Provision of urban green spaces: Some insights from economics

Abstract The social demand for urban green spaces (UGSs) is increasing as a result of rapid urbanisation. To ensure the efficiency of public spending, their provision should be based on economic criteria. We highlight a range of issues in UGS policies and provide some economic instruments. UGSs confer costs and benefits that are not always taken into consideration. They lead to market failures as markets are not efficient in allocating them in a way that maximises their social value. First, we discuss how economics can be used to answer the question of public or private provision. Next we present methodologies to elicit the total economic value of UGSs. We then show how the public provision can result in non-optimal situations traducing the strategic behaviours of elected representatives. Finally, we discuss some key points within UGS production and maintenance as well as the main tradeoffs in terms of public policy

La capitalisation foncière des espaces verts dans la ville d’Angers : une approche hédoniste

Date du colloque&nbsp;: 2009</p

Politiques publiques et espaces verts urbains

Le paysage est une construction politique, culturelle et économique des rapports qu'entretiennent les sociétés humaines à l'espace. L'approche économique permet d'éclairer certains mécanismes liés à l'évolution et l'organisation du paysage

Capitalization of green spaces into housing values in the city of Angers: a hedonic approach

National audienc

Development and biodiversity conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A spatial analysis

A better understanding of the relationship between economic development and biodiversity loss is of great relevance, given the current rapid extinction of species along with challenges born from the context of economic development in poor countries. The purpose of the current study is to provide a sound analysis, within the framework of an Environmental Kuznets Curve, of the relationship between economic development and pressure on biodiversity. Drawing on the most up-to-date data on threatened species from 48 sub-Saharan African countries, we used Maximum-likelihood and generalized spatial two-stage least-squares estimators to account for spatial-autoregressiveness in the dependent variable, as well as in the explanatory variables and in the disturbances of the models. We find evidence that supports an inverted U-shaped relationship between development and biodiversity imperilment, measured as the percent of threatened bird species. The results also reveal some species-level differences in the biodiversity-development relationship, since the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis doesn't hold for mammals. This analysis contributes to the literature by partially challenging the paradigm of a strictly negative relationship between biodiversity and development in a developing countries context

Access to water as a determinant of rental values: A hedonic analysis in Rwanda

Etudes & documentsIn this paper, we study the determinants of rental values in urban housing markets in Kigali, Rwanda. In particular, we study the value of access to piped water; due to the high costs associated with installing new piped connections, renting a property with an existing connection is often the only way for low income households to access piped water. Our results indicate that extending the piped network to a new house will in many cases raise the rental value of the house enough to pay for the cost of installing the new connection in less than two years

Heavier Crude, Changing Demand for Petroleum Fuels, Regional Climate Policy, and the Location of Upgrading Capacity:

Abstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/).The crude slate is likely to become heavier in the future with greater reliance on bitumens, tar sands, heavy oils, and eventually possibly shale oil. Under standard refining processes these crude oil sources produce a larger fraction of heavy products. At the same time, petroleum product demand growth is likely to disproportionately favor mid-weight products because of the strongly growing demand for transportation fuels including diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline. This will create a significant demand for new upgrading capacity in the refinery sector, and these upgrading facilities are themselves a significant source of carbon emissions. Using a version of the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model that separately considers five petroleum products we examine the need for, and the location of, refinery upgrading capacity under significant carbon policy in developed countries but not in developing countries. The results show that a carbon policy leads to a shift of most of the investment in upgrading capacity to developing countries, where the cost of carbon control is avoided, resulting in significant carbon leakage.This study received support from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which is funded by a consortium of government, industry and foundation sponsors

The environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation: a threatened theory? A meta-analysis

Although widely studied, deforestation remains a topical and typical issue. The relationship between economic development and deforestation is still at stake. This paper presents a meta-analysis of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) studies for deforestation. Using 71 studies, offering 631 estimations, we shed light on why EKC results differ. We investigate the incidence of choices made by authors (econometric strategy, deforestation measure, temporal coverage, geographical area, measure of economic development...) on the probability of finding an EKC. After a phase of work corroborating the EKC, we find a turning point after the year 2001. Building on our results, we conclude that the EKC story will not fade until theoretical alternatives will be provided

Addressing Contextual and Location Biases in the Assessment of Protected Areas Effectiveness on Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazônia

Using a remotely sensed pixel data set, we develop a multilevel model and propensity score weighting with multilevel data to assess the impact of protected areas on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. These techniques allow taking into account location bias, contextual bias and the dependence of spatial units. The results suggest that protected areas have slowed down deforestation between 2005 and 2009, whatever the type of governance. The results also evidence that protected and unprotected areas do not share the same location characteristics. In addition, the effectiveness of protected areas differs according to socioeconomic and environmental variables measured at municipal level

A spatial econometric approach to spillover effects between protected areas and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Etudes & documentsProtected areas are increasingly used as a tool to fight against deforestation. This paper presents new evidence on the spillover effects that occur in the decision to deforest and the creation of protected areas in local administrative entities in Brazilian Legal Amazon over the 2001-2011 period. We also highlight the interdependence between these two decisions. We proceed in two steps. First, we assumed that protected areas are created to stop the negative effects of deforestation on biodiversity. In order to control for the non-random location of protected areas, biodiversity indicators are used as excluded instruments. This model is estimated using a spatial model with instrumental variables. Second, a simultaneous system of spatially interrelated cross sectional equations is used to take into account the interdependence between the decision to deforest and the creation of protected areas. Our results show (i) that deforestation activities of neighboring municipalities are complements and that (ii) there is evidence of leakage in the sense that protected areas may shift deforestation to neighboring municipalities. The net effect of protected areas on deforestation remains however negative; it is moreover stable across two sub-periods. Our results confirm the important role of protected areas to curb deforestation and thereby biodiversity erosion. Moreover, they show that strategic interactions deserve attention in the effectiveness of conservation policies