Search

Purpose: Despite the huge financial resources associated with oil, Nigeria has consistently recorded poor growth performance. Therefore, this study aims to examine how corruption and oil rent influence Nigeria's economic performance during the 1996–2021 period. Design/methodology/approach: Various estimation techniques were used. These include the bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds-testing, dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), the fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and the canonical cointegration regression (CCR) estimators and the Toda–Yamamoto causality. Findings: The bounds testing results provide evidence of a cointegrating relationship between the variables. In addition, the results of the ARDL, DOLS, CCR and FMOLS estimators demonstrate that oil rent and corruption have a significant positive impact on growth. Further, the results indicate that human capital and financial development enhance economic growth, whereas domestic investment and unemployment rates slow down long-term growth. Additionally, the causality test results illustrate the presence of a one-way causality from oil rent to economic growth and a bi-directional causal relationship between corruption and economic growth. Originality/value: Existing studies focused on the effects of either oil rent or corruption on growth in Nigeria. Little attention has been paid to the exploration of how the rent from oil and the pervasiveness of corruption contribute to the performance of the Nigerian economy. Based on the outcome of this study, strategies and policies geared towards reducing oil dependence and the pervasiveness of corruption, enhancing human capital and financial development and reducing unemployment are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Sustainable marketing practices foster a company and its stakeholders' environmental, social, and economic well-being while promoting products and services. An integrated approach to sustainability recognises these three interdependent pillars, seeking to unite together. Investing in renewable energy has triple-bottom-line benefits – reducing greenhouse gas emissions, creating jobs, and promoting economic growth. Sustainable marketing practices can be a win-win for companies and the environment. Need of the Study: Studying and understanding the sustainable development goals (SDGs) are crucial for India and worldwide. Sustainable marketing is becoming increasingly important for companies as they seek to meet the growing demand for sustainable products and services. Sustainable marketing practices can help businesses reduce environmental impact, promoting eco-friendly products and services. Purpose of the Study: The study focused on achieving the SDGs requires addressing all three pillars of sustainability together. The study explored the different sustainable marketing practices that companies adopt worldwide, how they contribute to environmental, social and economic stability, the benefits of such practices, and the challenges companies face in implementing them. Methodology: The study is based on secondary data – 10 companies, out of which 5 brands are among the top 10 brands (Souromi, 2023) and 5 are within the top 20 international sustainable brands (Fashinza, 2020) belonging to the textile industry worldwide, were chosen and their sustainable marketing practices were identified and analysed. Findings: The study highlights standard sustainable marketing practices adopted by different companies worldwide in the textile industry, exploring the contribution of sustainable marketing practices in achieving SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary motivation of this paper is the lack of consensus on the impact of renewable energy (RE) and research and development (R&D) expenditure on CO2 emissions in the literature. Current literature has mostly ignored the spillover effect of R&D on CO2 emissions by increasing the intensity effect of technology, leading to biased results. Further, little is known about the impact of previous epidemics on CO2 emissions. This study fills these gaps by evaluating the spillover effects of RE and R&D on CO2 emissions in a global panel of 54 countries from 2003 to 2017. Using a two-way time- and spatial-fixed-effects panel analysis, we find both income-induced and scale effects of economic growth are present in our panel, though the scale effect is the dominant one. Our findings indicate that economic growth increases CO2 emissions at a decreasing rate, validating the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis, and that urbanization and foreign trade worsen the environment. We also find that epidemic episodes before COVID-19 had a nonsignificant impact on CO2 emissions internationally. More importantly, our results confirm the presence of both the intensity and scale effects of R&D, with the intensity effect being the dominant one. We find overwhelming evidence that global R&D investment led to an overall (direct plus spillover) reduction of CO2 emissions, driven by its spillover effect, through two channels: RE and economic growth. Finally, we find that RE installations assist with reducing CO2 emissions internationally, though RE composition and state of R&D can lead to different findings. Our findings have significant policy implications for sustainable development. Our RE and R&D-spillover results support the policy recommendation of shifting to high-tech clean energy sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a panel analysis for 28 African countries that focusses on investigating the mediating effect of economic complexity via resource-growth model in Africa between 1995 and 2019. We utilise the pool mean group (PMG) framework to analyse the panel series. Empirical result reveals that natural resources positively but insignificantly impact short- and long-run growth. For economic complexity, it exerts a significantly negative effect on growth in the short term but has a long-term favourable effect that is significant on growth. More so, the conditional impact of economic complexity and resource rent on economic growth is positive in both short- and long-run but only significant in the long run. Lastly, the study employs the economic complexity index plus to confirm the robustness of the empirical results. We therefore conclude that economic complexity is an important channel for promoting long-term resource blessing in Africa. The study then makes policies to improve the resource-growth link via the economic complexity channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the gold mining sector has adapted and evolved in developing countries since the onset of the global pandemic. A major criticism of capital-intensive gold mines has been that they occur as enclaves which fail to catalyze local economic development. Pre-pandemic, the pressure applied by NGOs and donors on gold mining companies to 'de-enclave' was steadily building. It has since dissipated, however, because many governments have declared mining an 'essential' industry. This decision