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Abstract Environmental injustice due to economic inequality and its correlates and consequences has been a focus for researchers and policy makers alike over many years, with much of that research focusing on race as the major determinant of inequality. In this paper we extend this literature by focussing on emissions from the oil refinery industry at the community level. In particular, based on the use of panel data, we analyse econometrically how the environmental performance of individual petroleum refineries (emissions of benzene and toluene to the atmosphere) associates with determinants of economic inequality at the micro-level in terms of average per capita income at the level of United States counties as well as average county-level unemployment rates. The paper finds evidence of environmental injustice as a result of unemployment levels in areas around refineries and, to a slightly lesser extent, as a result of income inequality. It discusses these results in a wider context, referring amongst other things to the role of county-level community characteristics and the potential for private firms to substitute for the intervention of public institutions, if these are lacking. Highlights • The paper presents the findings of a study on the oil refining industry in the US. • The paper considers absolute and relative amounts of emissions of benzene and toluene. • Average per-capita county income is associated negatively with emissions. • Larger US refineries produce lower specific emissions per unit of output. • The paper supports the link between environmental performance and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Proper understanding of the determinants of household CO2 emissions is essential for a shift to sustainable lifestyles. This paper explores the impacts of date of birth and income on household CO2 emissions in France and in the USA. Direct CO2 emissions of French and American households are computed from consumer budget surveys, over the 1980–2000 time period. Age Period Cohort estimators are used to isolate the generational effect on CO2 emissions — i.e. the specific effect of date of birth, independent of the age, the year and other control variables. The paper shows that French 1935–55 cohorts have a stronger tendency to emit CO2 than their predecessors and followers. The generational effect is explained by the fact that over their lifespan, French baby boomers are better off than other generations and live in energy and carbon inefficient dwellings. In the USA, the absence of a generational effect on CO2 emissions can be explained by the fact that intergenerational income inequalities are weaker than in France. Persistence of the generational effect once income and housing type is controlled for in France can be explained by the difficulty for French 1935–55 cohorts to adapt to sober energy consumption patterns. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Using data on the geographic location of fracking wells in four U.S. states with mandatory disclosure between 2011 and 2013 — Colorado, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas — this paper analyzes the socio-demographic characteristics of people living close to fracking activity. Geo-coded well data from the FracFocus registry are merged to blockgroup-level socio-demographic data from the 2006–2010 American Community Survey and population density and land use data from EPA's Smart Location Database 2010. Different buffer zones around fracking wells are applied to capture effects at different spatial scales and to compare only areas with similar geological properties. We explain the distance to the nearest well within a county with fracking activity or within a buffer zone by race/ethnicity, income, educational attainment, various land-use control variables, and county fixed-effects. We find robust evidence that minorities, especially African Americans, disproportionately live near fracking wells, but less consistent evidence for environmental injustice by income or educational attainment. Strong heterogeneity across states can be observed, suggesting that an improvement in disclosure laws in other states, that would make similar analyses possible, is of great importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of environmental regulation on the productivity of manufacturing plants in the United States. Establishment-level data from three Censuses of Manufactures are used to estimate 3-factor Cobb–Douglas production functions that include a measure of the stringency of environmental regulation faced by manufacturing plants. In contrast to previous studies, this paper examines effects on plants in all manufacturing industries, not just those in “dirty” industries. Further, this paper employs spatial–temporal variation in environmental compliance costs to identify effects, using a time-varying county-level index that is based on multiple years of establishment-level data from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey and the Annual Survey of Manufactures. Results suggest that, for the average manufacturing plant, there is no statistically significant effect on productivity of being in a county with higher environmental compliance costs. For the average plant, the main effect of environmental regulation may not be in the spatial and temporal dimensions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract Adaptation to water scarcity induced by future climate change will be crucial for the viability of agricultural economies in many areas of the world. In this paper, we study the acquisition of supplemental irrigation water rights as an adaptation strategy undertaken by irrigation-dependent farmers in response to historical climate change. By exploiting the panel structure of a unique dataset of farm-level supplemental right adoption decisions in the state of Oregon, we establish a relationship between climate conditions, competition for local water resources, and the acquisition of supplemental rights. Our results indicate that a warmer, drier climate increases the likelihood that irrigated farms acquire supplemental rights, suggesting that farmers in Oregon have used supplemental rights to adapt to historical climate change. We also find evidence of heterogeneous effects suggesting that junior irrigators, groundwater-dependent irrigators, and farmers with access to a relatively lower volume of water have been most affected by historical climate change with respect to their supplemental water right acquisition decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses U.S. state-level data for CO, NO2, SO2, and PM10 emissions and a STIRPAT-inspired model to provide empirical evidence discrediting, at least in part, the restrictionist perspective on the immigration–environment relationship. The paper finds that U.S. states with a larger share of foreign-born residents are associated with lower NO2 and SO2 emissions. While these results do not necessarily imply that immigrants mitigate environmental emissions, they emphasize the importance of addressing the relationship between immigration and the environment based on an objective assessment of facts. Hence, it is this paper's contention that it is empirically unjustifiable to call for restrictions on immigration on environmental grounds. