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.      

Natural resource accounting for Indian states — Illustrating the case of forest resources

Our main objective is to set out and apply a SEEA-based methodology to reflect the true value of forest resources in India's national and state accounts. We establish that a “top-down” approach using available national databases is both feasible and desirable from a policy perspective. In this paper, we address four components of value creation in forests: timber production, carbon storage, fuelwood usage, and the harvesting of non-timber forest products. The results of our analysis suggest that prevailing measures of national income in India underestimate the contribution of forests to income. The income accounts of the Northeastern states in particular are significantly understated by these traditional (GDP/GSDP) measures. We are also able to identify some states which performed poorly in the context of our sustainability framework, reflecting natural capital losses due to degradation and deforestation. Our results highlight the need to integrate natural resource accounting into the national accounting framework in order to generate appropriate signals for sustainable forest management and for the conservation of forest resources which are widely used by the poor in India, as well as being significant stores of national wealth.     

Can R&D-inducing green tariffs replace international environmental regulations?

This paper investigates the link between trade and environment by exploring the effects of green tariffs on innovation, location of production and the environment. It shows that tariffs levied on polluting goods could result in less world pollution than global harmonization of environmental standards by inducing more pollution-abatement R&D effort and generating lower unit emissions from production. Specifically, green tariffs reduce pollution by (1) shifting production to the region where environmental standards are respected, (2) inducing the firm in the clean country to engage in more abatement R&D by granting it a higher market power/share in its home market, (3) instigating green R&D investment by deterring delocation. When these outweigh the R&D-creating effect of environmental harmonization in the dirty country, green tariffs bring about a cleaner environment.     

In search of marginal environmental valuations — ecosystem services in Finnish forest accounting

There is currently substantial interest in valuing various services provided by different ecosystems. Concurrently economists have ascribed substantial effort on expanding traditional forest accounting systems by environmental services. This paper contributes to curtailing the existing gap between green accounting theory and applications for valuing forest ecosystem services. The multitude of links between forest ecosystem services and economy are characterized by the theoretical model for forest-economy interactions. By utilizing recently updated data we also incorporate empirical value estimates of these services comparable to other goods into Finnish forest accounting system. Finally, we discuss some problems encountered and clarify the interpretation of some value estimates incorporated to national forest account.     

中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率及影响因素分析——基于ML生产率视角对“波特假说”的再检验

选用船舶工业宏观数据和资源环境约束等作为基础数据,运用方向性距离函数和ML指数测算了中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率(Total Factor Productivity),通过面板模型系统考察了环境规制、技术进步对中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的作用。发现从长远来看,绿色全要素生产率呈增长趋势且具有明显的收敛特征,技术进步和技术效率共同推动船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的增长,但整体上绿色全要素生产率低于传统全要素生产率。运用动态面板模型分析中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的影响因素,结论表明:较高的技术水平能显著提高绿色全要素生产率,而对国际市场的过度依赖阻碍了船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的增长。环境规制对船舶工业绿色全要素的增长已经带来"补偿效应"从而提高了中国船舶工业的国际竞争力,为考察船舶工业绿色竞争力提供了新的视角。     

新农业革命与农业的21世纪

战后60年代第一次农业革命（绿色革命）的兴起·显著地推动了世界经济的发展。近年来，生物技术革命的风起云涌，又引起一场新农业革命（白色革命）的悄然兴起。新农业革命（基于白色农业）必将导致农业结构从自然型向人工型转换，从而在21世纪内将实现现代农业转向“未来大农业”的结构重组。21世纪必将是农业的新世纪。     

绿色农业的农村妇女道路研究

妇女作为人类生命的孕育者，对人类赖以生存的地球环境，有着息息相关的感情和强烈的责任意识，从而更容易成为环境保护的理论先驱和积极实践者。本文阐述了农村妇女与绿色农业的内在关联，认为构建绿色农业必须要大力开发农村妇女这一人力资源。     

浅议企业绿色物流及发展对策

本文首先分析企业物流对环境的影响，阐述了绿色物流的内涵及对企业的重要意义，并提出了发展绿色物流的对策。     

论绿色GDP核算的两大功能

绿色GDP核算主要有两大功能:记账功能和管理功能.记账功能主要由资产形成核算和流量核算来体现;管理功能主要体现为,依据绿色GDP核算的记账功能所反映出的信息,为评价、制定或改革经济政策和环境政策提供支持,实现公共自然资源的合理开发和可持续利用.     

Do investors in Green Bond market pay a premium? Global evidence

We examine the pricing difference of Green Bonds (GB) and conventional bonds (CBs) in capital markets worldwide. Credit spread is used to observe whether investors would like to pay a premium for GBs over CBs. This study uses panel data regression with hybrid model to analyse daily observations over the period 2016 to 2017. We employ Option-Adjusted spread (OAS) to measure the credit spreads of bonds while controlling for bond specific, macroeconomic and global factors that influence the spread. With the hybrid model used in the panel data analysis, we were able to capture the fixed-effects of variables in a random effect model. We find that GBs are traded at a premium of 63 basis points (BPS), compared with a comparable corporate bond issue. We find that the green label provides issuers an incentive to raise funds through issuing GBs while providing investors an opportunity to diversify their investments returns. Our findings provide several implications to the major stakeholders driving the GB market to scale up the market to finance the required level of global green investment needs. We stress an urgent need to support the growth of the GB market to achieve sustainable development through mitigating climate change challenges.

Abbreviation GB: Green Bond; CB: Conventional Bond; YS: Yield Spread; BPS: Basis Points; OAS: Option-Adjusted Spread; PCSE: Panels Corrected Standard Errors; CPI: Consumer Price Index; GBPs: Green Bond Principles; CBS: Climate Bond Standard