has further entrenched the sector's enclavity by justifying companies' moves to continue operating in isolation and abandon their traditional Corporate Social Responsibility strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of urbanization, institutional quality and other variables on environmental sustainability risk among economies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Environmental sustainability risk is examined from three main perspectives – emission of gases inimical to the environment (CO2 emissions), exploitation of land and water resources (ecological footprint) and exploitation of resources devoid of the requisite savings and education expenditure (genuine sustainability risk). Empirical analyses were performed using the Limited Information Maximum Likelihood (LIML) Instrumental Variable estimation technique. Estimated results suggest that urbanization, population growth and increase commodity prices on the global market (for key export commodities) worsen CO2 emissions among economies in the sub-region. The results further suggest that urbanization, population growth, governance and institutional structures increase resource exploitation. Additional results suggest that institutional quality lessens adverse effect urbanization has on environmental sustainability risk (CO2 emissions) and genuine sustainability risk; but exacerbates the impact urbanization has on ecological footprint. Given these findings, this study recommends conscious efforts at improving governance and institutional structures among governments in the sub-region to lessen adverse effect of urbanization and population growth on environmental sustainability risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study pinpoints three current factors that could be momentous in a possible transition to marine mining, namely reserve-dependent capital efficiency (accessibility and grade-dependent output per unit capital), cross-sector competition (competition between two separate mining sectors), and asymmetric mineral security considerations (e.g., the resource owner(s) and government(s) tied to a sector desires production for profit and security reasons). Moreover, four conceptual optimization problems are explored to specify the potential roles of said factors in a possible transition. The first problem considers a principal agent, who make decisions on behalf of resource owner(s), government(s) and producer(s), and invests and extracts to maximize the net present value of extraction from onshore and offshore reserves while facing reserve-independent capital efficiency. The second problem considers the same as the first, except here, the principal meets reserve-dependent capital efficiency. The third problem considers two principals, each representing resource owner(s), government(s), and producer(s) tied to a sector, who invest and extract to maximize the net present value of extraction from the respective reserves subject to the decisions of the other principal. Finally, the last problem considers a duopoly setting in which the marine principal values both financial gain and mineral security. The results illustrate that reserve-dependent capital efficiency, cross-sector competition, and mineral security considerations can, in different ways, drive a possible transition to marine mining. Possible counter effective factors are highlighted and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal mining has a deep history in the Appalachian region, where some local economies have heavily relied on coal production. While coal employment in the region has generally been in a long-term decline, there is variation across counties, with coal employment still representing a large share of total employment for some counties. This paper explores how coal activity—measured by coal employment, coal employment as a share of total employment, coal production, and the number of coal mines—impacts locally provided funding for K-12 education. Using county-level data that spans from 1995 to 2016, results indicate that increases in coal activity have a positive and significant impact on local revenues per student though effects are modest. The findings are robust across different specifications. The implication is that declines in coal activity can hamper school funding, in turn affecting adequate investments in education that are essential for economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We employ an ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration and Unrestricted Error Correction Models to estimate the relationship between income and CO2 emissions per capita in 21 Latin American Countries (LACs) over 1960–2017. Using time series, we estimate six different specifications of the model to take into account the independent effect on CO2 emissions per capita of different factors considered as drivers of different dynamics of CO2 emissions along the development path. This approach allows to address two concerns. First, the estimation of the model controlling for different variables serves to assess if the EKC hypothesis is supported by evidence in any of the LACs considered and to evaluate if this evidence is robust to different model specifications. Second, the inclusion of control variables accounting for the effect on CO2 emissions is directed at increasing our understanding of CO2 emissions drivers in different countries. The EKC hypothesis effectively describes the long-term income-emissions relationship only in a minority of LACs and, in many cases, the effect on CO2 emissions of different factors depends on the individual country experience and on the type and quantity of environmental policies adopted. Overall, these results call for increased environmental action in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of genetic improvement policies on dairy production, with a particular emphasis on Artificial Insemination projects. Furthermore, we evaluate the major barriers and challenges of Artificial Insemination projects including water scarcity. Using the data-driven synthetic control method, we found evidence that the Artificial Insemination projects caused milk production to increase by 59 thousand tons on average from 2008 to 2018. This could be correlated with food security (i.e., synergies), but increased dairy production may also place strain on Senegal's water resources (i.e. trade-offs). To achieve a more efficient outcome, Senegalese dairy policies should consider the negative externalities of these projects on water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its tremendous natural resources, on the one hand, and its poor economic performance, on the other hand, the role of mining resources in the Guinean economy is often seen as a paradox. Guinea is one of the world's major bauxite producers for several decades. Based on this fact, this study aims to investigate the relationship between bauxite mining and economic growth in Guinea. We address this issue using both autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) models on annual data from Guinea over the period 1986–2020. Our