The Environment, Trade and Innovation with Heterogeneous Firms: A Numerical Analysis

We employ a two-sector heterogeneous firms model in the presence of endogenous innovation and environmental constraints. We perform simple numerical simulations concerning the implication of a stringent environmental policy and trade cost differences between dirty and clean inputs. Our objective is to highlight the effects of these policy proposals on the process innovation, trade pattern, and productivity dynamics.Cap and Trade, Heterogeneous Firms, Process Innovation, Trade Pattern, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, F18, Q55, Q56, C63,

Welfare Impacts of Alternative Biofuel and Energy Policies

We employ an open economy general equilibrium model to investigate the effects of government energy policy, with an emphasis on corn-based ethanol, on the U.S. economy. The model specification incorporates world and domestic markets, assumes pollution costs from fuel consumption, and allows endogenous determination of equilibrium quantities and prices for oil, corn and ethanol. The model is calibrated to represent a recent benchmark data set for 2009 and is used to simulate the positive and normative effects of alternative policies. We find that a second best policy of a fuel tax and ethanol subsidy approximates fairly closely the welfare gains associated with the first-best policy of an optimal carbon tax and tariffs on traded goods. The largest economic gains to the U.S. economy from these energy policies arise from the impact of the policies on U.S. terms of trade, particularly in the oil market. We also find that, conditional on the current fuel tax, an optimal ethanol mandate is superior to an optimal ethanol subsidy. In the benchmark case, the optimal ethanol mandate is about 18 billion gallons.Biofuel policies; carbon tax; ethanol subsidy; gasoline tax; Greenhouse gas emissions; Mandates; renewable fuel standard; Second best; welfare.

Three essays on biofuel, environmental economics, and international trade

This dissertation focuses on two independent areas: the analysis of biofuel and related energy policies, and the relationship between trade and the environment with heterogeneous firms. Chapter 1 provides quantitative estimates of the welfare benefits of U.S. biofuel and related energy polices. The remaining two chapters investigate the firm-level relationship between trade and the environment using theoretical model and empirical evidence. Chapter 2, theoretical in nature, explores the impact of the stringency of environmental policy and exposure to trade on the induced clean technology adoption and on firm dynamics. Using a unique detailed facility-level dataset containing criteria air emissions and economic activity data, chapter 3 investigates whether exporters are more environmentally friendly than non-exporters in terms of lower emissions per value of sales

Sampling from the Random Linear Model via Stochastic Localization Up to the AMP Threshold

The Approximate Message Passing (AMP) algorithm has garnered significant attention in recent years for solving linear inverse problems, particularly in the field of Bayesian inference for high-dimensional models. In this paper, we consider sampling from the posterior in the linear inverse problem, with an i.i.d. random design matrix. We develop a sampling algorithm by integrating the AMP algorithm and stochastic localization. We give a proof for the convergence in smoothed KL divergence between the distribution of the samples generated by our algorithm and the target distribution, whenever the noise variance $\Delta$ is below $\Delta_{\rm AMP}$, which is the computation threshold for mean estimation introduced in (Barbier et al., 2020)

Firm Internal Network, Environmental Regulation, and Plant Death

This paper examines the role of a firm’s internal network in determining plant shutdown decisions in response to environmental regulations. Using unique plant-level data for U.S. manufacturing industries from 1990 to 2008, we find evidence that, in response to increasingly stringent environmental regulations at the county level, multi-plant firms do exercise their greater flexibility in adjusting production, relative to single-plant firms. Specifically, in regulated counties, the likelihood of a plant shutting down is higher for multi-plant firms. Moreover, we measure the firm internal network effect at the local, neighborhood, and the wider-area levels, as defined by the number of affiliated plants clustered in different regional levels. Their effects on plant closure decisions for dirty subsidiaries vary with the network level. We further decompose the neighborhood network into those in regulated and unregulated neighborhood counties, and examine how these network metrics are associated with closure decisions of dirty plants affiliated with multi-plant firms. The presence of more sibling plants residing in neighboring counties that are free from regulatory controls are associated with a higher closure probability of dirty plants in a regulated county