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper is the first analysis of the economic factors of global light pollution. Light pollution commonly refers to excessive or obtrusive artificial light caused by bad lighting design. Light pollution generates significant costs including negative impacts on wildlife, health, astronomy, and wasted energy—which in the U.S. amounts to nearly 7billion dollars annually. Current scientific models of light pollution are purely population based. The current paper utilizes unique remote sensing data and economic data from the World Bank to quantify the economic causes of light pollution globally. Fractional logit models show that, similar to other types of pollution, both population and GDP are significant explanatory variables. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Proposals being considered by the U.S. Congress would establish a cap-and-trade system to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions approximately 2% annually through 2050. Past cap-and-trade policies for other pollutants have distributed allowances free to the regulated companies, leaving consumers uncompensated for passed-through costs needed to achieve the required reductions. Social equity concerns were not a major issue because the total costs were relatively small. However, Americans currently spend about $1 trillion/year on energy, directly and indirectly via the goods and services they consume. If a cap on carbon emissions results in significant increases in energy prices, social equity concerns could quickly dominate the debate over climate policy. This paper confirms earlier studies that a traditional cap-and-trade policy is regressive and would cause the cost of reducing GHG emissions to fall disproportionately on low income households. This paper explores ways to ameliorate those effects, using highly disaggregated data available on consumer expenditures and energy-input¿output analyses of the U.S. economy. Emissions are estimated based on direct and embodied energy use at the household level. Social equity concerns are taken into account and the consequences of cap-and-trade policies are assessed by quantifying the extent to which the expenditure patterns of the poor are significantly more energy intensive than those of the rich. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: As coastal disasters become more frequent and costly, a full assessment of costs becomes more important. This paper aims to identify costs of coastal disasters to human, social, built and natural capital and their associated services at the local site of a disaster and in the regions and nations that respond for relief and recovery. The spatial and temporal magnitude and scale of costs is captured differently in typical cost accounting and a more comprehensive approach, full-cost accounting. The difference between these approaches will be demonstrated using Hurricane Katrina (2005) as a case study, though we do not attempt to perform a full-cost accounting of this actual event. We examine how disaster planning and preparedness becomes more cost effective when the full cost of disasters is calculated. A full-cost accounting of coastal disasters sets the stage for rigorous comparisons of strategies for post-disaster development. The rudimentary analysis of this paper indicates that continued population development as well as the maintenance of current settlements in particular regions along the coasts may not be in the national interest. In this way, full-cost accounting could help reduce vulnerability to future disasters. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A physical input–output table (PIOT) provides a framework in which all the physical flows associated with an economy can be recorded. This makes it a valuable tool for environmental–economic modeling and accounting. During the 1990''s PIOTs were constructed for a number of countries. Subsequently, the PIOT and related physical supply and use tables have been taken up in the System of Environmental and Economic Accounting [UN (United Nations), 2003. System of Environmental and Economic Accounting. United Nations, New York]. This paper reviews PIOTs for the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Finland and the European Union. These studies applied the ‘basic’ and ‘extended’ PIOT frameworks. This paper elaborates these frameworks with packaging, residuals (wastes and emissions), recycling and stock changes, in order to create a ‘full’ PIOT. The production process of the extended and full PIOT is split into structural and auxiliary production processes. Modeling applications and ways of deriving environmentally relevant information from the full PIOT are illustrated using a numerical example. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) was designed to reveal the economic, social, and environmental trade-offs associated with conventional economic growth as traditionally measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Although originally designed for use at the national scale, an interest has developed in the United States in a state-level uptake of the GPI to inform and guide policy. This study presents the first fifty-state estimate for U.S. GPI in order to address questions over its design, implementation, and ultimate potential as a tool to guide state-level economic policy. Following a review of the current state of analysis and critique of GPI, we provide an overview of methodology and database development. Results are then presented, including discussion of lessons learned through a fifty-state application. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research and next steps to consolidating a consistent methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State enforcement of federal environmental legislation has long been associated with the fear of environmental freeriding and states being too lenient, potentially leading to a race-to-the bottom in enforcement. This paper analyzes the effect of enforcement decentralization from 1998 to 2011 on a range of enforcement outcomes across US states as they have been authorized to implement their own programs aligning with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). In this study, we look at the association between enforcement decentralization and corresponding outcomes, namely the number of evaluations, number of detected violations, and the amount of monetary penalties. Results showed that enforcement behaviors have not changed significantly as states have assumed more enforcement responsibilities; hence, we found no evidence of a race-to-the-bottom scenario associated with RCRA decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green growth is increasingly being seen as a means of simultaneously meeting current and future climate change obligations and reducing unemployment. This paper uses detailed industry-level data from the Bureau of Labor Statistic's Green Goods and Services survey to examine how the provision of so-called green goods and services has affected various aspects of the US economy. Our descriptive results reveal that those states and industries that were relatively green in 2010 became even greener in 2011. To investigate further we include green goods and services in a production function. The results show that between 2010 and 2011 industries that have increased their share of green employment have reduced their productivity although this negative correlation was only for the manufacture of green goods and not for the supply of green services. In further analysis we investigate skill-technology complementarities in the production of green goods and services and show that industries that increased their provision of green goods and services grew more slowly, reduced their expenditure on technology inputs and increased their demand for medium educated workers, whilst simultaneously reducing their demand for lower skilled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much