Corruption, Growth, and the Environment: A Cross-Country Analysis

The relationship between per capita income and a number of pollution indicators has been found to display an inverted U-shaped or downward-sloping pattern. Corruption may affect this relationship in two distinct ways: by raising pollution at given income levels (direct effect) and by reducing per capita income (indirect effect). The total effect is ambiguous a priori. Using cross section data for several indicators of pollution, the paper estimates the direct and the indirect effect of corruption on pollution. The indirect effect via income is positive or negative depending on the income level. If negative, the indirect effect is dominated by the positive direct effect. Overall, our measures of pollution are monotonically increasing in corruption. Because this relationship is particularly strong at low income levels, developing countries can considerably improve both their economic and environmental performance by reducing corruption.corruption, growth, pollution, environmental Kuznets curve

Environment and Happiness: Valuation of Air Pollution in Ten European Countries

This paper uses a set of panel data from happiness surveys, jointly with data on per capita income and pollution, to examine how self-reported well-being varies with prosperity and environmental conditions. This approach permits to show that citizens care about prosperity and the environment, and to calculate the trade-off people are willing to make between them. The paper finds that air pollution plays a statistically significant role as a predictor of intercountry and inter-temporal differences in subjective well-being. The effect of air pollution on well-being shows up as a considerable monetary valuation of improved air quality. The air quality improvements achieved in Western Europe in 1990-1997 are valued at almost $900 per capita per year in the case of nitrogen dioxide and more than$1400 per capita per year in the case of lead.pollution; environmental valuation; subjective well-being; marginal rate of substitution

Macroeconomics and life satisfaction: Revisiting the "misery index"

Using data from surveys of life satisfaction, evidence has been presented that European citizens’ subjective well-being is inversely related to inflation and unemployment. Motivated by the “Barro Misery Index”, this paper reconsiders the relationship between macroeconomics and subjective well-being by including the growth rate and the long-term interest rate as additional variables in life satisfaction regressions. The paper finds that people care about growth and employment on the one hand and stability on the other, where stability may alternatively be captured by the inflation rate or the long-term interest rate. Stability, measured in whichever of these ways, does not seem to be less important to European citizens than growth and employment.misery index, social welfare function, inflation, unemployment, subjective wellbeing, life satisfaction

The Social Costs of Unemployment: Accounting for Unemployment Duration

The social costs of unemployment, in terms of unemployment's impact on European citizens' life satisfaction, relate strongly to unemployment duration. At any level of general joblessness, reducing long-term unemployment is more important than reducing the number of people unemployed at any point in time.unemployment; unemployment duration; life satisfaction; happiness; social costs

Labor Market Institutions: Curse or Blessing?

Previous literature has identified considerable non-pecuniary costs to macroeconomic fluctuation and uncertainty. The present paper investigates whether and to what extent labor market institutions can mitigate those costs. We study how life satisfaction of European citizens is affected by employment protection and the level and duration of unemployment benefit payments. We differentiate between direct effects (at given macroeconomic conditions) and total effects (including the feedback through the institutions? effect on macroeconomic outcomes). We find that the total effect of employment protection is positive, whereas the total effect of benefit duration is negative. The direct and indirect effects of a higher benefit level nearly neutralize each other.unemployment benefit; employment protection; macroeconomic uncertainty; cost-benefit analysis; life satisfaction; happiness

International Emissions Trading and Induced Carbon-Saving Technical Change: Effects of Restricting the Trade in Carbon Rights