results reveal that bauxite production has a positive impact on economic performance in Guinea. More precisely, the results indicate that, overall, bauxite production has a positive impact on both GDP and GDP per capita both in the short and long run. However, overall, this impact is statistically significant only in the short run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocated across the international community for more than 15 years, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is now widely recognised as a hallmark anti-corruption scheme in the extractive sector. This study presents an assessment of the relationship between EITI membership and countries' progress in tackling corruption. It provides the first study that looks at this issue using a 'state-of-the-art' indicator called the Bayesian Corruption Indicator. It also introduces an innovative estimation strategy combining entropy balancing with a difference-in-difference framework to address the baseline inequalities that exist between member and non-member countries. Contrary to the findings of many leading studies, this analysis finds corruption scores have improved significantly among EITI member countries. In particular, the evidence is strongest when we examine a sub-group of EITI members designated fully compliant with the initiative's transparency standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the driving forces behind household waste generation in the Portuguese municipalities. The focus of the analysis is to empirically test the validity of the waste Kuznets curve (wKc) hypothesis, which postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between waste generation and economic activity. Panel data is collected for 307 municipalities over the 2009–2018 period. Estimating the fixed-effects model and its dynamic versions of the waste generation equation, the decoupling hypothesis is confirmed, although it is only observed in the richest region of Lisbon and three other municipalities. Results suggest that the productive structure of the local economies is important for explaining waste generation behavior. Population ageing contributes negatively to waste generation, while population density and the development dichotomy are not important drivers in this process. Finally, tourism inflows have a positive effect on municipal waste generation, although the size of the impact is minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the economy and the environment is not straightforward and is influenced by a multitude of factors. Ideally, economic growth would not damage environmental quality and environmental protection would not hinder economic growth. Achieving this decoupling often requires environmental policy, but the analysis of specific policy instruments and their necessary levels to achieve it is rare. In this paper, we use a stylized equilibrium model to explore distinct policy instruments under which relative decoupling and absolute decoupling between economic growth and emissions occur. In our model, final-goods production uses polluting (non-renewable) and non-polluting (renewable) resources. The government taxes emissions and subsidizes renewables production. In the empirical application, we focus on the case of electricity generation. Results show that, with a growing subsidy, relative decoupling exists. Achieving absolute decoupling is harder, but it occurs for a certain interval of the subsidy growth rate. For that purpose, the choice of the tax and subsidy growth rates is more important than the choice of the initial levels for these instruments. The choice of the subsidy growth rate indicates the prioritization between the economy and the environment. A lower subsidy growth rate favors the environment, while a higher one favors the economy. The tax growth rate dictates the distance between the output growth rate and the emissions growth rate. The higher the tax growth rate, the higher the difference between them. In sum, the government can decide between attaining higher output growth rates, higher emissions decreasing rates, or an intermediate situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peru is the second-largest producer and exporter of copper in the world. This paper proposes a novel approach to assess short-run and long-run effects of copper on Peru's recent economic growth. Annual data over the 2014–2018 period were used to calculate a Mining Contribution Index (MCI). An institutional quality indicator of the World Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum measured the dependence of Peruvian economic growth on mining and the quality of its institutions, respectively. Then, monthly data during the period 2005–2018 were used to run vector autoregressive (VAR) and vector error correction (VEC) models to measure copper's effects on the country's economy over time. VAR-VEC models included copper production, exports, international price, investment, taxes paid by producing companies, and Peru's gross domestic product (GDP). Stationarity and causality of variables were verified with the Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Granger tests, respectively. Due to the presence of non-stationary variables, a VEC model was implemented to forecast short- and long-run effects. The main results show that real GDP responds to copper output and other related explanatory variables differently, depending upon the instrument applied. Peruvian GDP has increased dependence on copper mining. The quality of its institutions could explain the presence of Dutch Disease or resource curse theory. Short- and long-run effects of copper output on GDP were generally statistically non-significant. GDP was statistically significant in relation to other mining variables, such as copper exports and the international price of copper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliance of modern economic activities on the use of energy, most of which still comes from non-renewable sources, provokes concerns regarding the most efficient utilization of energy inputs in production. While most theory expects directed technological change to be biased towards the non-renewable input, there is rare macro-level evidence that technological change is actually biased towards energy rather than other main inputs. To fill this gap, we apply stochastic frontier analysis to country data regarding output produced with capital, labor and energy, and estimate a set of indicators for technological change. Findings show that technological change is biased the most towards energy in general. In particular, although different groups of countries exhibit various patterns, there is strong evidence that technological change favors energy more than labor. This is in line with the theoretical expectation that technological change ought to be biased towards the non-renewable input rather than the renewable ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a dataset on 83 countries covering the years 1960–2009, we find a negative indirect effect of the share of renewable natural capital in wealth on economic