attention has been given to the effects of migration and remittances on agricultural activities in the communities of origin, the relationship between remittances and rural households' use of natural resources remains understudied. This paper contributes in filling this gap by using a Mexican data set that contains detailed information on both remittances and use of natural resources at the household level. The data set is representative of the rural population of Mexico at the national level, which allows us to move beyond case studies overcoming one of the main challenges for understanding the relationship between livelihoods and the environment. Results show that remittances have significant effects on the use of natural resources by the receiving households. We find that a) remittances decrease the likelihood that a household will participate in natural resource extraction, and b) households that receive remittances and extract natural resources have lower environmental income and lower environmental reliance than households not receiving remittances. By reducing participation in extraction as well as reliance on natural resources, remittances reduce the pressure that local populations put on the natural resource base that surrounds them. This could mean good news for the conservation of natural resources. However, it also shows the vulnerability of Mexico's natural resource to periods of low or negative economic growth in the United States inasmuch as they affect the amount of remittances that migrants send back home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the relationship between income inequality and carbon emissions in the United States between 1929 and 2019. We contribute to the literature by studying if and how the relationship has varied over time. To this end we estimate a band spectrum regression model and a smooth-varying coefficients model. Our results show that higher inequality was associated with lower emissions during the early part of the sample and higher emissions towards the end of the sample. • Whether the level of inequality affects carbon dioxide emssions is unclear. • We test the association between income inequalty and carbon dioxide emissions. • We find that the relationship varies over time. • Changes in consumption patterns may partially explain the time varying effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trees in residential neighborhoods and communities provide benefits for homeowners that are capitalized into residential property values. In this paper, we collected data from hedonic property value studies and merged these data with ancillary spatial data describing forest and socio-economic characteristics surrounding each study area to conduct a meta-analysis of the impact of tree canopy cover on the value of residential properties. The meta-analysis suggests that property-level tree cover of about 30% and county-level tree cover of about 38% maximize the implicit price of tree cover in property values. Currently, tree cover in the original study areas was about 14%, on average, around or near study properties. The empirical results, therefore suggest under investment of tree cover on private property from the perspective of individual property owners and from a societal perspective. The findings also have implications for community forest programs regarding planting trees and protection of mature trees to address potential changes in tree abundance, species diversity and stand age due to development and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Full suppression strategies remain the dominant option in wildfire management, despite a large body of research demonstrating the ecological and economic benefits of allowing unplanned wildfires to burn under favorable conditions. Consequently, empirical research identifying and understanding the factors that contribute to these decisions within public land management agencies has become of critical importance in efforts to improve management outcomes. This paper assesses the importance of a set of institutional and socioeconomic factors with a random utility model of incident commander suppression decisions. We compare the importance of these factors on chosen strategies before and after an update to federal fire policy implementation guidance and an associated change to federal fire budgeting policy implemented in Fiscal Year 2010. We find that while the update to federal fire policy guidance may have been effective at increasing the probability that managers adopted a strategy other than full suppression, the subsequent increase in suppression budget allotments offset this impact, rendering no true difference in probabilities after the policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to industrial air toxics in U.S. cities vary with neighborhood income, and how these disparities vary regionally across the country. Exposure is estimated at the census block-group level using geographic microdata from the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We find that racial and ethnic disparities in pollution exposure are strongest among neighborhoods with median incomes below $25,000, while income-based disparities are stronger among neighborhoods with median incomes above that level. We also find considerable differences in the patterns of disparity across the ten EPA regions. In the two regions with the highest median exposure (the Midwest and South Central regions), for example, African-Americans and Hispanics face significantly higher exposures than whites, whereas in the region with the next highest exposure (the Mid-Atlantic), the reverse is true. We show that the latter result is attributable to intercity variations – minorities tend to live in the less polluted cities in the region – rather than to within-city variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activists and scholars increasingly blame neoliberalism for the failure to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but there is insufficient research that investigates the theoretical link between neoliberalism and climate paralysis. This paper seeks to fill that gap by presenting a coherent account of how neoliberal ideology has constrained policies to address climate change in the United States. As motivation, we first present evidence suggesting more neoliberal countries perform worse in addressing climate change. We then analyze how three tenets of neoliberal ideology—to decentralize democracy, defund public investment, and deregulate the economy—have stymied climate action in the United States. Finally, we discuss the Green New Deal as a decisively anti-neoliberal framework that seeks to wield the power of the federal government to pursue large-scale public investments and binding climate regulations for rapid decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates the long-term impacts of water storage infrastructure (dams) on agriculture and the natural environment in the semi-arid U.S. West. We conduct an empirical analysis of the agricultural impacts associated with major dams in Idaho, focusing on their crop mixes, crop productivities, and overall agricultural land values using an integrated county-level repeated cross section dataset. Our results suggest that the presence of a dam resulted in significant increases in total crop acreage, particularly in those counties in which farmers have predominantly junior water rights. Dams led to an increase in the acreage of the higher-valued, more water-intensive crops and positively impacted some crop productivities, particularly during periods of severe droughts. In contrast to the traditional literature, we