Is willingness to contribute for environmental protection in Sweden affected by social capital?

This paper investigates the role of social capital in influencing individuals’ willingness to contribute to environmental protection in Sweden. Four indices of social capital comprising social trust, institutional trust, civic participation and a composite index comprising all considered elements of social capital were constructed to analyse their respective association with individual decisions to contribute. Using data from the environment module of the 2010 International Social Survey Programme, we empirically show that all four social capital parameters are significant and robust drivers of Swedish public’s willingness to contribute when the payment vehicles are increased higher prices or taxes or through lifestyle changes to protect the environment. Statistically, a significant association was observed for social trust and civic participation. Institutional trust is not significant when the payment vehicle is a reduction in the standard of living. Overall, however, the composite index of social capital is a robust predictor of likelihood to contribute irrespective of the payment vehicle

Contribution of Agriculture to Deforestation in the Tropics: A Theoretical Investigation

This paper compares the deforestation path taken by profit maximizing agricultural firms in tropical regions to the path that will maximize social welfare based on optimal control techniques. We set up a theoretical problem where the socially optimal deforestation path that maximizes the discounted sum of net benefit of forest land use to society diverges from that of a farmer. We arrived at this conclusion after solving for the optimal choice of deforestation for both the private farmer and a social planner. The key source of this divergence in deforestation path is that the cost of deforestation is external to the farmer. The paper concluded that the farmer’s deforestation path leads to socially suboptimal outcome. Fiscal policy measures and public ownerships are recommended to deal with externalities that are inherent in forest land use. Keywords: Agriculture, Deforestation, Optimal contro

Climate change and the value of fishing in the Arctic

Several studies indicate impacts on fish from climate change in the Arctic, but there is no study calculating the effect on the value of fishing. The value of fishing is determined not only by climate change, but also by other variables including prosperity and population density. The present study estimates the impact of these factors on the recreational value of fishing by using meta-regression analysis of studies estimating willingness-to-pay for fishing in the Arctic. The study includes 22 studies with a total of 107 observations, and the results indicate robust results with a positive relation between estimated value and temperature and prosperity, but a negative with precipitation. Using the results from the regression, simulations showed that increases by the same percent in temperature and precipitation give a minor net decrease in the fishing value, but an increase in the temperature with 1 ̊C can raise the average fishing value by approximately 15 percent

Understanding crude oil import demand behaviour in Ghana

Crude oil importation is a major drain on the economy of Ghana, yet no study has attempted to analyse the determinants of crude oil imports. This paper brings to the fore an understanding of the key drivers of crude oil import demand. Using the autoregressive distributed lag modelling framework (ARDL), we estimate variant short-run and long-run import demand models for crude oil using time series data over the period 1980-2012. The results show that demand for crude oil is price inelastic in both the long and short term. Other important drivers of crude oil import are the real effective exchange rate, domestic crude oil production and population growth. Furthermore, real economic activity is found to be the most robust and dominant driver of crude oil demand with mixed estimates of inelastic and elastic coefficients in the short-run and long-run, respectively. Policy implications of our results are discussed

Understanding crude oil import demand behaviour in Ghana

Crude oil importation is a major drain on the economy of Ghana, yet no study has attempted to analyse the determinants of crude oil imports. This paper brings to the fore an understanding of the key drivers of crude oil import demand. Using the autoregressive distributed lag modelling framework (ARDL), we estimate variant short-run and long-run import demand models for crude oil using time series data over the period 1980-2012. The results show that demand for crude oil is price inelastic in both the long and short term. Other important drivers of crude oil import are the real effective exchange rate, domestic crude oil production and population growth. Furthermore, real economic activity is found to be the most robust and dominant driver of crude oil demand with mixed estimates of inelastic and elastic coefficients in the short-run and long-run, respectively. Policy implications of our results are discussed

Spatial analysis of water quality and income in Europe

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) relationship between water quality and income within the European Union, considering spatial interdependences across countries. To this end, we apply a spatial econometrics framework using panel data, at the national level, for twenty EU countries across seventeen years, 1998 to 2014. Furthermore, we account for the role of human and livestock population size, institutional quality and economic openness for water quality. Results show that a significant EKC relationship is seen with an inverted N-shaped relationship between income and water quality. Water quality is decreasing in income for low income levels, increasing in income when GDP per capita for medium income levels, and deteriorating for high income levels. Eight out of twenty countries have income levels associated with a declining water quality. Spatial spillovers between countries are significant. Higher livestock density levels are associated with lower levels of water quality, while institutional quality and openness to trade are positively associated with water qualit

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Game Harvests in Sweden

The benefits and costs of wildlife are contingent on the spatial overlap of animal populations with economic and recreational human activities. By using a production function approach with dynamic spatial panel data models, we analyze the effects of human hunting and carnivore predation pressure on the value of ungulate game harvests. The results show evidence of dynamic spatial dependence in the harvests of roe deer and wild boar, but not in those of moose, which is likely explained by the presence of harvesting quotas for the latter. Results suggest the impact of lynx on roe deer harvesting values is reduced by 75% when spatial effects are taken into account. The spatial analysis confirms that policymakers' aim to reduce wild boar populations through increased hunting has been successful, an effect that was only visible when considering spatial effects

Carbon emissions and social capital in Sweden

This paper addresses the issue of whether or not social capital explains per capita CO2 emissions dynamics in Swedish counties in an augmented environmental Kuznets curve framework. By accounting for issues of endogeneity in the presence of dynamic and spatial effects using geo-referenced emissions data, we show that per capita carbon emissions in a county matters for other counties and that net of economic, demographic and environmental factors, social capital has the potential to reduce carbon emissions in Sweden albeit less robustly. We test two different social capital constructs; trust in government and environmental engagement. Specifically, trust in the government inures to the reduction in CO2 emissions. Membership and engagement in environmental organisations reduces CO2 emissions only through its interaction with per capita income or trust. The implication of our estimates suggest that investment geared toward increasing the stock of social capital could inure to reductions in CO2 emissions in addition to climate policy instruments in Sweden