growth transmitted through demographic factors, more specifically, population fertility. In contrast, in countries with lower income inequality and higher institutional quality, the share of non-renewable natural capital in wealth has a direct positive impact on growth. We also find that countries with higher income per capita, human development, and institutional quality have a higher share of renewable natural capital per capita, but a lower share of renewable natural capital in wealth. Renewable natural capital is thus valuable for the population and of primary concern for empowered countries, even though it contributes less to wealth and economic growth. Our results raise serious questions about the way wealth and growth are defined in economics when one investigates the impact of natural capital and point to the importance of preserving natural capital, particularly, in less developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly presumed that economies specializing in mining and oil production have high national income inequality. The research testing this proposition is equivocal, no doubt because of small sample sizes and missing inequality data for the majority of mining and oil economies. This paper makes use of a large sample of income inequality data that is comprehensive in its coverage of mining and oil economies. Mine production is found to cause higher national income inequality on a gross, pre-tax basis and a net, post-tax and post-redistribution basis. Botswana is prime example of a mining economy having both high gross and net income inequality. Oil production, on the other hand, does not cause higher gross or net income inequality. If anything, oil is associated with reduced gross and net income inequality. The mechanism for this difference from mining is not clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have the greatest potential for renewable energy consumption in the world and is likely to be the most vulnerable to the horrendous effects of climate change. Unfortunately, only a few of the countries have tapped into this potential, as non-renewable energy still dominates the total energy mix of these countries. This study explores the effect of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on the environment in MENA countries from 1990 to 2016 by applying the Augmented Mean Group algorithm while accounting for urbanization, financial development, and economic growth. The panel result suggests that financial development, economic growth, and urbanization add to environmental degradation. Also, findings reveal that renewable energy does not contribute meaningfully to environmental quality, while non-renewable energy consumption significantly adds to environmental degradation. A uni-directional causality flows from urbanization, economic growth, and energy use to environmental degradation. One way to abate this damage is for countries in this region to embrace and promote the consumption of clean energy sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse structural change and its implications for labor productivity growth in Kazakhstan, Malawi, and Zambia, three resource-dependent countries, during the resource boom that lasted from 2001 to 2013. We pay particular attention to the effects of labor heterogeneity by assessing the demand for pre-determined occupations. The effects of structural change on heterogeneous labor markets are studied by developing a model to explain the observed patterns of labor migration between sectors. We use labor force survey data from Kazakhstan and census microdata for Malawi and Zambia available from the IPUMS International database. In-depth examinations are performed using a decomposition technique and multinomial logit regression to examine labor demand patterns. Results show that private services experienced the largest increase in employment across all occupations and relative skill deepening. Substantial decreases in managers occurred in public services. The results indicate that structural change is fundamental in shaping the allocation of individuals across different occupations within the labor market. Moreover, during a resource boom, the results indicate that the public sector experiences a skill-drain that may affect the quality of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can monetary policy shocks induce redistribution across natural resource rich and poor states within a federation? We conjecture that resource-rich states are capital intensive, hence their investment is more responsive to changes in monetary policy. Consequently, contractionary monetary policy shocks (e.g., increases in the interest rate) may induce redistribution from resource-poor states to resource-rich ones, via an equalizing federal transfer scheme, because investment is reduced more strongly in the latter. We test these hypotheses using a panel of U.S. states covering several decades, and find that: (1) resource-rich states are significantly and persistently more capital intensive; (2) contractionary monetary policy shocks induce a relative drop (increase) in investment (federal transfers) in resource-rich states, over the course of four years; (3) these patterns are driven by resource-induced differences in the capital share in the economy. We estimate that a one standard deviation contractionary monetary shock induces, within the first year, federal redistribution of approximately $ 2.5 billion from the resource-poor to the resource-rich states, representing about 11 % of the total average annual federal transfers received by the latter states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extractive industries are often challenged by nearby communities due to their environmental and social impacts. If proximity to resource extraction sites represents a disamenity to households, the opening of new mines should lead to a decrease in housing prices. Using evidence from more than 6000 new extraction sites in Chile, this study addresses whether the heavy environmental and social impacts of digging activities outweigh their local economic benefits to the housing market in emerging economies. Findings from a spatial difference-in-difference nearest-neighbor matching estimator reveal that households near mining activity get compensated with lower rental prices, mostly in places with high perceptions of exposure to environmental pollution. Further analysis suggests that this compensation is lower among new residents of mining towns, which constitutes evidence of a taste-based sorting across space. Results in this study bring to light the need of incorporating welfare effects of potential social and environmental disruptions in future studies addressing the economic impact of new mining operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public discussions of environmentally motivated policies include much confusing talk about job loss. Does job loss in a polluting industry mean that others should endure dirty air or that complementary policies are needed? To clarify the jobs issue, I use concepts from research on international trade