The environmental Kuznets curve in a world of irreversibility

Prieur, Fabien

doi:10.1007/s00199-008-0351-y

Cited by 74 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…In this case, this is not about "biodiversity" offsetting but rather "utility" offsetting. However, the weak sustainability hypothesis can be regarded as over-optimistic in the light of recent works especially the TEEB and MEA reports leading to a very paradoxical situation called "the paradox of the environmentalist" [34,35]. Whereas values of biodiversity have been shown and the need to preserve it to maintain human well-being, it might be possible for the society to fall into an irreversible and highly degraded state of biodiversity while human well-being continues to increase, at least in the short term.…”

Section: Economic Foundations and Rationales For The Bo Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Biodiversity Offsetting Dilemma: Between Economic Rationales and Ecological Dynamics

Calvet

Napoléone²,

Salles

2015

Sustainability

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Although many countries have included biodiversity offsetting (BO) requirements in their environmental regulations over the past four decades, this mechanism has recently been the object of renewed political interest. Incorporated into the mitigation hierarchy in three steps aimed at avoiding, reducing and offsetting residual impacts on biodiversity arising from development projects, BO is promoted as the way to achieve the political goal of No Net Loss of biodiversity (NNL). The recent success of BO is mainly based on its ability to provide economic incentives for biodiversity conservation. However, the diversity of BO mechanisms (direct offsets, banking mechanism and offsetting funds) and the various institutional frameworks within which they are applied generate substantial confusion about their economic and ecological implications. In this article, we first analyze the rationale for the BO approach from the welfare and ecological economics. We show that both these frameworks support the use of BO to address environmental externalities, but that they differ in how they consider the substitutability issue and levels of sustainability with regard to natural and manufactured capital, and in how they address ecological concerns. We then examine the economic and ecological performance criteria of BO from conceptual and empirical perspectives. We highlight that the three BO mechanisms involve different economic and ecological logics and inherent benefits, but also potential risks in meeting biodiversity conservation targets. We lastly investigate the ecological constraints with respect to the BO OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 7358 practice, and economic and organizational limitations of the BO system that may impede achievement of NNL goals. We then reveal the existence of a tension between the economic and ecological rationales in conducting BO that requires making choices about the NNL policy objectives. Finally, this article questions the place of BO in conservation policies and discusses the trade-off between political will and ecological opportunities involved in the BO approach.

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Section: Economic Foundations and Rationales For The Bo Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Biodiversity Offsetting Dilemma: Between Economic Rationales and Ecological Dynamics

Calvet

Napoléone²,

Salles

2015

Sustainability

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“…This condition generalizes the strengthened Inada condition, introduced by Galor and Ryder (1989), with a public policy. It ensures that the first unit of capital is sufficiently efficient, in terms of labor productivity (recall that the numerator in (19) corresponds to the wage w(k)), thereby avoiding the trivial equilibrium with zero capital. It is also a necessary condition for the existence of a non trivial equilibrium (see de la Croix and Michel (2000)).…”

Section: Definition 4 Balanced Growth Path (Bgp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Education Be Good for Both Growth and the Environment?

Bréchet

Prieur

2013

Macroecon. Dynam.

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We develop an overlapping generations model of growth and the environment with public policy on education. Beyond the traditional mechanisms through which knowledge, growth and the environment interplay, we stress out the role played by education on environmental awareness. Assuming first that environmental awareness is constant, we show the existence of a balanced growth path along which environmental quality increases continually. Then, if education enhances environmental awareness, the equilibrium properties are modified: the economy can reach a steady state or converge to an asymptotic balanced growth path. Therefore, education does not necessarily promote sustained and sustainable growth.

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“…Prieur (2007) notes that economic growth may be accompanied by the accumulation of ecological debt, but, due to the irreversible nature of some pollution, the debt may be such that, once the economy engages in maintenance, the effort is not sufficient to avoid the irrevocable degradation of the environment. Ranjan and Shortle (2007) links stock effects and irreversibility issues, claiming that points of no return can occur if hysteresis effects are associated with pollution accumulation.…”

Section: Theoretical Underpinnings: Recent Developmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Kuznets Curves: Long-Run Structural Dynamics and Policy Events

Mazzanti

Musolesi

2009

SSRN Journal

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SummaryWe study the structural differences among climate change leading 'factors' -Northern EU members -, and lagging actors -southern EU countries and the 'Umbrella group' -with regard to long run carbon-income relationships. Homogeneous and heterogeneous panel models show that the groups of countries less in favour of stringent climate policy have yet to experience a Kuznets curve, though they show relative delinking. Northern EU instead robustly shows bell shapes. Exogenous policy events such as the 1992 climate change convention appear to be relevant in shaping the EKC of Northern EU. In addition, other events such as the second oil price shock appear to have also impacted in shaping the long run emission/GDP dynamics. (OECD, 2002; EEA, 2003). Stylised facts have been proposed on the relationship between pollution and economic growth, which became know as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, that has gained an increasing research attention over time since the pioneering works of Grossman and Krueger (1995), Shafik (1994) and Holtz-Eakin and Selden (1992). KeywordsApplied EKC investigations mainly focus on emissions into the air, although evidence for other types of emissions and pollutants, such as waste, has been emerging. In this paper we focus on CO 2 emissions which have been recognised as a major source of environmental pollution (Schmalensee et al., 1998), and offer the most robust data for applying advanced econometric techniques. The relevance on carbon is also depending on the fact that if one the one hand absolute delinking have been experienced and verified in the literature for local and regional air and water emissions, CO 2 (and waste generation)are environmental impacts that have not shown clear and robust EKC shapes, if not for specific countries and sectors in advanced economies i . Even in advanced economies nevertheless the evidence is far from assessing a neat absolute delinking overall (Cole, 2003, Stern, 2004 Dinda, 2004;Musolesi et al., 2009). Decoupling between income growth and CO 2 emissions is not (yet) apparent for many important world economies, and where it is observed, it is relative rather than absolute as usually assumed by the EKC hypothesis.This paper aims to contribute to the development of EKC research in two main directions. First, we use modern econometric panel approaches capable of providing new evidence on EKC long run dynamics. We employ recent homogeneous estimators -as those derived from panel cointegration analysis or those that explicitly take into account cross section correlation -as well as heterogeneous estimators which allow individual slopes to be derived from sampling or Bayesian approaches. It is difficult a priori to decide between homogeneous and heterogeneous panel estimators. On the one hand, the increasing time dimension means that the slope homogeneity implicit in the use of a pooled estimator is questionable. On the other hand, most researchers agree about the use of homogeneous estimators since the efficiency gains from pooling ofte...

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The environmental Kuznets curve in a world of irreversibility

Cited by 74 publications

References 44 publications

The Biodiversity Offsetting Dilemma: Between Economic Rationales and Ecological Dynamics

The Biodiversity Offsetting Dilemma: Between Economic Rationales and Ecological Dynamics

Can Education Be Good for Both Growth and the Environment?

Carbon Kuznets Curves: Long-Run Structural Dynamics and Policy Events

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