Ecologische economie: beleidsrelevant of niet?

In deze studie wordt de beleidsrelevantie van het relatief jonge onderzoeksveld van de ecologische economie getoetst. Nagegaan wordt in hoeverre de hier beloofde vernieuwende inzichten ook worden waargemaakt. Daartoe wordt aan de hand van de centrale inzichten uit de ecologische economie nagegaan of deze ook relevant zijn voor het Nederlandse milieubeleid. Dat blijkt slechts gedeeltelijk het geval. Veelal spelen de door deze stroming benadrukte aspecten reeds op enigerlei wijze een rol in het beleid, met name in de lange termijn strategie van het milieubeleid. Dit geldt bijvoorbeeld voor het belang van de fysieke dimensie van het economisch proces, maar ook voor de vermeende noodzaak tot een andere dan de gangbare economische waardebepaling. Zo is er al veel aandacht voor harde milieurandvoorwaarden en voor het belang van alternatieve gedragsmotieven en institutionele arrangementen. Niettemin lijkt er nog wel degelijk ruimte voor verbetering, zoals meer aandacht voor de fysieke terugkoppeling van overheidsbeslissingen, de rol van normen en waarden bij de gedragsbepaling en de endogeniteit van preferenties in verband met de instrumentkeuze, en de wijze waarop overheidsbeslissingen tot stand komen waarbij het milieubelang in het geding is

Differential Impact of Environmental Policy Instruments on Technological Change: A Review of the Empirical Literature

This survey reviews the empirical literature on the impact of environmental policy instruments on the rate and direction of technological change. The survey is explicitly focused on the empirical identification of the hypothesis to expect a stronger impact from market-based incentives than from non-market alternatives. The general picture emerging from the recent literature is that there is a clear impact of environmental policy on invention, innovation and diffusion of technologies. Although studies on a differential impact are still very scarce, the available evidence suggests that innovators look carefully for rent opportunities, which in turn depend on the specific incentives signalled by the type of (environmental) policy

Reducing Rents from Energy Technology Adoption Programs by Exploiting Observable Information

In this paper, we study how regulators may improve upon the efficiency of their energy technology adoption programs by exploiting readily observable information to limit rent extraction by firms. Using panel data on 862 investment decisions in the Netherlands, we find that rent extraction is closely linked not only to technology characteristics, but also to the firm's capital budgetting technique. In particular, we find that firms are more likely to extract rent when either the technology's pay-back period or its required investment is lower, but less likely if they do not use a formal capital budgeting technique. Standard firm characteristics, such as size and sector, correlate with firms' use of capital budgeting techniques, thereby partly resolving the regulator's asymmetric information problem.rent extraction;tagging;tax expenditure programs;technology adoption subsidies;investment decisions;bivariate probit model

Environmental Kuznets Curves for CO2: Heterogeneity Versus Homogeneity

We explore the emissions income relationship for CO2 in OECD countries using various modelling strategies.Even for this relatively homogeneous sample, we find that the inverted-U-shaped curve is quite sensitive to the degree of heterogeneity included in the panel estimations.This finding is robust, not only across different model specifications but also across estimation techniques, including the more flexible non-parametric approach.Differences in restrictions applied in panel estimations are therefore responsible for the widely divergent findings for an inverted-U shape for CO2.Our findings suggest that allowing for enough heterogeneity is essential to prevent spurious correlation from reduced-form panel estimations.Moreover, this inverted U for CO2 is likely to exist for many, but not for all, countries.Environmental Kuznets Curves;(Semi)parametric Estimation;Heterogeneity

Storten of verbranden

Sinds 1979 wil de politiek afval niet storten maar verbranden. De maatschappelijke kosten van verbranden zijn echter ongeveer een half miljard gulden hoger dan van storten. Daarom verdient storten de voorkeur

Grazing the Commons:Global Carbon Emissions Forever?