policy and its effects and apply them to recent job loss in the U.S. coal industry. The case of coal illustrates the economic adjustment that could arise from an environmental policy as well as the equity, efficiency, and political issues that adjustment raises. I show that for each coal job lost, earnings in the surrounding county fell by nearly $100,000, and that one-third of those who lost jobs did not move and remained unemployed. On average, the losses affected poorer counties and exacerbated income disparities between counties. Concurrently, coal county voters shifted toward pro-coal candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, helping him win Pennsylvania. More broadly, I argue that environmental adjustment assistance of some form may improve the equity and political feasibility of environmental policies that benefit many but harm some. However, the how and when of such assistance requires further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper complements existing literature by assessing the conditional relationship between renewable energy and environmental quality in a sample of 40 African countries for the period 2002 to 2017. The empirical evidence is based on fixed effects regressions and quantile fixed effects regressions. The findings from both estimation techniques show that renewable energy consistently decreases carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Moreover, the negative effect is a decreasing function of CO2 emissions or the negative effect of renewable energy on CO2 emissions decreases with increasing levels of CO2 emissions. In other words, countries with higher levels of CO2 emissions consistently experience a less negative effect compared with their counterparts with lower levels of CO2 emissions. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how democratic institutions shape the nexus of natural resources and income inequality, under the hypothesis that democracy can help to alleviate the possible effects that resources may have on income inequality. Starting from a survey of the existing literature, we provide a cross-country regression analysis showing that the effect of natural resources on income inequality does indeed depend on democracy. Our results suggest that, if the level of democracy in a country is high, natural resources have the ability to lower inequality. This finding suggests several avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 3 decades, oil rent seeking has emerged to be a key driver of most economies around the globe. Prior to the oil boom, agriculture remain main stay of most economies especially developing economies. This present study seeks to revisit the contribution of both oil and agriculture sector in Nigeria by augmenting the neoclassical growth model by the inclusion of agriculture and oil rent as growth drivers. To do this, recent time series data from 1990 to 2017 is employed. This study adopts the use of contemporary econometrics test to investigate the theme holistically. First, stationarity test was conducted with a battery of both stationarity and unit root tests. Subsequently, Pesaran's auto regressive distributed lag bounds testing traces long-run equilibrium relationship between agriculture, oil rent, capital, labor and economic growth over the sampled period. Empirical piece of results validate the agriculture induced economic growth hypothesis, which aligns with the physiocracy school of thoughts ideology. This is against previous study; the resource curse hypothesis was not validated for this current study. Our study results show statistical significant relationship in both long- and short-run between oil rent and economic growth. These outcomes are quite revealing for decision makers and stakeholders since both sector contributes to economic growth. Based on these results, policy mix strategies were suggested in the course of the main text. Among such policies are reinforcing government and private sector participation in both sector given they show complementary role and not substitute to economic output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil and gas windfalls may lead to the Dutch disease, that is, the crowding out of the manufacturing sector due to rising wages when labor is drawn to the expanding sectors. In this paper, we exploit the fact that oil and gas discoveries contain an element of luck as well as oil price fluctuations to capture exogenous variation in oil and gas windfalls across Indonesia and identify their effects on manufacturing firms. We find that oil and gas windfalls on average cause wages as well as firms' labor productivity, output, and employment to increase, while product unit values and exit rates are unaffected. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the least productive firms are more likely to exit, and surviving low-productivity firms see relatively large expansions in output and labor productivity, while high-productivity firms see relatively high expansions in employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how subsurface ownership shapes the income effects of oil and gas extraction. For the average US county with growth in extraction from 2000 to 2014, we find that royalty income and its multiplier effect accounted for 70% of the total income gain, with each royalty dollar generating an additional 49 cents of local income. A county where residents own the subsurface captured 28 cents more of each dollar in production than one with absentee ownership. Nationally, oil and gas production increased US personal income in 2014 by $67 billion (0.5%) more than if all royalties accrued abroad. Areas with the same resource abundance can therefore experience contrasting economic outcomes because of differences in ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks to shed some light on a fluctuating commodity price and gold production. In this regard, a structural vector autoregression (VAR) was applied to observe the sensitivity of the gold price and future pricing due to changes in macroeconomic variables, and also to review changes in macroeconomic variables due to changes in the gold (commodity) price. The variables used for decomposition were the gold price, the oil price, the real effective exchange rate of the United States (US), the US Federal funds rate, and the total combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Impulse response functions, with shocks to each system, was investigated, and the forecast error variance decomposition was examined. The main results over a period of 10 years show that a shock to OECD GDP caused the gold price to increase, thus showing a positive correlation between economic output and the gold price. A shock to the oil price caused the gold price to spike over the short term, then move sideways over the long term. A shock to the US Federal funds rate caused the gold price to spike over the short term, then decrease slightly over the medium and long terms; while a shock to the real effective exchange rate of the US caused the gold price to be relatively flat and move sideways. The