Urban Transport Policies and the Environment: Evidence from Italy

The paper reviews urban transport policies in Italian cities and their impact on the concentration of NO2 and PM10. Using parametric and non-parametric techniques, it finds no significant effect of the policy actions currently implemented. Further, it finds evidence of a weak positive impact of plans adoption. These results are interpreted as evidence of positive externalities among actions. Finally, by also discussing case studies, the paper points out the absence of economic instruments and argues that significant welfare gains would derive from their adoption.Urban Transport Policies, Traffic Externalities, Pollution Abatement

A further step into the ELGH and TLGH for Spain and Italy

Nowadays many developing countries focus on economic policies for promoting international tourism and exports expansion as a potential source of economic growth of the country. However, the understanding of the relationship between exports and economic growth is still ongoing. When treating the relationship between tourism and economic growth, considering tourism as a non-traditional export few studies have been published to date. This paper has the objective to assess if exports and tourism have really promoted growth by means of the export-led growth hypothesis (ELGH) and the tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH). The cases under analysis are Spain and Italy, two of the most important countries worldwide regarding the expansion of tourism. Cointegration techniques and the multivariate Granger causality test are applied. Results reveal that exports cause economic growth in the long-term for both countries, whilst only for Spain tourism appears as a factor which influences economic growth in the lon-run.Economic Growth, Exports, Tourism, Cointegration, Multivariate Granger Causality, Spain, Italy

The Relationship Between Environmental Efficiency and Manufacturing Firm’s Growth

This paper investigates the empirical link between emission intensity and economic growth, using a very large data set of 61,219 Italian manufacturing firms over the period 2000-2004. As a measure of lagged environmental performance (efficiency) at firm level we exploit NAMEA sector for CO2, NOx, SOx data over 1990-1999. The paper tests the extent to which (past) environmental efficiency/intensity, which is driven by structural features and firm strategic actions, including responses to policies, influences firms growth. Our results show, first, a typical trade off generally appearing for the three core environmental emissions we analyse: lower environmentally efficiency in the recent past allows higher degrees of freedom to firms and relax the constraints for growth, at least in this short/medium term scenario. Nevertheless, the size of the estimated coefficients is not large. Trade off are significant for two emission indicators out of two, but quite negligible in terms of impacts, besides the case of CO2. For example, growth is reduced by far less than 0.1% in association to a 1% increase of environmental efficiency. Environmental efficiency does not seem a primary cost factor and constraint to growth if compared to other factors affecting firm targets and firm competitiveness. In addition, non-linearity seems to characterise the economic growth-environmental performance relationship. Signals of inverted U shape appears: this may be a signal that both firm strategies and recent policy efforts are affecting the dynamic relationship between environmental efficiency and economic productivity, turning it from an usual trade off to a possible joint complementary/co-dynamics, where bad environmental performances hamper firm growth and investments in greener technologies may be associated to positive economic performances of firms and sectors.Firm growth, Manufacturing, Emission intensity, Economic performance, Environmental performance

Influence of green technology, tourism, and inclusive financial development on ecological sustainability: exploring the path toward green revolution

This study demonstrates the linkages between green technological innovations, sustainable tourism, financial development, economic growth, and ecological sustainability using China’s regional data from 2000 to 2019. The study applies the novel estimation technique, Quantile Autoregressive Distributive Lag (QARDL) approach to examine long-run and short-run relationships between the stated variables. The initial findings confirm non-linearity in the data verified through J-B test statistics. It approves the implication of QARDL estimation for exploring ecological sustainability trends over the study period. The study outcomes confirm that tourism and green technology innovation assists in reducing ecological footprints in China in the long run. Moreover, financial development and economic growth reflect a direct role towards more ecological footprints; therefore, the sustainability dimension has been missing both in financial development and growth. Furthermore, the results in the short run cover the same phenomenon and confirm that ecological innovations and tourism would help in sustaining the natural environment. The study outcomes demonstrate that government officials in China should specifically implement long-term policies to support the natural environment from adverse shocks of more financial development and economic growth

Trade Complexity and Productivity

We exploit a panel dataset of Hungarian firms merged with product-level trade data for the period 1992-2003 to investigate the relation between firms' trading activities (importing, exporting or both) and productivity. We find important self-selection effects of the most productive firms induced by the existence of heterogeneous sunk costs of trade, for both importers and exporters. We relate these sunk costs of trade to the relationship-specific nature of the trade activities, entailing a certain degree of technological and organizational complexity. We also show that, to the extent that imports and exports are correlated within firms, failing to control for the importing activity leads to overstated average productivity premia of exporters.Trade Openness, Firms' Heterogeneity, Productivity