This paper presents the results from our investigation of the per-capita, long- term relation between carbon dioxide emissions and gross domestic product (GDP) for the world, obtained with the use of a new, exible estimator. Consistent with simple economic growth models, we find that regional, population-weighted per- capita emissions systematically increase with income (scale effect) and usually de- cline over time (composition and technology effect). Both our in-sample results and out-of-sample scenarios indicate that this negative time effect is unlikely to compen- sate for the upward-income effect at a global level, in the near future. In particular, even if China's specialization in carbon-intensive industrial sectors would come to a halt, recent trends outside China make a reversal of the overall global trend very unlikely

The Tax Treatment of Interest Expenditures of Multinational Enterprises

This paper analyses the national tax treatment of interest expenditures of multinational enterprises in a non- cooperative world. It is shown that the international tax system generally leads to distortions in the capital decisions of multinational firms. In contrast to the existing literature on the tax treatment of the expenditures of multinationals, it is found that the form and size of distortions can differ per country depending on the stake a country has in the multinational. Furthermore, internationalisation of the firm's operations and ownership is demonstrated to lead to less generous interest deduction rules of individual countries and in the limit may result in no deduction allowance at all

Environmental Kuznets Curves for CO2:Heterogeneity Versus Homogeneity

We explore the emissions income relationship for CO2 in OECD countries using various modelling strategies.Even for this relatively homogeneous sample, we find that the inverted-U-shaped curve is quite sensitive to the degree of heterogeneity included in the panel estimations.This finding is robust, not only across different model specifications but also across estimation techniques, including the more flexible non-parametric approach.Differences in restrictions applied in panel estimations are therefore responsible for the widely divergent findings for an inverted-U shape for CO2.Our findings suggest that allowing for enough heterogeneity is essential to prevent spurious correlation from reduced-form panel estimations.Moreover, this inverted U for CO2 is likely to exist for many, but not for all, countries.

Databases Nederlands milieubeleid

In deze studie is nagegaan hoe zowel het proces van gegevensverzameling van emissies naar de lucht als de verdere verwerking van de gegevens voor de milieubalans tot stand komen. De verzameling van deze gegevens vindt plaats door de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO). De zogenaamde Individuele Emissieregistratie geeft een zo nauwkeurig mogelijk beeld van de uitstoot van vervuilende stoffen naar de lucht door grote individuele vervuilers. Op basis van deze gegevens wordt de uitstoot (bij)geschat van bedrijven die niet in de steekproef zijn opgenomen. Dit gebeurt door de bestanden van TNO te koppelen aan de Productie- en Investeringsstatistieken van het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS). Dit rapport bespreekt de emissieregistratie in detail en gaat na hoe de bijschattingen ten behoeve van de Milieubalans precies tot stand komen. Uitgebreid wordt ingegaan op de gevolgde steekproefmethodiek en de longitudinale opbouw van beide databases en wordt gedetailleerd aangegeven hoe de bijschattingen voor de milieubalans precies verlopen. Tenslotte wordt uiteengezet hoe op basis van een alternatieve koppelingsmethode tussen de CBS en TNO databases gedetailleerd inzicht kan worden verkregen in de effecten van het Nederlandse milieubeleid op de milieuproductiviteit van bedrijven

Reducing Rents from Energy Technology Adoption Programs by Exploiting Observable Information

In this paper, we study how regulators may improve upon the efficiency of their energy technology adoption programs by exploiting readily observable information to limit rent extraction by firms. Using panel data on 862 investment decisions in the Netherlands, we find that rent extraction is closely linked not only to technology characteristics, but also to the firm's capital budgetting technique. In particular, we find that firms are more likely to extract rent when either the technology's pay-back period or its required investment is lower, but less likely if they do not use a formal capital budgeting technique. Standard firm characteristics, such as size and sector, correlate with firms' use of capital budgeting techniques, thereby partly resolving the regulator's asymmetric information problem.