargely the adverse effects of carbon emissionconstraints on the German economy. JIsignificantly lowers the level of carbon taxesand thus reduces the total costs of abatementas well as negative effects on labor demand. Inaddition, JI triggers direct investment demandfor energy efficient power plants produced inGermany. This provides positive employmenteffects and additional income for Germany. ForIndia, joint implementation equips itselectricity industry with scarce capital goodsleading to a more efficient power productionwith lower electricity prices for the economyand substantial welfare gains.     

Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies

We are interested in three related questions:(1) How should accounting prices be estimated?(2) How should we evaluate policy change in animperfect economy? (3) How can we check whetherintergenerational well-being will be sustainedalong a projected economic programme? We do notpresume that the economy is convex, nor do weassume that the government optimizes on behalfof its citizens. We show that the same set ofaccounting prices should be used both forpolicy evaluation and for assessing whether ornot intergenerational welfare along a giveneconomic path will be sustained. We also showthat a comprehensive measure of wealth,computed in terms of the accounting prices, canbe used as an index for problems (2) and (3)above. The remainder of the paper is concernedwith rules for estimating the accounting pricesof several specific environmental naturalresources, transacted in a few well knowneconomic institutions.     

Regulating an Externality-Generating Utility Environmental Taxes Under Limited Information

Global warming is currently an important item on most nationalenvironmental agendas. In many countries, coal-fired electricity generatingstations represent an important source of greenhouse gases. We examinehow regulations to curb emissions affect public utility pricing regulationwhen regulators act non-cooperatively. We show that, when there is limitedinformation on fixed abatement costs, an environmental regulator prefersan emission tax over an output tax or a lump sum environmental tax. Thepublic utility regulator prefers the lump sum tax regime.     

Corporate Lobbying, Regulatory Conduct and the Porter Hypothesis

Michael Porter, the influential Harvard management guru, has promoted the idea that compliance with stricter environmental regulations can afford secondary benefits to firms through improved product design, innovation, corporate morale and in other ways. Once these secondary benefits are factored, the net cost of compliance is argued to be lower than conventionally thought and may even be negative. Whilst environmental economists have rejected the Porter Hypothesis as being based on excessively optimistic expectations of the likely size of such secondary benefits the underlying ideas do enjoy significant credence in the business community. In the context of a lobbying model of regulatory policy-making we argue that the EPA should change the way it conducts regulatory policy to take account of Porter's views – even if it knows those views to be misguided. The model serves to illustrate the more general point that fashions in management thinking can be expected to impact the optimal conduct of regulatory policy.     

Environmental Product Differentiation and Environmental Awareness

In this paper, we have considered a duopolistic model of environmental product differentiation with two types of consumers (green and brown) to analyze how environmental awareness affects the environment. “Green” consumers value the physical and environmental attributes of the good they purchase while “brown” consumers only value the physical attributes. We find that more environmental awareness may not be good news for the environment as the firm that produces the good without environmental attributes may increase its sales. The result depends on the degree of product differentiation and the cost to achieve it. Social welfare can also be inversely related to environmental awareness if the negative environmental effect dominates the positive market effect.