Modelling the spatial and temporal dynamics of upland birds in Scotland

Population numbers change in space and time. The construction of models to investigate the spatial and temporal dynamics of populations may offer a means to identify the processes driving this change. In this thesis, we make use of models to examine the population ecology of three species of upland birds: red grouse, meadow pipit and capercaillie. Populations of red grouse in the British Isles exhibit cyclic fluctuations in abundance. Time series data from 287 grouse moors across the United Kingdom were analysed to investigate co-variation in these fluctuations. Results indicate high levels of synchrony between populations on neighbouring moors, with synchrony declining with increasing intermoor distance. At distances greater than 100km, populations exhibit only weak synchrony. Synchrony is shown to be a product of strong coupling events, which occur on average every one in six years. In the absence of such events, synchrony is shown to dissipate within three years. Further, we present evidence which suggests this coupling is driven (at least in part) by dispersal between populations. The density dependent structures are also found to be sufficiently homogeneous to allow correlations in climate to synchronise dynamics, but examination of three climate variables failed to detect a relationship. We also studied the population dynamics of meadow pipits in upland grassland ecosystems. Data, collected as part of an ongoing grazing field experiment, were analysed to construct a Bayesian model of population growth, and predict the effect of grazing intensity on meadow pipit populations. Results suggest grazing has a significant impact on population growth. Grazing may act to improve meadow pipit foraging efficiency and thus productivity. Finally, a spatially explicit population viability model was constructed to predict changes in the future abundance and distribution of capercaillie. Published estimates of key demographic variables were drawn from the literature to parameterise the model. The spatial structure of the population was inferred from spatial data, documenting the extent and configuration of remnant pine woodlands in Scotland. The model predicts a low probability of extinction for capercaillie in the future, and offers insights into key processes affecting the distribution and abundance of this species. The development of these models has advanced our understanding of the environmental processes driving changes in the spatial and temporal dynamics of these species. The results of these studies may be useful in anticipating the future consequences of various drivers of change on the ecology of upland species

Drivers and food web effects of Gonyostomum semen blooms

The flagellate Gonyostomum semen forms dense late-summer blooms in humic lakes and is a nuisance to swimmers because it forms a slimy coat on the skin, causing irritation in sensitive individuals. Increasing occurrence and bloom incidence of G. semen has been reported during recent decades, but it is not clear which factors affect the distribution and bloom formation of this alga. Large cell size, ejection of long, slimy threads (trichocysts), and nighttime migration to the hypolimnion may limit grazing on G. semen by herbivorous zooplankton, resulting in a decreased coupling between phytoplankton and higher trophic levels during blooms. The studies included in this thesis investigate which factors affect G. semen occurrence and bloom formation and how G. semen blooms affect the community composition and trophic interactions in boreal, humic lakes. The occurrence of G. semen has increased between 1995 and 2010, especially in southern Sweden. Bloom incidence and total biomass did not increase continually, but fluctuated among years and peaked in the middle of the study period. Temperature and length of the growing season affected the occurrence and, to a lesser extent, bloom formation of G. semen, but local factors such as pH and water colour were more important for bloom formation. More lakes may become suitable habitats with the ongoing increase in water colour and increasing temperatures may result in a more frequent occurrence and bloom formation of G. semen. Blooms resulted in a shift in zooplankton assemblages toward predominance by small cladocerans, which were not able to feed on G. semen but instead fed more on heterotrophic food resources, supporting the hypothesis of a reduced coupling between phytoplankton and zooplankton. Zooplankton assemblages predominated by small animals feeding on low-quality resources may reduce the food quality for planktivorous fish. Instead, the invertebrate predator C. flavicans appeared to benefit from G. semen blooms, as indicated by its high abundance in bloom-lakes. Calanoid copepods and a large cladoceran fed efficiently on G. semen in the laboratory, indicating that there is, however, some trophic coupling between G. semen and higher trophic levels. This supports the use of biomanipulation of fish communities for controlling G. semen blooms

How does the economic risk aversion affect biodiversity?

The present paper analyses the role played by risk aversion in the reconciling of agricultural income and biodiversity. A bio-economic mode which articulates bird community dynamics and representative farmers selecting land uses within an uncertain macro-economic context is developed. It is spatialized and calibrated at a regional scale for France through national databases. The impact of risk aversion is assessed on economic, agricultural and ecological outputs through projections at the 2050 horizon. A high enough aversion proves sufficient to promote global bio-economic performance and multi-functional agriculture. This occurs through a diversification mechanism on regional land-uses. Spatial disparities however suggest that public incentives could be necessary to reinforce the diversification and bio-economic effectiveness.Agriculture, Aversion, Bio-economic modeling, Bird, Biodiversity, Diversification, Public good, Spatial