find that the presence of a dam had a small, positive, but non-significant effect on farmland values. Finally, we evaluate long-term patterns in stream flow change and examine the impacts of dams on the natural environment. We find that the presence of dams enabled the spatiotemporal transfer of water resources from cold (non-agricultural) to warm (agriculturally-intensive) seasons, reduced the potential availability of water resources for ecosystem use, and increased the seasonal volatility in water supplies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Renewable Fuel Standard (2007) set aggressive cellulosic biofuel goals that have not been realized. Corn ethanol dominates the market and penetration of cellulosic ethanol is unlikely in the near term due to economic and technical barriers. This paper uses game theory to model biomass and ethanol production decisions and calculate the incentives that would be necessary to drive the industry to obtain the cellulosic ethanol goals. After identifying the desired performance of a cellulosic ethanol supply chain, a nonlinear optimization model is developed to analyze two major scenarios that estimate conservative and optimistic technological improvements in cellulosic biomass and ethanol production. A potential carbon market is explored to determine its efficacy as an incentive mechanism. Results indicate that a carbon market would only be sufficient to incentivize a cellulosic ethanol industry under the optimistic improvement scenario with the highest switchgrass price. For all other scenarios, the carbon price needed to incentivize the industry would exceed the reasonable range and additional incentives would be needed to achieve the production goals of the Renewable Fuel Standard. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Similar to circumstances in the field of economics, market fundamentalism dominates urban blight policy spaces in the U.S. despite criticisms of the paradigm. Unlike the unified alternative that ecological economics (EE) provides to conventional economic theory, however, disagreement over the meaning of “blight” has prevented a commonly held pre-analytic vision and policy agenda from forming in critical blight scholarship. This paper asserts that “applied EE” offers a framework in which to develop such a vision, and to strengthen the inchoate critical blight policy stream. We draw on the EE theory and concepts to argue that blight can be understood as a stock that accumulates in an urban system as a result of underinvestment into real property. Our conceptualization of the problem has several important implications for public policy. A brief illustration compares the relative efficacy of one city's characteristically neoliberal blight policies with more “EE-consistent” policies in a second city to show that the latter might in fact outperform the former. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This is the first part of a two-part paper providing an analytical model of the indirect rebound effect, given a direct rebound estimate, that integrates consumer demand theory with the embodied energy of household spending from environmentally-extended input–output analysis. The second part applies the model developed in part one to simulate the direct and indirect rebound for the average U.S. household in terms of primary energy, CO2e, NOx, and SO2 emissions and for energy efficiency investments in electricity, natural gas, or gasoline services. Part one provides a critical review of the largely independent economic and industrial ecology literatures on the indirect rebound. By studying the two-goods case and the n-goods case, we demonstrate that the indirect rebound is bounded by the consumer budget constraint, and inversely related to the direct rebound. We also compare the common proportional spending and income elasticity spending assumptions with our model of cross-price elasticities including both substitution and income effects for the indirect rebound. By assuming zero incremental capital costs and the same embodied energy as conventional technologies for efficient appliances, we model an upper bound of the indirect rebound. Future work should also consider the increase in consumer welfare possible through the rebound effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This is the second part of a two-part paper that integrates economic and industrial ecology methods to estimate the indirect rebound effect from residential energy efficiency investments. We apply the model developed in part one to simulate the indirect rebound, given an estimate of the direct rebound, using a 2002 environmentally-extended input–output model and the 2004 Consumer Expenditure Survey (in 2002$) for the U.S. We find an indirect rebound of 5–15% in primary energy and CO2e emissions, assuming a 10% direct rebound, depending on the fuel saved with efficiency and household income. The indirect rebound can be as high as 30–40% in NOx or SO2 emissions for efficiency in natural gas services. The substitution effect modeled in part one is small in most cases, and we discuss appropriate applications for proportional or income elasticity spending assumptions. Large indirect rebound effects occur as the U.S. electric grid becomes less-carbon intensive, in households with large transportation demands, or as energy prices increase. Even in extreme cases, there is limited evidence for backfire, or a rebound effect greater than 100%. Enacting pollution taxes or auctioned permits that internalize the externalities of energy use would ensure that rebound effects unambiguously increase consumers'' welfare. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recently a shift has occurred in the way in which the United States Forest Service (USFS) distributes funds to states through its State and Private Forestry (S&PF) program. Traditionally S&PF has distributed money to states and territories formulaically. Now, under the 2008 Redesign Initiative, 15% of these funds are allocated through a competitive process. In this paper we analyze this initiative through the lens of institutional economics. Using budget, interview and survey data, we evaluate the new allocation process on the criteria of allocative efficiency, transaction costs, and distributional effects. Additionally, we examine a trade-off the Redesign Initiative faces between short-term innovations and funding programs that meet long-term USFS goals. We conclude that, while there is some positive evidence that the program is achieving some of its stated goals, it is doing so at the expense of higher transaction costs and less certain long-term projects. Moreover, we find that the lack of procedures to evaluate competitively funded projects is an important flaw that may prevent the new initiative from helping to create a high performing and adaptive governance system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present paper studies the land use change impacts of fuels and biofuels. We test the theoretical hypothesis, which says that changes in fuel prices cause changes in land use both directly and indirectly and that, because of price inter-dependencies, biofuels reinforce the land use change impacts. We apply time-series analytical mechanisms to five major traded agricultural commodities, the cultivated area of agricultural land and crude oil price. Our data consists of yearly observations extending from 1950 to 2007 for the US. The empirical findings confirm that markets for crude oil and cultivated agricultural land are interdependent: an increase in oil price by 1dollar/barrel increases land use between 54,000 and 68,000ha. We also find that the increase of bioenergy sector accelerates land use change in the US, i.e. food commodities are being substituted for bioenergy crops. