Impacts of emission reduction policies in a multi-regional multi-sectoral small open economy with endogenous growth

The burden sharing of pollution abatement costs raises the issue of how to share the costs between entities (country, region or industry) and how the pollution permits should be distributed between the parties involved. This paper explores this issue in the framework of a dynamic endogenous growth 2 sectors - 2 regions - 2 inputs Heckscher-Ohlin model of a small open multi-regional economy with an international tradable permits market. Given an "emission-based grand-fathering" sharing rule, capital accumulation is more negatively affected by the environmental policy in the energy intensive sector. We show that such a property does not necessarily hold with a "production-based grand-fathering" sharing rule. We also show that the impact on capital is likely to translate into the sectoral added value level after some time, specially if the economy is submitted to an increasingly constraining environmental policy driving up the ratio price of permits to price of energy. Finally, we show that the impact of environmental policy at the regional level depends crucially on the specialization of the region along the baseline.pollution permits, grand-fathering, sectoral spillovers, multi- regional economy, endogenous growth

Impacts of emission reduction policies in a multi-regional multi-sectoral small open economy with endogenous growth

The burden sharing of pollution abatement costs raises the issue of how to share the costs between entities (country, region or industry) and how the pollution permits should be distributed between the parties involved. This paper explores this issue in the framework of a dynamic endogenous growth 2 sectors - 2 regions - 2 inputs Heckscher-Ohlin model of a small open multi-regional economy with an international tradable permits market. Give an “emission-based grand-fathering” sharing rule, capital accumulation is more negatively affected by the environmental policy in the energy intensive sector. We show that such a property does not necessarily hold with a “production-based grand-fathering” sharing rule. We also show that the impact on capital is likely to translate into the sectoral added value level after some time, specially if the economy is submitted to an increasingly constraining environmental policy driving up the ratio price of permits to price of energy. Finally, we show that the impact of environmental policy at the regional level depends crucially on the specialization of the region along the baseline.Pollution permits, Grand-fathering, Sectoral spillovers, Multi-regional economy, Endogenous growth

Creative destruction and business cycles

In a dynamic general equilibrium setup, this paper aims at providing a general framework for the analysis of the role of vintages and creative destruetion on business fluctuations. By stressing the forward-looking behavior of the optimal scrapping rule, we use a standard rational expectations argument to show) in the linear utility case, the time independence of the scrapping function. Secondly, we prove that equilibrium output shows a purely periodic behavior around an exponential growth trend, the pattern of the cycle being deterrnined by the pattern of initial conditions. The vintage capital model presented in this paper provides a new view on business fluctuations: historical conditions are at the basis of business fluctuations, in the sense that historically volatile or stable econornies will reproduce their own historical pattern in the future

Replacement echoes in the vintage capital growth model

This paper is concerned with a non-standard source of fluctuations, called echoes effects, i.e. the ability of an economy to reproduce its own past behaviour. In the sixties, growth theorists believed that this property could arise in vintage capital growth models, taking the form of replacement echoes. This line of research was stopped after the publication of Solow et al. (1966), who showed that echoes should vanish in a Solow growth model with vintage capital. In this paper, we claim that this result has nothing to do with vintages and comes directly from the constancy of the saving rate at equilibrium inherent to Solow growth models. We show that echoes do not vanish in the Ramsey vintage capital growth model with linear instantaneous utility function

On the Feasibility of Perpetual Growth in a Decentralized Economy Subject to Environmental Constraints

We propose an endogenous growth model of a decentralized economy subject to environmental constraints. In a basic version, we consider an economy where final production requires some material input and where research activities allow simultaneously productive firms to reduce the dependency of their production process on this input and to improve the quality of their output. We adopt a material balance approach and, in spite of the optimistic assumption that the material input is perfectly recyclable (and thus never exhausted), we show that material output growth is always a transitory phenomenon. When it exists, a balanced growth path is necessarily characterized by constant values of the material variables, long term economic growth taking exclusively the form of perpetual improvements in the quality of consumption goods. The material resource constraint is not solely a long term issue since it is also shown to affect the whole transitory dynamics of the (material) growth process. Renewable energy is introduced in an extension of our basic model. This extension does not affect qualitatively the features of a feasible balanced growth path but make its conditions of existence more restrictive.material balance, endogenous growth, recycling

Innovation under taxes versus permits : how a commonly made assumption leads to misleading recommendations

The literature on the impact of economic instruments (typically taxes and tradable permits) on the level of innovation is usually based on the assumption that innovation reduces the slope of the marginal abatement cost curve. This assumption, which usually leads to the conclusion that taxes induce higher levels of innovation than tradable permits, is however never motivated. In this short article, we analyse the assumption by introducing innovation in the production function as a polluting firm and by showing how it affects the corresponding marginal abatement cost curve. We show that the slope of the marginal abatement cost curvedoes not necessarily decrease with the level of innovation. As a consequence, previous analyses lead to misleading policy recommendations

Replacement echoes in the vintage capital growth model.

This paper is concerned with a non-standard source of fluctuations, called echoes effects, i.e. the ability of an economy to reproduce its own past behaviour. In the sixties, growth theorists believed that this property could arise in vintage capital growth models, taking the form of replacement echoes. This line of research was stopped after the publication of Solow et al. (1966), who showed that echoes should vanish in a Solow growth model with vintage capital. In this paper, we claim that this result has nothing to do with vintages and comes directly from the constancy of the saving rate at equilibrium inherent to Solow growth models. We show that echoes do not vanish in the Ramsey vintage capital growth model with linear instantaneous utility function.Economic growth Theory; Vintage Capital; Replacement Echoes;

Creative destruction and business cycles.

In a dynamic general equilibrium setup, this paper aims at providing a general framework for the analysis of the role of vintages and creative destruetion on business fluctuations. By stressing the forward-looking behavior of the optimal scrapping rule, we use a standard rational expectations argument to show) in the linear utility case, the time independence of the scrapping function. Secondly, we prove that equilibrium output shows a purely periodic behavior around an exponential growth trend, the pattern of the cycle being deterrnined by the pattern of initial conditions. The vintage capital model presented in this paper provides a new view on business fluctuations: historical conditions are at the basis of business fluctuations, in the sense that historically volatile or stable econornies will reproduce their own historical pattern in the future.Business Cycle; Creative Destruction; Periodic Equilibria; Vintage Capital;

Dynamic core-theoretic cooperation in a two-dimensional international environmental model

stock pollutant, capital accumulation, international environmental agreements, dynamic core solution