results show that the relationship between gold and other relevant factors are not just a simple monetary relationship as many previously assumed. The relationship between gold and oil is still dynamic, whereas exchange rate shocks might not be as significant as previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the relationship between ecological footprint, urbanization, and energy consumption by applying the ARDL estimation technique on data spanning 1965–2014 for South Africa. After applying the unit root test that accounts for a break in the data, the Bayer and Hanck (J Time Ser Anal 34:83–95, 2013) combined cointegration test affirms cointegrating relationship among the variables. Findings further reveal that economic growth and financial development exact a deteriorating impact on the environment in the short run. However, the same was not true for both energy use and urbanization. While urbanization and energy use promote environmental quality in the long run, financial development and economic growth degrade it further. The long-run findings of our study are confirmed to be robust as reported by the fully modified OLS (FMOLS), dynamic OLS (DOLS), and the canonical cointegrating regression (CCR) estimates. The direction of causality supports the energy-led growth hypothesis for South Africa. Policy outcomes and directions, and the possibility of promoting sustainable growth without degrading the environment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the channel for improving environmental quality in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). Hence, we interact non-renewable electricity consumption with capital investment to determine the mediating role of capital investment in the nexus between electricity consumption and carbon emission in BRICS. This study applies the fully modified and the dynamic ordinary least squares techniques to conduct this scientific enquiry, and the result suggests that electricity consumption and growth positively and significantly enhance the level of emissions, while capital investment significantly reduces the level of emissions in BRICS. Also, capital investment interacts with non-renewable electricity consumption to improve environmental quality in both approaches employed, thereby reversing the earlier increase in emissions caused by electricity consumption. In addition, we confirm the proposition of the environmental Kuznets curve in BRICS and conclude that capital investment is an important channel for improving environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some mineral resources are classifiable as reserves. Extensive seminal research on reserves by Tilton has identified three factors that influence whether resources are economically feasible for extraction and thus qualify as reserves. The author argues that policy, regulatory, and social factors, not or only peripherally related to economic feasibility, can also determine whether a resource qualifies as a mineral reserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological modernization theories suggest that it is hard to determine a priori the environmental effects of urbanization, while neoliberal doctrine advocates a positive role of globalization in developing economies especially in terms of reducing poverty and inequality. Yet, the environmental effect of globalization is not unanimous. This study employs second-generation panel regression techniques that account for heterogeneous slope coefficients and cross-sectional dependence to estimate the impacts that urbanization and globalization have on CO2 emissions for a panel of 44 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries for the period 1984-2016. Also, a causality test that considers both these issues is performed. The estimated coefficient of urbanization is positive, statistically significant, and highly consistent across different estimation techniques. The magnitude of the coefficient and level of significance are different in different econometric estimations. In most specifications, the estimated coefficient on the globalization variable is statistically insignificant. Urbanization is found to cause emissions. The environmental implications of these results are discussed with a set of policy recommendations for an environmentally better SSA region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary scholars and policymakers in the European Union (EU) claim that increasing material productivity improves the competitiveness of firms. However, the current evidence base has two main shortcomings. First, most studies fail to provide evidence beyond case studies, thus not considering dynamic effects and heterogeneity across firms, sectors, and countries. Second, they do not adequately take the endogeneity of changes in material productivity into account. In this paper, we investigate data from the Community Innovation Survey comprising over 52,000 firms across 23 sectors and 12 EU member states. Moreover, we take an instrumental variable approach to account for endogeneity. Our findings provide evidence for a positive and causal effect of material productivity improvements on microeconomic competitiveness for those firms that received targeted public financial support to realise eco-innovations. The effect tends to be limited to firms in certain material-intensive sectors and countries. We further show that such increases in material productivity reduce the firms' carbon dioxide footprint, thus achieving both economic and environmental objectives. Therefore, our findings provide the important policy insight that tailoring the availability of public financial supports to sector and country specific circumstances and those eco-innovations that increase material productivity is most promising in reconciling competitiveness and climate change mitigation objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses two recent household surveys, together with data from the College for Control and Monitoring of Oil Revenues, to analyse the impact of oil revenues on wellbeing in Chad. Following a multiple-correspondence analysis to estimate a synthetic household-based multidimensional wellbeing (MDW) index, we used the difference-in-difference approach to assess the impact of oil revenues on average MDW at the department level. We found evidence that departments in Chad that received significant oil transfers have a higher MDW compared to those disadvantaged by the oil-revenue-redistribution policy. We conclude that, in order to promote economic inclusion, the government of Chad should better develop oil-revenue-redistribution policies according to local development needs and target the poorest departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some empirical studies show that natural resources and physical capital are likely to be complements in the production process rather than substitutes. What is more, the assumption of substitutability in many theoretical papers leads to some counterfactual conclusions. This paper proposes a simple model of economic growth with complementarity between these