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Amid changing attitudes about the environment and emerging sustainability concerns in the late 1960s and 1970s, countries around the world began regulating multiple aspects of solid and hazardous wastes. Initial regulations and those occurring since all share the broader goal of curbing waste generation, especially that of hazardous wastes; but with few signs of progress. Using an input–output accounting framework that focuses on the domestic economy, data on the economy and hazardous waste generation are combined to provide a more complete picture of hazardous waste generation in the United States. The framework developed in this paper can be used to inform decisionmakers of the current state of the “hazardous waste economy” and can also be extended to account for other types of environmental factors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A semi-empirical endogenous growth theory was proposed by the authors in 2005. It is based on a model of the economy as a two-stage materials/energy processing system. Growth is simulated by a two-parameter production function with two traditional factors, labor and capital, and a non-traditional factor, namely ‘useful work’. The non-traditional factor is calculated from primary energy inputs multiplied by an empirically estimated average energy conversion efficiency, which is a function of changing technology over time. This model ‘explains’ past US growth from 1900 through 1973–74 with satisfactory accuracy but it slightly underestimates subsequent growth (i.e. it leaves a small unexplained but increasing residual) for the period after 1975. However, by subdividing capital stock into traditional and ICT components, we are able to extend the theory to explain US economic growth accurately. In this paper we also extend the results to Japan. The revised production function has only three independent parameters. The new model also has implications for future economic growth, energy and environmental policy that differ significantly from the traditional growth theory. These implications are discussed briefly. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper (1) summarizes a number of previous Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) studies at various scales; (2) estimates the GPI for Baltimore, Baltimore County, and the State of Maryland; and (3) compares these results with previous and parallel studies. GPI incorporates environmental, social, and economic information into a single metric to represent economic well-being. At all three scales, GPI was found to grow at a slower rate than the conventional economic measure of gross domestic product (GDP), while at the US national scale GPI has been relatively flat since 1975. State-level results match an independently calculated Maryland GPI, confirming that GPI methods are robust and reproducible. In addition, the State of Maryland has recently made GPI one of their official State statistics, reported annually. State-level GPI results were also compared with studies for the states of Ohio and Vermont to explore regional differences. We recommend that the GPI research community develop consensus on a standardized measurement approach and seek common ground for advancing the use of improved indicators and accounting systems in official policy settings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There has been a long and intensive debate within the scientific community about the role of international trade in the development of countries. During the last decades, the focus of attention has moved from the pure economic level to the environmental aspects of international trade. Establishing a simplified system of North–South trade for one reference period (2003), this paper attempts to test empirically the extent of potential asymmetries with regard to extracted material flows, and contrasts the results with the economic benefits from trade (in terms of value-added). The South is thereby represented by a selection of Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico), the North comprises one of their main commercial partners, the United States. At the methodological level, a multi-regional input–output analysis is used as the tool of investigation. Results generally support the hypothesis that the South was feeding the North's societal metabolism. South–North material exports were 1.6 times larger than North–South material exports, resulting in a net deficit for the South of 324 million tons. Moreover, material intensity of exported commodities from the South was twice as high as that from the North. It is worth highlighting, however, that part of the North-South hypothesis fails for the sample of countries since the larger part of the economic surplus has remained in the South, contrarily to what would have been expected. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents a societal level exergy analysis approach developed to analyse transitions in the way that energy is supplied and contributes to economic growth in the UK, the US, Austria and Japan, throughout the last century. We assess changes in exergy and useful work consumption, energy efficiency and related GDP intensity measures of each economy. The novel data provided elucidate certain characteristics of divergence and commonality in the energy transitions studied. The results indicate that in each country the processes of industrialization, urbanisation and electrification are characterised by a marked increase in exergy and useful work supplies and per capita intensities. There is a common and continuous decrease in the exergy intensity of GDP. Moreover for each country studied the trend of increasing useful work intensity of GDP reversed in the early 1970s coincident with the first oil crisis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Climate change, uncertain future water supplies, growing population, and increased water demands continue to raise the importance of finding cost-effective water conservation measures. Irrigated agriculture is the world's largest water user, so governments, donor organizations, water suppliers, and farmers continue to look for measures that would produce more crop per drop. Despite the importance of promoting water conservation in agriculture, little work has been done that integrates hydrologic, economic, institutional, and policy dimensions of water conservation. This paper presents an integrated basin scale analysis of water conservation subsidies for irrigated agriculture. A dynamic, nonlinear programming model is developed and applied for the Upper Rio Grande Basin of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, USA. Several potential public subsidies of drip irrigation are analyzed for their economic and hydrologic impacts at both the farm and basin levels. Results indicate that water conservation subsidies for drip irrigation produce several effects. These include greater on-farm implementation of water-conserving technology, less water applied to crops, more water consumed by crops, increased farm income, greater crop production, more land irrigated, and increased total water-related economic benefits for the basin. Findings provide a framework for designing and implementing water conservation policies for irrigated agriculture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Water markets have featured prominently in the reallocation of water rights to restore freshwater ecosystem health. Incentive-based water rights acquisition and transactions