JEEM 2022年第116卷目录及摘要
Environmental consequences of natural gas wellhead pricing deregulation
Residential demand for sediment remediation to restore water quality: Evidence from Milwaukee
How do consumers respond to price complexity? Experimental evidence from the power sector
Holding back the storm: Dam capitalization in residential and commercial property values
Optimal carbon taxation and horizontal equity: A welfare-theoretic approach with application to German household data
Price limits in a tradable performance standard
Cash transfers, climatic shocks and resilience in the Sahel
Adapting long-lived investments under climate change uncertainty
Does telecommuting reduce commuting emissions?
Costly sanctions and the treatment of frequent violators in regulatory settings
When standards have better distributional consequences than carbon taxes
Acquiring land in cold winter: Consequences and possible explanations
Yinghao Pan Yu Qin Fan Zhang Hongjia Zhu
Abstract:This paper documents the environmentally induced behavioral biases in the land market and shows how buyers correct their biases by learning from repeated transactions. Using a sample of government land sales along two sides of the heating service line in China, we first show land parcels transacted in the south in the winter are associated with an average price discount of 7.1%, compared to transactions in the north where heating service is provided. We discuss three possible explanations, including projection bias, incorrect belief, and salience bias. We find adverse weather such as low temperature and extreme weather may trigger the mispricing in the absence of the heating service, lending support to the projection bias. Moreover, our empirical investigations suggest the local government, as the only land seller, responds weakly to such biases. We also provide suggestive evidence that individual buyers in the south can learn from prior experience.
Environmental consequences of natural gas wellhead pricing deregulation
Lawrence D. LaPlue
Abstract:From 1958–1985, the U.S. Federal Power Commission, and then Congress, directly, exercised explicit control of the price of natural gas contracted for sale across state lines. This paper investigates the role of incremental deregulation of natural gas wellhead prices–a regulatory price ceiling–on U.S. air quality from 1972–1985, by influencing the incentive to move relatively cleaner natural gas across state lines. The results indicate that relaxing (raising) natural gas wellhead price caps is not associated with significant declines in national average sulfur dioxide (SO2). However, disaggregating by state’s natural gas importing status reveals that relaxing wellhead price caps was associated with significant increases in SO2 concentrations among natural gas exporting states but significant relative reductions among natural gas importing states, and that the reductions in SO2 concentrations were significantly larger for larger volume importers. Extended analysis indicates a strong relationship between relaxing wellhead price caps and relative increases in natural gas usage by importing states, and that increases of natural gas in state’s energy portfolios were associated with significant reductions in SO2 concentrations, associated in turn with annual reductions in mortality valued between $0.8 and $2.1 billion.
Residential demand for sediment remediation to restore water quality: Evidence from Milwaukee
Richard T. Melstrom
Abstract:This paper examines the effect of removing pollutants, mainly polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), on home prices in Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs). AOCs are heavily polluted locations identified as priorities for restoration under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) between the United States and Canada. Since the signing of the GLWQA, AOCs have undergone cleanup actions that could encourage local redevelopment and raise nearby property values. This paper focuses on the Milwaukee Estuary AOC and estimates property owner willingness to pay as well as potential differences in willingness to pay for sediment remediation using a sorting model and home sales data before and after cleanup. Results indicate that home prices near the water increased significantly and that remediation did not change pre-existing inequalities generally favoring higher-income, predominantly white households through a process of demographic re-sorting.
How do consumers respond to price complexity? Experimental evidence from the power sector
Grant D. Jacobsen James I. Stewart
Abstract:Spurred in part by growing production from renewable sources and adoption of electric vehicles, time-variant pricing programs for electricity are increasingly being used to influence the shape of residential demand. The most common time-variant prices are time-of-use (TOU) prices, which vary by hour of day, and event-based prices, which take effect during idiosyncratic “critical” events. We present evidence on the effects of TOU prices and event-based prices when implemented in isolation versus simultaneously. The key finding is that time-variant prices reduce demand during critical events by 19% when event-based pricing is implemented in isolation, but only 5% when TOU and event-based prices are implemented together, despite both price schemes creating similar financial incentives. The results suggest that price complexity may dull consumer responsiveness to price signals.
Holding back the storm: Dam capitalization in residential and commercial property values
David Wolf Kenji Takeuchi
Abstract:Spurred in part by growing production from renewable sources and adoption of electric vehicles, time-variant pricing programs for electricity are increasingly being used to influence the shape of residential demand. The most common time-variant prices are time-of-use (TOU) prices, which vary by hour of day, and event-based prices, which take effect during idiosyncratic “critical” events. We present evidence on the effects of TOU prices and event-based prices when implemented in isolation versus simultaneously. The key finding is that time-variant prices reduce demand during critical events by 19% when event-based pricing is implemented in isolation, but only 5% when TOU and event-based prices are implemented together, despite both price schemes creating similar financial incentives. The results suggest that price complexity may dull consumer responsiveness to price signals.
Optimal carbon taxation and horizontal equity: A welfare-theoretic approach with application to German household data
Martin C. Hänsel Max Franks Matthias Kalkuhl Ottmar Edenhofer
Abstract:We develop a model of optimal taxation and redistribution under an ambitious climate target. We take into account vertical income differences, but also explicitly capture horizontal equity concerns by considering heterogeneous energy efficiencies. By deriving first- and second-best rules for policy instruments including carbon and labor taxes, transfers and energy subsidies, we investigate analytically how vertical and horizontal inequality is considered in the welfare maximizing tax structure. We calibrate the model to German household data and a 30 percent emission reduction goal and show that redistribution of carbon tax revenues via household-specific transfers is the first-best policy. Under plausible assumptions on inequality aversion, transfers to energy-intensive households should be about five times higher than transfers to energy-efficient households. Equal per-capita transfers do not require to observe households’ efficiency type, but increase equity-weighted mitigation costs by around 5 percent compared to the first-best. Mitigation costs increase by less, if the government can implement a uniform clean energy subsidy or household-specific tax-subsidy schemes on energy consumption and labor income that target heterogeneous energy efficiencies. Horizontal equity concerns may therefore constitute a new second-best rationale for clean energy policies or differentiated energy taxes.
