Is There an Environmental Kuznets Curve for Energy? An Econometric Analysis

WP 1997-07 July 1997The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis states that pollution levels are increasing as a country develops, but will begin to decrease as rising incomes pass beyond a turning point. EKC analyses test the relationship between a measure of environmental quality and income (usually expressed in a quadratic equation). Other explanatory variables have been included in these models, but income regularly has had the most significant effect on indicators of environmental quality. One variable consistently omitted in these relationships is energy prices. This paper analyzes previous models to illustrate the importance of prices in these models and then includes prices in an econometric EKC framework testing energy/income and CO2/income relationships. These long-run price/income models find that income is no longer the most relevant indicator of environmental quality or energy demand. Indeed, we find no significant evidence for the existence of an EKC within the range of current incomes for energy in the presence of price and trade variables

International Law, Industrial Location, and Pollution

The dominant position of economists on trade and environment is that increasing trade raises living standards, which provide the economic basis for reduced pollution. Professors Chapman, Agras, and Suri present a perspective that raises very different points. First, the dramatic growth of manufacturing in East Asia for global markets is based entirely (or nearly so) on the importation of processed pollution-intensive raw materials. For a typical product in this global system, a U.S. consumer purchasing an Asian product made from imported resources benefits from a lower price and a cleaner local environment; however, energy use and pollution associated with the fabrication of the product occur in the country of origin of the raw materials, and in the country where the final product is manufactured Second, a modest logical exercise in economic theory shows that the presence of trade between two regions with strongly different pollution control practices can increase world total pollution. Turning again to empirical data, the decline in energy per real dollar of GNP in the OECD countries has been exactly offset by an increase in energy intensity elsewhere. As a result, world energy intensity (energy use per real dollar of GNP) has stayed almost constant, and world energy use has been accelerating. Gross World Economic Product per capita has not risen above its value of 14 years ago. Actual data on global emissions are limited However, estimates of three major world air pollutants show each with accelerating growth. It is likely that actual data, if available, would show exponential growth now for nuclear waste accumulation, sewage, toxic metals and chemicals exposure, and other types of pollutants. The empirical perspective we see is very different from the commonly held viewpoint. In summary, on a global basis, the international economy is characterized by increasing trade and world economic product, stagnation in gross economic product per capita, accelerating energy use, and exponential growth in emissions of major pollutants

International Law, Industrial Location, and Pollution

The dominant position of economists on trade and environment is that increasing trade raises living standards, which provide the economic basis for reduced pollution. Professors Chapman, Agras, and Suri present a perspective that raises very different points. First, the dramatic growth of manufacturing in East Asia for global markets is based entirely (or nearly so) on the importation of processed pollution-intensive raw materials. For a typical product in this global system, a U.S. consumer purchasing an Asian product made from imported resources benefits from a lower price and a cleaner local environment; however, energy use and pollution associated with the fabrication of the product occur in the country of origin of the raw materials, and in the country where the final product is manufactured Second, a modest logical exercise in economic theory shows that the presence of trade between two regions with strongly different pollution control practices can increase world total pollution. Turning again to empirical data, the decline in energy per real dollar of GNP in the OECD countries has been exactly offset by an increase in energy intensity elsewhere. As a result, world energy intensity (energy use per real dollar of GNP) has stayed almost constant, and world energy use has been accelerating. Gross World Economic Product per capita has not risen above its value of 14 years ago. Actual data on global emissions are limited However, estimates of three major world air pollutants show each with accelerating growth. It is likely that actual data, if available, would show exponential growth now for nuclear waste accumulation, sewage, toxic metals and chemicals exposure, and other types of pollutants. The empirical perspective we see is very different from the commonly held viewpoint. In summary, on a global basis, the international economy is characterized by increasing trade and world economic product, stagnation in gross economic product per capita, accelerating energy use, and exponential growth in emissions of major pollutants

Hyde Park Corner Debate

This year’s debate tackled the issue: The Current System of Scholarly Publishing, Whereby Publishers Receive Content for Free and Then Sell It Back to Libraries at a High Price, Must Fundamentally Change. The speakers both presented their arguments, covering topics from scholarly publishing stages, pricing, open access, funding, and beyond to demonstrate the changing environments in scholarly publishing and how to approach these issues in the future

Flux balance analysis reveals acetate metabolism modulates cyclic electron flow and alternative glycolytic pathways in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Cells of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cultured in the presence of acetate perform mixotrophic growth, involving both photosynthesis and organic carbon assimilation. Under such conditions, cells exhibit a reduced capacity for photosynthesis but a higher growth rate, compared to phototrophic cultures. Better understanding of the downregulation of photosynthesis would enable more efficient conversion of carbon into valuable products like biofuels. In this study, Flux Balance Analysis (FBA) and Flux Variability Analysis (FVA) have been used with a genome scale model of C. reinhardtii to examine changes in intracellular flux distribution in order to explain their changing physiology. Additionally, a reaction essentiality analysis was performed to identify which reaction subsets are essential for a given growth condition. Our results suggest that exogenous acetate feeds into a modified tricarboxylic acid cycle, which bypasses the CO2 evolution steps, explaining increases in biomass, consistent with experimental data. In addition, reactions of the oxidative pentose phosphate and glycolysis pathways, inactive under phototrophic conditions, show substantial flux under mixotrophic conditions. Importantly, acetate addition leads to an increased flux through cyclic electron flow (CEF), but results in a repression of CO2 fixation via Rubisco, explaining the down regulation of photosynthesis. However, although CEF enhances growth on acetate, it is not essential – impairment of CEF results in alternative metabolic pathways being increased. We have demonstrated how the reactions of photosynthesis interconnect with carbon metabolism on a global scale, and how systems approaches play a viable tool in understanding complex relationships at the scale of the organism