have emerged as a market-oriented policy approach to reallocate water resources from existing uses to enhance the provision, regulation, and sustainability of freshwater ecosystem services. This paper develops a conceptual framework to examine factors enabling and constraining successful policy reform and implementation in market-based environmental water allocation. This analysis distills and extends the findings and lessons of a September 2007 workshop in Brisbane, Australia on environmental water transactions. Two case studies were selected in water stressed basins – the Columbia (U.S.) and Murray-Darling (Australia) Basins – where transactional approaches to environmental water allocation first emerged. The case studies draw upon practitioner perspectives and previous policy and economic analysis in two regions where shared political economic and physical conditions lend a strong analytical basis for comparison. A common set of policy and regulatory reforms has occurred in both cases – albeit in different forms and via distinct paths – to develop three enabling conditions: (1) establishment of rights to and limits on freshwater extraction and alteration; (2) recognition of the environment as a legitimate water use; and (3) authority to transfer existing water rights to an environmental purpose. However, these elements of policy reform are necessary but not sufficient for effective implementation; a second set of driving forces, barriers, and adaptations explains the ability to achieve larger scale ecological outcomes. These conditions include the physical, social and economic factors driving demand for environmental water allocation; administrative procedures, organizational development and institutional capacity to effect transfers; and adaptive mechanisms to overcome legal, cultural, economic, and environmental barriers. The case study analysis suggests that environmental water transactions can play an important role in establishing environmental water allocations, although water markets require ongoing institutional capacity and adaptive governance. The conceptual framework and empirical lessons generated through this cross-case comparison provide the basis for an expanded research agenda to evaluate the design and performance of market-oriented reforms as implementation experience accrues and new programs emerge in diverse ecological and political economic settings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the United States the laws of intestate succession can lead to real property being owned as tenancy in common. As a result, over time, large numbers of cotenants may own the same property; each cotenant possessing a fractional undivided interest to the jointly owned property. Property characterized by this form of joint ownership is often referred to as heir property. Recent literature has identified two prominent concerns regarding heir property: (1) efficiency concerns and (2) displacement concerns. In this paper we examine these issues using case study evidence from three families in eastern Kentucky. Our case studies provide evidence of both the efficiency and displacement concerns. To further assess and better understand the character of heir property we empirically examine affidavits of descent in Letcher County, Kentucky filed in the year 2000. The empirical results illuminate the general character of the family that survives an intestate death further clarifying the effect of intestacy law on specific family members. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Environmental justice is concerned with the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. A wide variety of empirical studies have concluded that disparate-impact discrimination does in fact exist since minority and low-income communities are at disproportionate risk for environmental harm. In this paper we examine these issues in the context of enforcing the safe drinking water act (SDWA). Specifically, we focus on the association between race, income, and hazardous levels of arsenic concentration and analyze the broad equity implications of implementing the new arsenic regulation by examining the relationship between community-level exposure to arsenic and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the population in Arizona. The results provide no support for the contention that continued selective implementation and enforcement of the revised SDWA arsenic standard is likely to disadvantage minority or low-income groups disproportionately in Arizona. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper studies the impact of pragmatic and optimal transfer schemes on the incentives for regions to join international climate agreements. With an applied model that comprises twelve world regions we investigate: (i) a benchmark without transfers, (ii) scenarios with allocation-based rules where coalition members receive tradable emission permits proportional to initial or future emissions, (iii) scenarios with outcome-based rules where the coalition surplus is distributed proportional to emissions, and (iv) a scenario based on an optimal sharing rule where the coalition surplus is distributed proportional to outside option payoffs. We find that well-designed transfer schemes can stabilise larger coalitions and increase global abatement levels. In our applied setting we find that for allocation-based and outcome-based rules only small coalitions are stable, and, in the case of grandfathered emission permits, there is no stable coalition at all. Some obstacles associated with grandfathered emission permits can be overcome by incorporating the expected growth of emissions in developing countries in the distribution of emission permits. For the optimal transfer scheme we find that larger coalitions, which include key players such as the United States and China, can be stable, but no transfer scheme is capable of stabilising the Grand Coalition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Despite increased efficiency in the use of natural resources, the use of these resources continues to increase in most societies. This paper examines the discrepancy between the potential decrease of use of natural resources, as an effect of increased efficiency, and actual use. During the period 1960–2002, this difference was found to grow faster in the USA than the mean for six West European countries. Possible reasons for this difference between the two regions are analysed. To reduce the anthropogenic flows of energy and material, and the consequent deleterious effects on the biosphere, it will become necessary to adapt consumption to degree of efficiency in the use of natural resources. Based on the comparison between the two regions, some economic aspects of this issue are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Current production processes for meat products have been shown to have a significant impact on the environment, accounting for between 15% and 24% of current greenhouse gas emissions. Meat consumption has been increasing at a fantastic rate and is likely to continue to do so into the future. If this demand is to be met, technology used in production in the form of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) will need to be expanded. This paper estimates future meat consumption and discusses the potential aggregate environmental impact of this production if the use of CAFOs is expanded. I first separate meat into beef, chicken and pig products and estimate the elasticities associated with each product in order to forecast the world demand for meat. Using research on the environmental impact of food production in the US, which uses one of the most efficient CAFO processes in the world, I then calculate the total potential greenhouse emissions of this meat production and discuss the impact of these consumption patterns. I find that, under an expanded CAFO system, meat production in the future will still be a large producer of greenhouse gases, accounting for up to 6.3% of current greenhouse gas emissions in 2030. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Analysis of household consumption and its environmental impact remains one of the most important topics in sustainability research. Nevertheless, much past and recent work has focused on domestic national averages, neglecting both the growing importance of international trade on household carbon footprint and the variation between households of different income levels and demographics. Using consumer expenditure surveys and multi-country life cycle assessment techniques, this paper analyzes the global and distributional aspects of American household carbon footprint. We find that due to recently increased international trade, 30% of total US household CO2 impact in 2004 occurred outside the US. Further, households vary considerably in their CO2 responsibilities: at least a factor of ten difference exists between low and high-impact households, with total household income and expenditure being the best predictors of both domestic and international portions of the total CO2 impact. The global location of emissions, which cannot be calculated using standard input–output analysis, and the variation of household impacts with income, have important ramifications for polices designed to lower consumer impacts on climate change, such as carbon taxes. The effectiveness and fairness of such policies hinges on a proper understanding of how income distributions, rebound effects, and international trade affect them. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In 2004, the U.S. Department of the Interior''s Minerals Management Service estimated that 49% of the oil and 57% of the natural gas yet to be discovered offshore in the United States are located in the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf region. While the existence of these energy resources is critical to the nation''s future economic well being, of equal importance is the amount of already extracted energy that will be required to deliver the new fuel to society in a useful form. The difference between the two energy quantities is the net supply. In many respects, net energy is the most relevant measure of fuel supply because it represents the energy available to produce final-demand economic goods and services. Unfortunately, there currently exists no standard procedure for determining net energy, and so the data are extremely limited and inconsistent. In this paper, we present an “energy return on investment”, or “EROI”-based approach. EROI is defined as the ratio of gross energy produced by an energy supply process to the total, direct plus indirect, energy cost of its production. If the EROI of an energy supply process is known, then it''s net energy output can be derived easily given gross production data. Below, we specify an empirical computer model programmed to simulate the productivity dynamics of offshore energy extraction in the Gulf of Mexico and estimate the EROI of the "offshore process" over a twenty-year period (1985–2004). At the conclusion of the simulation, the model calculates the EROI of the process to range from 10 to 25, depending on how energy costs have been defined. In comparison, it has been estimated that the EROI of U.S. domestic petroleum extraction in the 1930s was approximately 100. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Numerous communities in the United States have been willing to use public funds to protect open space. The amount of money allocated for open space protection by local and state governments exceeds the budget of the largest federal land protection program in the U.S., the Conservation Reserve Program. This paper analyzes what types of municipalities hold open-space referenda and the level of support for these referenda. Factors that increased the probability of a municipality holding an open space referendum from 2000 to 2004 were large population, low population density, rapid growth of the surrounding area, and highly educated and environmentally-concerned residents. Increases in median household income up to $100,000 increased the likelihood of a vote, but further increases in income beyond $100,000 decreased the likelihood. For municipalities holding an open space referendum, factors that increased support for passage of the referendum were rapid growth, low unemployment rates, highly educated residents, and no new taxes. Given high levels of support for open space referenda (76% of municipal-level referenda held from 2000 through 2004 passed) the spatial pattern of locally-managed open space will be largely determined by the factors that affect referenda appearance on a municipal ballot. This conclusion suggests that locally-managed conservation hotspots will cluster around fast-growing affluent communities with highly educated residents. Such hotspots may or may not align with overall conservation priorities. Non-governmental and environmental organizations should focus efforts on helping communities in locally-managed conservation coldspots secure open space. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores the tradeoff between resource extraction and net carbon sequestration in managing representative timber stands in the state of New Hampshire in the northeastern United States. In the absence of policies to promote forest carbon storage, land owners have incentives to employ clear-cut harvesting regimes with relatively short rotation periods. Under conservative assumptions regarding the social benefits of carbon storage, optimal rotation periods are extended by between 16 and 133 years depending on the forest type under consideration. If policy-makers pursued a cost-effective strategy to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at twice the pre-industrial norm, optimal rotation periods would be extended by a full 180–347 years. The analysis suggests that partial harvesting regimes (in which approximately 35% of timber volume is removed at 15-year intervals after the timber stand reaches an initial age of 45 years) provide relatively high net benefits under a variety of circumstances. This finding is relevant because partial harvesting is an accepted and relatively common practice that could be adopted more widely. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper assesses the potential agri-environmental impacts on the United States of liberalizing world agricultural trade. We examine how the elimination of all agricultural policy distortions in all trading countries might influence agricultural production decisions and subsequently affect environmental quality in the United States. The estimated changes in U.S. agricultural production under the ambitious assumption of full agricultural trade liberalization are well within the bounds of average annual variation for agricultural commodity production (Fig. 2). In this context, our results suggest that, for the United States as a whole, environmental impacts stemming from such hypothesized trade shocks would also fall within the average annual variation. This generalization aside, we note that the estimated changes in commodity production and subsequent environmental impacts are not uniform across the landscape, with increases in agricultural production and the environmental indicators in some regions or sectors and decreases in others. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper develops a forestland management model for the three states in the South Central United States (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi). Forest type and land-use shares are estimated to be a function of economic and physical variables. The results suggest that while historically pine plantations in this region have been established largely on old agricultural land, in the future pine plantations are likely to occur on converted hardwood-forest lands. This shift in the supply of land for plantations could have large effects on above-ground carbon storage and other ecosystem services. Subsidies of approximately $12–27 per ha per year would maintain the area of hardwood forests and reduce carbon emissions from the above-ground and product pool carbon stocks over the next 30 years. Across the several scenarios considered, results suggest that maintaining hardwoods could be an efficient carbon sequestration alternative. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: It has been argued that the traditional regulatory approach of the Endangered Species Act, based on land-use restrictions, has failed to protect endangered species on private land. In response, there has been a call for the use of incentives to complement this regulatory approach. This paper examines the potential of incentives programs to elicit conservation-oriented management choices from landowners. Data obtained from a survey of non-industrial private forest owners in Oregon and Washington is used to examine the effectiveness of various incentives. The results indicate that incentives, in particular compensation and assurances, can be effective in increasing the conservation effort provided by landowners. The results also suggest that conservation policy for private lands could be improved by relying on a combination of incentives, including financial incentives and assurances, rather than exclusively on the threat of regulation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Carbon sequestration is a temporal process in which carbon is continuously being stored/released over a period of time. Different methods of carbon accounting can be used to account for this temporal nature including annual average carbon, annualized carbon, and ton-year carbon. In this paper, starting by exposing the underlying connections among these methods, we examine how the comparisons of sequestration projects are affected by these methods and the major factors affecting them. We explore the empirical implications on carbon sequestration policies by applying these accounting methods to the Upper Mississippi River Basin, a large and important agriculture area in the US. We found that the differences are significant in terms of the location of land that might be chosen and the distribution of carbon sequestration over the area, although the total amount of carbon sequestered does not differ considerably across programs that use different accounting methods or different values of the major factors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In light of concerns that structural changes to US production may not be accompanied by similar changes to US consumption, this paper provides a detailed examination of US environmental load displacement over the period 1974–2001. The forces that drive such displacement are also examined, with particular attention paid to the scale and composition of US consumption, the share of imports in consumption, the role of environmental regulations and the potential impact of NAFTA. It is found that the USA as a whole has experienced environmental load displacement over the period under consideration, with the extent of this displacement seeming to increase over the last decade. It would appear to be the increasing scale of US trade that is increasing environmental load displacement. Indeed, the composition of US imports and exports have become significantly cleaner over the period considered. However, although imports from Mexico have grown more rapidly than exports to Mexico, no evidence is found to suggest that NAFTA is increasing displacement to Mexico. With regard to US domestic consumption patterns, although they have become cleaner, a greater share than ever is now met via imports. Sectoral pollution abatement costs are found to be a determinant of this increasing share of imports in domestic consumption. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Throughout the western United States, production ranches are being subdivided into recreation-oriented ‘ranchettes’. This change has dramatic impacts on local environmental and economic viability. Ranchettes fall in a gap in the economic literature between production agriculture and residential uses. This paper presents the first hedonic model for ranchettes, introducing the use of remote sensing vegetative indices and the use of sale status of adjacent ranchettes as explanatory variables. Parcel level sale data in Yavapai County, Arizona is combined with satellite greenness indices. It is found that increased greenness raises sale prices. Access to roads, cities, and neighbors also increase sale prices, implying that isolation is a disamenity and that it may be beneficial for policymakers to encourage ranchette grouping. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

For some time now, ecological economists have been putting forward a ‘threshold hypothesis’—the notion that when macroeconomic systems expand beyond a certain size, the additional cost of growth exceeds the flow of additional benefits. In order to support their belief, ecological economists have developed a number of similar indexes to measure and compare the benefits and costs of growth (e.g. the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, ISEW, and the Genuine Progress Indicator, GPI). In virtually every instance where an index of this type has been calculated for a particular country, the movement of the index appears to reinforce the existence of the threshold hypothesis. Of late, a number of observers have cast doubt over the validity of these alternative indexes. One of the concerns commonly expressed is the supposed lack of a theoretical foundation to support the ISEW, the GPI, and other related indexes. By adopting a concept of income and capital outlined by Fisher (Nature of Capital and Income. A. M. Kelly, New York, 1906), this paper demonstrates that these alternative indexes are theoretically sound but, in order to be broadly accepted, require the continuous development of more robust valuation methods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Economics has been defined as the science of allocation of scarce resources towards alternative ends. This definition implies that the first step in economic analysis is to determine what ends are desirable for society. Most sectors of the society would agree that sustainability is a desirable end, but there is little agreement as to what a sustainable future would look like. The University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics sponsored a democratic future search process designed to create a relatively detailed, shared vision of a sustainable and desirable USA in the year 2100. This paper presents the vision developed at that conference, examines the resources required to achieve the vision, and assesses the suitability of market mechanisms for allocating the required resources towards the desired ends. We find that markets are not efficient mechanisms for allocation in this case, and propose the institutions of a ‘strong democracy’ as a promising alternative. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]