Are exporters more environmentally friendly than non-exporters? Theory and evidence

This paper studies the firm-level relationship between decision to export and environmental performance. To guide the empirical work, we introduce environmental pollution and technology choice into a trade model with heterogeneous firms. The model predicts that a productive firm is more likely to adopt emission-saving technology and to export. Using facility-level criteria air emission data in the U.S. manufacturing industry, for a variety of pollutants, empirical tests are supportive of our two primary theoretical predictions. First, facility productivity is negatively correlated with emission intensity, measured by emissions per value of sales. Second, conditional on the estimated facility productivity and the facility\u27s exposure to environmental regulation, exporters have lower emission per value of sales than non-exporters within the same industry

The effectiveness of China’s regional carbon market pilots in reducing firm emissions

China has implemented an emission trading system (ETS) to reduce its ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining rapid economic growth. With low carbon prices and infrequent allowance trading, whether China’s ETS is an effective approach for climate mitigation has entered the center of the policy and research debate. Utilizing China’s regional ETS pilots as a quasi-natural experiment, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of ETS on firm carbon emissions and economic outcomes by means of a matched difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The empirical analysis is based on a unique panel dataset of firm tax records in the manufacturing and public utility sectors during 2009 to 2015. We show unambiguous evidence that the regional ETS pilots are effective in reducing firm emissions, leading to a 16.7% reduction in total emissions and a 9.7% reduction in emission intensity. Regulated firms achieve emission abatement through conserving energy consumption and switching to low-carbon fuels. The economic consequences of the ETS are mixed. On one hand, the ETS has a negative impact on employment and capital input; on the other hand, the ETS incentivizes regulated firms to improve productivity. In the aggregate, the ETS does not exhibit statistically significant effects on output and export. We also find that the ETS displays notable heterogeneity across pilots. Mass-based allowance allocation rules, higher carbon prices, and active allowance trading contribute to more pronounced effects in emission abatement

The Landscape of Green Agricultural Patents: A Focus on China and US Patent Offices

Green agricultural patents are essential for driving agricultural productivity while enhancing sustainability, resource efficiency, and climate resilience, and for addressing critical challenges such as soil degradation, water scarcity, and greenhouse gas emissions. In 2013, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) launched the WIPO GREEN initiative to facilitate green technology innovation and transfer

Economics of Biofuels: An Overview of Policies, Impacts and Prospects

This paper provides an overview of the economics of biofuels. It starts by describing the remarkable growth of the biofuel industry over the last decade, with emphasis on developments in the United States, Brazil and the European Union, and it identifies the driving role played by some critical policies. After a brief discussion of the motivations that are commonly argued in favor of biofuels and biofuel policies, the paper presents an assessment of the impacts of biofuels from the economics perspective. In particular, the paper explains the basic analytics of biofuel mandates, reviews several existing studies that have estimated the economic impacts of biofuels, presents some insights from a specific model, and outlines an appraisal of biofuel policies and the environmental impacts of biofuels. The paper concludes with an examination of several open issues and the future prospects of biofuels

Economics of Biofuels: An Overview of Policies, Impacts and Prospects

This paper provides an overview of the economics of biofuels. It starts by describing the remarkable growth of the biofuel industry over the last decade, with emphasis on developments in the United States, Brazil and the European Union, and it identifies the driving role played by some critical policies. After a brief discussion of the motivations that are commonly argued in favor of biofuels and biofuel policies, the paper presents an assessment of the impacts of biofuels from the economics perspective. In particular, the paper explains the basic analytics of biofuel mandates, reviews several existing studies that have estimated the economic impacts of biofuels, presents some insights from a specific model, and outlines an appraisal of biofuel policies and the environmental impacts of biofuels. The paper concludes with an examination of several open issues and the future prospects of biofuels