This paper examines the implications of restricting the tradability of carbon rights in the presence of induced technical change. Unlike earlier approaches aiming at exploring the tradability-technology linkage we focus on climate-relevant 'carbon-saving' technical change. This is achieved by incorporating endogenous investment in carbon productivity into the RICE-99 integrated assessment model of Nordhaus and Boyer (2000). Simulation analysis of various emission reduction scenarios with several restrictions on emissions trading reveals a pronounced dichotomy of effects across regions: Restrictions to trading raise the investments in carbon productivity in permit demanding regions while reducing them in permit supplying regions. In terms of per capita consumption, permit demanding regions lose and permit supplying regions gain from restrictions. In scenarios that involve 'hot air', restrictions to trade lower overall emissions which results in reduced climate damage for most regions. Reduced damage, in turn, reduces the incentive to invest in carbon productivity.Carbon-saving technological progress; Emissions trading; Flexibility mechanism; Induced technological change; Integrated assessment model

Contraction of global carbon emissions: how acceptable are alternative emission entitlement schemes

The allocation of emissions entitlements across countries is the single most controversial issue in international climate policy. Extreme positions within the policy debate range from entitlement based on current emission patterns (CEP) to equal-per-capita (EPC) allocations.Convergence (COV) from an initial CEP allocation towards EPC emission rights represents a reconciliation of the two. This paper maintains that the acceptability of alternative entitlement schemes depends on their implications for economic welfare and uses a dynamic multi-region general equilibrium model for a comparative economic assessment of the above allocation rules. We find welfare implications for the varius regions to be strongly influenced by changes in the terms of trade. Especially, regions may experience considerable welfare losses even under entitlement schemes which impose no binding emission constraint on them. Among the arrangements examined, COV cum emissions trading stands out for offering the developing countries substantial incentives for paticipation in the international greenhouse gas abatement effort without imposing excessive burdens on the industrialized countries. --climate policy,economic welfare,international equity,emissions trading,computable general equilibrium modeling

C & C - contraction and convergence of carbon emissions: the economic implications of permit trading

In the context of climate protection policy it has been suggested that global CO2 emissions should be reduced significantly (contraction) and that per capita emissions should gradually be equalized across countries (convergence). This paper uses a dynamic multi-region computable general equilibrium model of the world economy to assess the economics of ?Contraction and Convergence? (C&C). In comparing a regime of tradable and non-tradable emission rights for implementing C&C we find that the former allows to reduce long-term costs of abatement in terms of Hicksian equivalent variation in lifetime income by more than 50% percent in comparison with the latter. Under a tradable permit regime some developing countries improve their economic welfare even beyond non-abatement baseline levels. A decomposition of the general equilibrium effects associated with C&C shows that changes in the terms of trade constitute a key determinant of the overall welfare effects. --climate protection,international equity,emissions trading,economic welfare,computable general equilibrium modeling

The Welfare Costs of Corruption

Corruption has been shown to affect a variety of economic indicators, especially GDP per capita. However, as GDP is not a genuine indicator of welfare, it may reflect the welfare costs of corruption only in an incomplete way. This paper uses self-rated subjective well-being as an empirical approximation to general welfare and shows that cross-national welfare - operationalized in this way - is affected by corruption not only indirectly, through GDP, but also directly, through non-material factors. The paper estimates the size of these effects as well as their monetary equivalent. The direct effect - not previously investigated in the corruption literature - is found to be substantially larger than the indirect effect

Environmental taxation and structural change in an open economy: a CGE analysis with imperfect competition and free entry

The economic effects of environmental taxes depend on the market structure. Under imperfect competition with free entry and exit, environmental taxes have an impact on economies of scale by changing the number and size of firms. Whether economies of scale rise or fall in a particular industry depends on induced changes in the price elasticity of demand. Because export demand is more price elastic than domestic demand, the overall price elasticity rises (falls) as the industry gains (loses) in comparative advantage. We use a computable general equilibrium model for Germany to examine the effects of a unilaterally introduced carbon tax under both perfect and imperfect competition. Our key finding is that induced structural change in favor of the less energy intensive, more labor intensive industries is more pronounced under imperfect competition than under perfect competition. At the macroeconomic level, the total costs of environmental regulation under imperfect competition can be higher or lower than those under perfect competition depending on whether aggregate gains or losses in economies of scale across imperfectly competitive sectors prevail. --environmental taxation,imperfect competition,structural change