Jointness in production and farmers' willingness to supply non-marketed ecosystem services

This paper highlights how farmers' willingness to supply non-marketed ecosystem services (ES) is influenced by whether or not the non-marketed ES are produced jointly with agricultural products. When marketed products and non-marketed ES share some production inputs the production relationships between the two may be complementary, competitive or substitutive. Using a cost minimization framework, it is shown how complementary relationships lead to costless voluntary provision of non-marketed ES (typically the case for ES that are supportive of provisioning ES for marketed farm products). It is also shown how competitive production relationships lead to provision of non-marketed ES at lower cost than when non-marketed ES are direct substitutes for farm products or are produced outside of agriculture. The paper closes by showing how the minimum willingness to accept (WTA) payment for ES that are complementary/competitive is less than or equal to the minimum WTA for the same ES produced in substitute or independent production relationships.     

Environmental quality indicators: Background,principles and examples from Norway

The need for a simple and general overview of the development in the state of the environment has led to work on environmental indicators in several countries and international organizations. Except for the basic common requirement of providing an overview, the works vary a great deal with regard to final aim, target groups, classification and, hence, choice of indicators. This paper gives an overview of the work carried out in the Central Bureau of Statistics of Norway within this field, with emphasis on the basic principles behind the choice of indicators. A hierarchical system of indicator sets is proposed, and examples of indicators are presented. Also, a brief overview of work carried out elsewhere is included.     

Environmental tax policy in a model of growth cycles

Summary. The purpose of this paper is to consider environmental taxation which would control emissions of firms in a model of growth cycles. In the model presented below, the economy may experience two phases of growth and environmental quality: “the no-innovation growth regime” and “the innovation-led growth regime”. Aggregate capital and environmental quality remain constant in the no-innovation growth regime, while they perpetually increase in the innovation-led growth regime. The paper shows that the tax plays a key role in determining whether the economy stably converges to one of the two regimes or fluctuates permanently between them. It also shows that there is a critical level of the tax and that the economy obtains higher growth rates of capital and environmental quality by raising (or reducing) the tax if the initial tax is below (or above) the critical level. Received: April 2, 2001; revised version: March 21, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" This research reported here was conducted within the research project “Project on Intergenerational Equity” at Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. I am deeply grateful to an anonymous referee for his or her insightful comments, which greatly improved the paper. I also thank Hiroshi Honda, Yasuo Maeda, Yuji Nakayama, and participants in workshops at Hitotsubashi University, Kyoto University, Nagoya University, Osaka University, University of Tsukuba, Yokohama National University, and University of Tokyo for their valuable comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors are mine.     

Implementation of land and ecosystem accounts at the European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency has started the implementation of a programme of land use and ecosystem accounts, following the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) guidelines of the United Nations. The purpose is to integrate information across the various ecosystem components and to support further assessments and modelling of these components and their interactions with economic and social developments. This programme reflects the increasing demand for environmental policy integration in Europe, both vertically through thematic policies as well as horizontally across policies in those sectors that contribute most to environmental impacts. The construction of land and ecosystem accounts is now feasible due to continuous improvements in monitoring, collecting and processing data and progress with the development of statistical methods that facilitate data assimilation and integration. The accounts are based on explicit spatial patterns provided by comprehensive land cover accounts that can be scaled up and down using a 1 km² grid to any type of administrative region or ecosystem zone (e.g., river basin catchments, coastal zones or bio-geographic areas). Land cover accounts have been produced for 24 countries in Europe and first results published in the European Environment State and Outlook2005 report of the EEA.¹     

Regulatory and environmental effects on public transit efficiency: a mixed DEA-SFA approach

This paper assesses the impact of regulatory and environmental factors and statistical noise on the efficiency of public transit systems within a DEA-based framework. Using a panel of Italian companies, we implement a DEA-SFA mixed approach based on [H.O. Fried et al. (2002) Journal of Productivity Analysis, 17(1–2), 157–174] to decompose DEA inefficiency measures into three components: exogenous effects, managerial inefficiency and stochastic events. Besides providing evidence on the determinants of input-specific efficiency differentials across companies, the results point out that managerial skills play a minor role, and emphasize the relevance of regulatory policies aimed at replacing cost-plus subsidization with high-powered incentive contracts as well as improving environmental conditions of public transit networks.      