two factors of production via energy production. We consider the equilibrium state of this model and derive the conditions necessary to maintain balanced growth of all macroeconomic variables. We also analyze the time to depletion of natural resources when these resources are the main energy source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the optimal carbon tax in an economy in which climate change, stemming from polluting non-renewable resource, affects the economy’s growth potential. Our main contribution is to introduce and explore the natural time lag of the climate system between emissions and damages to capital accumulation in an endogenous growth setting. This allows us to investigate how optimal climate policy, and its interplay with climate dynamics, affect long-run growth and the transition of the economy towards it. Without pollution decay, a higher speed of emissions diffusion steepens the growth profile of the economy. With pollution decay, this leads to lower short-run but higher long-run economic growth during transition. Poor understanding of the emissions diffusion process leads to suboptimal carbon taxes, resource extraction and growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem transformation and climate change evolve over long time scales. The effects of the economic decisions on the natural environment are also of a long-run character because they relate to investment decisions and capital stocks. At the same time, the economy is short-sighted and subject to different kinds of market failures. The time it takes to notice the changes and adequately address the associated problems affects the dynamics and inertia of the process. We discuss some recent contributions and new research questions that deal with time and timing in environmental and resource economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of oil governance on the extraction path of non-renewable resources is theoretically ambiguous. By employing field-level data in the South East Asia region, we utilize a change in the institutional design of oil governance in Indonesia to determine its impact on oil and gas extraction paths. From the empirical results, we infer that the move to create a separate regulatory agency and make the national oil company a purely business entity led to a reduction in the extraction path of oil, the size of which varies for different sizes of resource stock. This finding reiterates the importance of strengthening ownership rights for non-renewable resources to avoid over-extraction and facilitate more sustainable economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal has fueled China's rapid growth in recent decades, but it also severely pollutes the air and causes many health issues. The magnitude of the health damage caused by air pollution depends on the location of emission sources. In this paper, we look into the spatial distribution of coal-fired power plants, which are the major emission sources in China, and investigate the determining factors behind the distribution. We find that the driving factors are economic development and expansion of electricity grid coverage; the latter factor plays a key role in provinces that are less developed but have abundant coal resources. This suggests a way to reduce health damages caused by air pollution without harming the economy: attracting coal-fired plants to less populated areas by developing trans-province electricity trade and grid coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an equilibrium model where final-goods production uses labor and energy, and energy production uses non-polluting Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and polluting fossil fuels. Our goal is to compare two alternative Green Tax Reforms (GTRs). In one of the GTRs, carbon tax revenues are used to support Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) activities. In the other GTR, tax revenues are used to subsidize RES. The comparison between the two GTRs is focused on three indicators: output per worker, energy intensity and the ratio of renewables over non-renewables. Results show that, in theory, the GTR with the RES subsidy could benefit both the economy and the environment if resource substitution was strong enough. The GTR with CCS support necessarily decreases output since abatement only partially alleviates the tax burden. The empirical simulation indicates that, for most tax values, both GTRs imply an economic slowdown but benefit the environment. The GTR with RES subsidies appears to be preferable than the alternative one, especially for lower tax levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines alternative hypotheses of beta convergence for different measures of energy efficiency. We collect a novel set of prefecture-level data that substantially extend the breadth of the datasets ever used in this literature. GMM estimators are then used to empirically test the national and club convergence of energy efficiency among these prefectures. We find strong evidence for prefecture-level national and club convergence in energy efficiency. In particular, the listed key environmental protection (KEP) prefectures, prefectures in central and western regions and prefectures not listed as resource-based (RB) converge faster than the non-KEP prefectures, prefectures in eastern region and RB prefectures. Sensitivity analyses suggest that these results are robust to alternative measures of energy efficiency and GMM specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several decades, economists have endeavored to determine whether a sudden surge in mineral and energy extraction activity poses an albatross or boon to an economy. The “Dutch disease” version of the resource curse originates in a traditional model postulating that extensive mineral and energy production induces inter-sectoral adjustments among traded and non-traded industries and that these adjustments tend to crowd out traditional export industries such as manufacturing. This can be acutely detrimental to the long-run growth of an economy when the traditional industries produce positive learning by doing externalities. This chain of events is so frequently cited as being evident in resource-based economies that it has become stylized wisdom. This paper reviews whether modern theoretical models and empirical evidence actually support the Dutch disease. Overall, we find that the Dutch disease is by no means theoretically predicted or empirically evident within resource-based economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the first panel‐data evidence of a human health externality from the air pollution generated by surface coal mining. In West Virginia, a standard deviation increase in a county's exposure to surface coal mining is associated with 9.85 more asthma hospitalizations per 100,000 residents in a given quarter. Interpreted causally, this suggests over $11 million in hospitalization costs over the 6‐year study period. The study builds on earlier cross‐sectional research by controlling for unobserved county‐level heterogeneity, and