Price limits in a tradable performance standard
Banban Wang William A. Pizer Clayton Munnings
Abstract:Tradable performance standards are widely used sectoral regulatory policies. Examples include the US lead phasedown, fuel economy standards for automobiles, renewable portfolio standards, low carbon fuel standards, and—most recently—China's new national carbon market. At the same time, theory and experience with traditional cap-and-trade programs suggest an important role for price limits in the form of floors, ceilings, and reserves. In this paper we develop a simple analytical model to derive the welfare comparison between tradable performance standards and a price-based alternative. This model works out to be a simple variant of the traditional Weitzman prices-versus-quantities result. We use this result to show that substantial gains—perhaps 50% or more when prices are low—could arise from shifting two programs, China's new national carbon market and the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, to a price mechanism. This finding will generally be true when the coefficient of variation in the price under a TPS is larger than 50%. We end with a brief discussion of implementation issues, including consignment auctions.
Cash transfers, climatic shocks and resilience in the Sahel
Patrick Premand Quentin Stoeffler
Abstract:Policy makers search for strategies to promote resilience and mitigate the effects of future climatic shocks. In this paper, we assess whether small regular cash transfers strengthen poor households' ability to mitigate the welfare effects of drought shocks. We analyze mechanisms through which cash transfers contribute to resilience, including savings, asset accumulation as well as income smoothing in agriculture and off-farm activities. We combine household survey data collected as part of a randomized control trial in rural Niger with satellite data used to identify exogenous rainfall shocks. The results show that cash transfers increase household consumption by about 10 percent on average. Importantly, this increase is mostly concentrated among households affected by drought shocks, for whom welfare impacts are larger than transfer amounts due to households' enhanced ability to protect earnings in agriculture and off-farm businesses when shocks occur. The results suggest that multi-year cash transfer programs can foster poor households’ resilience by facilitating savings and income smoothing.
Adapting long-lived investments under climate change uncertainty
Klaus Eisenack Marius Paschen
Abstract:Does climate change adaptation require that investments are designed to be more robust? What about when climate change is more uncertain? What if the climate changes faster? This decision problem is difficult if the design of the investments is irreversible for their lifetime, for instance, in the construction industry. We study an irreversible design decision when the investment starts, combined with an irreversible option to abandon. The design determines the investment’s robustness to sustain detrimental conditions. We find that for short-lived investments, optimal robustness decreases if the climate changes faster, and increases if uncertainty is higher. For long-lived investments, these effects reverse. This has implications for decision makers who plan infrastructure adaptation, for instance, that adverse climate change does not require more robust investments under the identified circumstances.
Does telecommuting reduce commuting emissions?
Waldemar Marz Suphi Şen
Abstract:The long-term trend toward more work from home due to digitization has found a strong new driver, the Covid-19 pandemic. The profound change in urban mobility patterns supports the often-held view that reducing the number of commuting trips can lower carbon emissions. We investigate this optimistic view from a long-run perspective in a monocentric urban model with household-level vehicle choice based on fuel efficiency. In the medium run, fewer trips lead to the choice of less fuel-efficient vehicles. In the long run, lower annual driving costs to the city center additionally lead households to change their location toward longer commuting trips, but cheaper housing, implying an adjustment in the real-estate market. These changes in vehicle choice and the urban form largely eliminate the initial environmental benefits. Binding fuel economy standards completely prevent the medium-run drop in fuel efficiency.
Costly sanctions and the treatment of frequent violators in regulatory settings
Jay P. Shimshack Michael B. Ward
Abstract:Regulators typically treat frequent violators more harshly. When does such harsh treatment maximize overall compliance? We consider the role of two factors: responsiveness to penalties and costs of sanctions. A novel insight is that maintaining a credible threat of sanction against infrequent violators is relatively cheap because that threat seldom needs to be backed up. In a Clean Water Act application, the marginal sanction deters ten times as many violations when directed at infrequent violators. On net, this difference is due to a sanction cost effect, not because infrequent violators are marginally more responsive to the threat of punishment.
When standards have better distributional consequences than carbon taxes
Jiaxin Zhao Linus Mattauch
Abstract:Carbon pricing is the efficient instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, the geographical and sectoral coverage of substantial carbon pricing remains low, often due to concerns about increasing economic inequality. Regulations such as fuel economy standards are more popular. Could the reason be that they have an equity advantage over carbon pricing? We develop two models, one representing energy services and the other the carbon-intensity of consumption, to identify the economic situations in which this is the case. First, we prove that an efficiency standard can be more equitable than carbon pricing when consumers prefer high-carbon technology attributes. Evidence from the US vehicle market confirms this finding. Second, we show theoretically, and through a numerical application to the Chinese transport sector, that intensity standards are preferable when richer households consume a greater share of high-emissions goods. Our results hold when the redistribution of carbon pricing revenue is not progressive. These insights may help advance decarbonisation when pricing instruments remain unpopular.
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编辑：秦运兰
审核：龙文进