WORLD OIL: THE GROWING CASE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY

Can the economic theory of depletion be reconciled with low petroleum? This paper uses a revision of the theory, which reflects demand functions that rise in response to increasing world population and income. The magnitude of producers’ and consumers’ surplus is estimated under both competitive and monopolistic assumptions; the result indicates a present value comparable to or in excess of today’s Gross World Economic Product. Game theory suggests a framework which explains the interaction between oil pricing and military policy, and the economic incentives which result in a general pattern of recent market equilibrium crude oil prices often fluctuating within a $15-$20 per barrel range. The analysis concludes that the economic incentives for political instability in the Persian Gulf will increase, and more formal methods of setting the international framework for Persian Gulf oil may be expected.International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Re-evaluating the success of the EPA's 33/50 program: evidence from facility participation

Using previously unavailable data, we examine facility participation in the 33/50 Program and its effect on aggregate and toxicity weighted emissions between1991 and 1995 for a sample of facilities whose parent firms committed to the Program. By focusing on individual facilities we avoid the biases created by aggregating emissions across facilities. We find that while more polluting facilities within a firm were more likely to participate, even when we account for the toxicity of emissions, across firms there is no evidence of greater participation by facilities with higher emissions. Although emissions of the 33/50 chemicals fell over the years, we find that participation in the Program did not lead to the decline in the 33/50 releases generated by these facilities.Toxic Release Inventory; program participation; program evaluation, GMM, dynamic panel

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF ASPECTS OF PETROLEUM AND MILITARY SECURITY IN THE PERSIAN GULF

Geologic estimates of remaining global petroleum resources place about 50% in the Persian Gulf. Production costs are estimated at $5 per barrel there, and$15 per barrel in the North Sea and Alaska. Using mathematical methods derived from depletion theory is utilized to explain the $15-$20 per barrel price band that existed from 1986 to 1999. New economic forces have displaced this previously stable pattern; a new price range of $22-to$28 may be emerging. International trade in petroleum and conventional weapons are analyzed with econometric methods; the occurrence of nuclear weapons capability in the Persian Gulf region is explored.International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Voluntary Pollution Abatement and Regulation

Altruism, Voluntary Pollution Abatement, Regulation, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q52, Q58, K32,

Conspicuous Consumption and Inequality

We analyze the change in consumer demand following a mean preserving change in consumption inequality when there is conspicuous consumption. We model interdependent preferences including “keeping up with the Joneses” (imitating others) and “running away from the Joneses” (distinguishing oneself from others) with multiple peer groups and peer group effects (envy and snob effects). An individual not directly involved in the redistribution increases consumption of the more conspicuous good when she demonstrates i) ‘keeping up’ and a relatively stronger envy effect, or ii) ‘running away’ and a relatively stronger snob effect. Behaviors generated by existing models emerge as special cases.Conspicuousness; peer group effects; keeping up with the Joneses; status signaling; envy; snob

Climate Policy And Petroleum Depletion

WP 1997-01 January 1997This paper extends the Nordhaus DICE model to include the demands for coal, oil, and natural gas. These demands depend on own price, prices of substitute fuels, per capita income, and population. An augmented Hotelling model captures the effect of depleting oil resources. A methodological advantage of including price, income, and population sensitive energy demand functions is that it allows substitution possibilities in the 'production' of emissions. Furthermore, it allows the analysis of energy tax regimes in an environment of growing world population and income, non-decreasing energy and carbon intensity, and declining petroleum availability

Efficiency of Viable Groundwater Management Policies

We investigate the relative performance of simple groundwater policies in a spatially detailed aquifer and reveal the distribution of net benefits from those policies. Groundwater policy is plagued with a high level of complexity in achieving the first best outcome, which may be costly and politically infeasible to adopt. We parameterize a 8,457-cell spatially detailed model of the northwest Kansas section of the Ogallala Aquifer and find that simple pricing, quantity, and water market policies perform poorly but can be improved upon by localized policies that are more efficient and garner more popular support

Re-evaluating the success of the EPA's 33/50 program: evidence from facility participation

Using previously unavailable data, we examine facility participation in the 33/50 Program and its effect on aggregate and toxicity weighted emissions between1991 and 1995 for a sample of facilities whose parent firms committed to the Program. By focusing on individual facilities we avoid the biases created by aggregating emissions across facilities. We find that while more polluting facilities within a firm were more likely to participate, even when we account for the toxicity of emissions, across firms there is no evidence of greater participation by facilities with higher emissions. Although emissions of the 33/50 chemicals fell over the years, we find that participation in the Program did not lead to the decline in the 33/50 releases generated by these facilities

Current and conventional appraisal trends in hotels

The Indian tourism and cheerfulness industry has created as one of the key drivers of improvement among the organization's division in India. Tourism in India has basic potential considering the rich social and recorded legacy, grouping in the environment, scenes and spots of consistent greatness spread the country over. Tourism is in like manner a perhaps considerable work generator other than being a basic wellspring of remote exchange for the country. The Indian economy is opening up its perspectives as it continues organizing with the world economy. Thusly, the advantages of driving business with and in India are various. This has lead to the moving of variety of occupations to the shores of India, securing its wake travel pioneers, business voyagers, business meets, and event seekers. The major focus of the study is to perceive the Performance Appraisal methodologies and procedures used as a piece of Indian Hotels

The Demand for Envi- ronmental Quality and the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis

Abstract Household demand for better environmental quality is the key factor in the long-term global applicability of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. We argue that, for given consumer preferences, the threshold income level at which the EKC turns downwards or the equilibrium income elasticity changes sign from positive to negative depends on the ability to spatially separate production and consumption. We test our hypothesis by estimating the equilibrium income elasticities of five pollutants, using 1990 data for the United States. We find that the change in sign occurs at lower income levels for pollutants for which spatial separation is relatively easy as compared to pollutants for which spatial separation is difficult. Our results suggest that even high-income households in the United States have not yet reached the income level at which their demand for better environmental quality is high enough to cause the income-pollution relationship to turn downwards for all the pollutants that we analyzed.