环境会计计量构架、方法及其应用研究

环境会计计量困难是制约环境会计推行的关键。本文构建了环境会计计量构架,以此为基础从企业资源环境的产权界定、实物计量、货币计量、货币计量方法在会计系统中的应用四个环节研究环境会计计量。     

How efficient are national environmental standards? A benefit-cost analysis of the United States experience

This paper summarizes the results of the first systematic, geographically-specific efficiency assessment of the U.S. experience with national environmental standards and with alternative approaches to establishing those standards. This ex-post evaluation assessed the net benefits that resulted from EPA's regulation of conventional air and water pollutants from the pulp and paper industry between 1973 and 1984. The paper compares the benefit-cost efficiencies of the three dominant regulatory approaches: technology, ambient, and benefits. Unlike previous studies, which assessed benefits and costs on a national basis, the study estimates both costs and benefits on a facility-by-facility basis. The analysis shows how the efficiency of national environmental regulations can vary dramatically at local levels. The authors conclude that the technology-based standards for water pollution management failed as an efficient environmental strategy. The costs clearly exceeded the benefits in the aggregate, as well as in the specific in most situations. Benefits exceeded costs at only 11 of the 68 mills investigated. The ambient based standards for air pollution management succeeded as an environmental strategy in the aggregate, but succeeded in the specific for only one-third of the mills (22 of 60 mills). The benefits-based standards for air pollution management also succeeded in the aggregate as well as in the specific for about one-half of the mills. Benefits exceeded costs at 29 of the 60 mills investigated. The results of the study point to two major conclusions. First, a regulatory policy that is based on some measure of environmental results, either ambient-based or benefits-based, will be more efficient than a policy that ignores environmental results. Second, truly efficient policies for reducing environmental risks require pollution mitigation decisions that take into account local conditions. These include not only the changes in local ambient conditions, but also the number of people who will benefit from pollution reduction decisions. This latter conclusion suggests that national environmental standards per se may be inefficient.Dr. Luken is currently Senior Environmental Advisor to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna, Austria. He is on leave from the U.S. EPA where he was Chief of the Economic Analysis and Research Branch of the Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation (OPPE). Mr. Clark is President of Environmental Economics Associates of Traverse City, Michigan. He was formerly Chief of EPA's Cost and Economic Impact Analysis Branch in OPPE. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.     

环境库兹涅茨曲线假说及其在中国的检验

经济与环境协调发展是我国经济发展中的重大课题。本文从环境库兹涅茨曲线假说出发,利用中国各个省市区1989～2004年数据建立面板数据模型,运用固定效应模型和随机效应模型对其进行估计,以此剖析我国经济增长与环境污染水平的演变规律。结果表明,环境库兹涅茨曲线假说在我国并不成立。因此,我国不能盲目重复发达国家"先污染,后治理"的传统模式,而应该走环境与经济持续协调发展的道路。     

Idea and goals of environmental protection and ecological construction in the 11^th five-year plan period

In this paper, the executive of the 10th Five- Year Plan in the field of environmental protection and ecological constrution is reviewed, and the charactristics of economic growth and its environmental impact on the 11^th Five-Year Plan is forecasted and analyzed. A principal idea of eavironmental protection and ecological construction is put forward for the 11^th Five-Year Plan pertod： strensgthen the point treatment in key areas and set the main targets based on the idea. The relating countermeasures in national level are proposed as follows： set up appropriate ideas for official achievements by launching resources and environmental cost acconting; adjust the industrial struacture actively by industrial policies and strenuous work; develop circular economy, change the mode of environmental protecgon from end treatment to headstream and proeess control： strengthen the market mechanism in the process of pollution treatment, set up the system of ＂who treats who benefits＂ ; perfect interrelated laws and standards, strengthen the ability of environmental munagement; lay extra emphasis on two key targets： water pollution tretment in key river basins and management of the reserves; and combine the ecological consnuction and poverty alleviation in higher level.