ESSAYS ON ECONOMIC MODELLING OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES

Climate change is a multi-facetted and complex phenomenon. An interdisciplinary approach is required to understand and to quantify its economic effects. Since climate change is already happening, and some impacts are inevitable throughout this century and beyond, aggressive mitigation policies are not any longer sufficient. In fact, they can only slow down the process of climate change without stopping it. In this context, adaptation policies become mandatory to reduce the vulnerability of countries or of specific areas. However, because of the complexity of the phenomenon, few models are able to analyze the effects of adaptive strategies. The aim of this paper is to review the literature on modelling climate change impacts and adaptation policies, by focusing on the top-down approach. We select some relevant models and compare the different strategies applied to deal with climate change and adaptation. The final purpose of this paper is to highlight limits of this approach and to identify potential improvements.Most dynamic computable general equilibrium models, used to analyze climate policy impacts, are based on the assumption of \u201cstatic\u201d expectations. This simplification enables the models to handle huge sectoral and country dimensions. However, intertemporal effects are weakly treated. This paper improves upon the myopic representation of expectations offered by standard recursive dynamic CGE models. It develops a new specification of the Intertemporal Computable Equilibrium System (ICES) model, developed at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, to include rational expectations assumption. After benchmarking both the standard ICES model and the model with rational expectations to the same economic growth path, we analyze how differently agents behave when European mitigation policies are expected in advance. The simulation results suggest that expectations play a key role in determining the cost-effectiveness of mitigation policies. By anticipating the negative effect of the policy on future capital productivity, rational investors move capital outside Europe, avoiding future economic losses. Because of this reallocation effects across countries, European capital accumulation is negatively affected, increasing macroeconomic costs, compared to the surprising policy scenario. However, these negative effects guarantee emissions reduction prior to the policy implementation.Agriculture is strongly exposed to future climate change. Indeed, changes in temperature, precipitation, rain patterns, water availability and frequency/intensity of extreme weather events would impact on agricultural production. Therefore, adaptation strategies are necessary to cope with the challenges comprised by expected changes in climate patterns. These responses can be driven by self-regulatory mechanism or planned policy intervention. Within this context, the development of irrigation is a key variable to climate change adaptation. Nevertheless, its role as an adaptation strategy is commonly ignored by applied economic models. This paper describes a new modelling approach to include irrigation within the ICES model, a multi-country, multi-sector, recursive dynamic CGE model of the world economy. The new specification distinguishes between irrigable and rainfed land. Moreover, it considers the additional capital, operational and maintenance costs that farmers face when they decide to use irrigable land. The new version of the model has been used to analyze whether irrigation expands as a consequence of climate change impacts. The results indicate that, when climate change negatively affects land productivity, farmers increase the demand of irrigated land. However, the economic costs and benefits of adaptation differ across countries

Neuropathic pain-induced depressive-like behavior and hippocampal neurogenesis and plasticity are dependent on TNFR1 signaling

Patients suffering from neuropathic pain have a higher incidence of mood disorders such as depression. Increased expression of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) has been reported in neuropathic pain and depressive-like conditions and most of the pro-inflammatory effects of TNF are mediated by the TNF receptor 1 (TNFR1). Here we sought to investigate: (1) the occurrence of depressive-like behavior in chronic neuropathic pain and the associated forms of hippocampal plasticity, and (2) the involvement of TNFR1-mediated TNF signaling as a possible regulator of such events. Neuropathic pain was induced by chronic constriction injury of the sciatic nerve in wild-type and TNFR1(-/-) mice. Anhedonia, weight loss and physical state were measured as symptoms of depression. Hippocampal neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, myelin remodeling and TNF/TNFRs expression were analyzed by immunohistochemical analysis and western blot assay. We found that neuropathic pain resulted in the development of depressive symptoms in a time dependent manner and was associated with profound hippocampal alterations such as impaired neurogenesis, reduced expression of neuroplasticity markers and myelin proteins. The onset of depressive-like behavior also coincided with increased hippocampal levels of TNF, and decreased expression of TNF receptor 2 (TNFR2), which were all fully restored after mice spontaneously recovered from pain. Notably, TNFR1(-/-) mice did not develop depressive-like symptoms after injury, nor were there changes in hippocampal neurogenesis and plasticity. Our data show that neuropathic pain induces a cluster of depressive-like symptoms and profound hippocampal plasticity that are dependent on TNF signaling through TNFR1

COPD management as a model for all chronic respiratory conditions : report of the 4th Consensus Conference in Respiratory Medicine

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 40 million people each year. The management of chronic respiratory NCDs such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is particularly critical in Italy, where they are widespread and represent a heavy burden on healthcare resources. It is thus important to redefine the role and responsibility of respiratory specialists and their scientific societies, together with that of the whole healthcare system, in order to create a sustainable management of COPD, which could become a model for other chronic respiratory conditions. Methods: These issues were divided into four main topics (Training, Organization, Responsibilities, and Sustainability) and discussed at a Consensus Conference promoted by the Research Center of the Italian Respiratory Society held in Rome, Italy, 3-4 November 2016. Results and conclusions: Regarding training, important inadequacies emerged regarding specialist training - both the duration of practical training courses and teaching about chronic diseases like COPD. A better integration between university and teaching hospitals would improve the quality of specialization. A better organizational integration between hospital and specialists/general practitioners (GPs) in the local community is essential to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways for chronic respiratory patients. Improving the care pathways is the joint responsibility of respiratory specialists, GPs, patients and their caregivers, and the healthcare system. The sustainability of the entire system depends on a better organization of the diagnostic-therapeutic pathways, in which also other stakeholders such as pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies can play an important role