by defining more accurate measures of exposure. Both methods are shown to reduce the bias associated with earlier estimates of coal mining's effect on health. Young and elderly women demonstrate the largest sensitivities to surface mining. Falsification tests reveal that neither hernias nor bone fractures demonstrate any relationship with surface mining activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider two models of economic growth with exhaustible natural resources and agents heterogeneous in their time preferences. In the first model, we assume private ownership of natural resources and show that every competitive equilibrium converges to a balanced-growth equilibrium with the long-run rate of growth being determined by the discount factor of the most patient agents. In the second model, natural resources are public property and the resource extraction rate is determined by majority voting. For this model, we define an intertemporal voting equilibrium and prove that it also converges to a balanced-growth equilibrium. In this scenario, the long-run rate of growth is determined by the median discount factor. Our results suggest that if the most patient agents do not constitute a majority of the population, private ownership of natural resources results in a higher rate of growth than public ownership. At the same time, private ownership leads to higher inequality than public ownership, and if inequality impedes growth, then the public property regime is likely to result in a higher long-run rate of growth. However, an appropriate redistributive policy can eliminate the negative impact of inequality on growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil-abundant countries, Iran, Iraq and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries try to improve democratic institutions and to manage their chronically big governments, while experiencing decreased world oil prices. These countries pursue open door policies. Most of the foreign revenues of the region stem from oil and gas exports. Thus, how to manage the production and exports of fossil resources is of great importance. This study aims to analyse the effects of quality of democracy, government size, and the degree of openness in explaining depletion of reserves between 1985 and 2015. After testing for panel unit root and co-integration, a panel data model was estimated considering random effects. The results indicate that democratisation and political stability causes higher depletion of oil. In addition, government size affects depletion in a non-linear form, so that oil production is maximised, when government expenditure accounts for nearly 14% of GDP, on average. Furthermore, trade openness positively impacts on the oil depletion. In this case study, higher oil depletion follows strengthening democratic foundations, resizing the public sector, expanding politico-economic ties with trade partners, and applying the modern technology in the upstream oil industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary scholars and policy makers have claimed that increasing material productivity not only reduces environmental pressures but also improves the competitiveness of economies. This is particularly relevant in the context of the European Union (EU) since it motivates its resource efficiency and circular economy agenda by referring to this assertion. However, two limitations in the literature cast doubt on the validity of the claim. First, the literature fails to clarify the concept and measurement of macroeconomic competitiveness. Second, it lacks to take the endogeneity of material productivity into account. Addressing both shortcomings, this paper reviews the concept of macroeconomic competitiveness and identifies six conventional macroeconomic indicators to approximate it. Moreover, using panel data of the 28 member states of the EU between 2000 and 2014, the causal impact of material productivity on the six indicators is estimated, instrumenting material productivity with the number of deaths from natural hazards. The results provide evidence for a positive and causal impact of the material productivity rate on the wage rate and, with lower confidence, on the current account rate, while the remaining macroeconomic indicators are not significantly affected. Overall, these results suggest to be cautious with the claim that increasing material productivity improves macroeconomic competitiveness in the EU. Particularly the positive effect on the wage rate calls for considering possibilities to channel gains from increasing material productivity into eco-innovations to reduce the magnitude of potential rebound effects and thus environmental pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the dynamics of entry and adjustment that underlies the process leading to the tragedy of the commons under two scenarios, one in which the users only react ex post to the entry of other users and the other in which the users anticipate and proact to such entry. The key to our analysis is the logic of entry based on the devaluation cost, which explains (1) why entry takes place when the incumbent users are in temporary equilibrium, (2) how this equilibrium shifts sequentially with the entry of new users, (3) why such equilibria resemble either the Cournot-Nash equilibrium of a static game or the Stackelberg type equilibrium of a dynamic game depending on the reactive or the proactive nature of the users, (4) why the stocks owned by the users in the proactive case depend on the order of entry and remain unchanged once determined at the point of entry. The speed of depletion, cumulative profits of the users, and the distribution pattern of the ownership differ significantly between the two scenarios. Our theory also explains why and how duopoly and oligopoly emerge through the process of entry and adjustment and acquire different equilibrium features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses whether and to what extent resource-rich developing countries should introduce local content policies, i.e. requirements to include local inputs in petroleum extraction activities of multinational corporations. We argue that local content needs to be seen as a public expenditure question, since local content requirements increase multinational costs, and hence reduce the taxes which can be extracted from these companies. This implies that there are opportunity costs in imposing local content requirements, since the forgone taxes can be used in others ways which could potentially do more to improve development prospects. Moreover, past experiences of resource-rich developing countries suggest that local content policies can exacerbate key problems of patronage and rent-seeking which resource rents generate, increasing the chance that the resource wealth will prevent rather than help development. These arguments suggest that an optimal local content policy in the context of flawed institutions is a more limited one than those typically pursued by developing countries with recently discovered petroleum reserves. Using qualitative data from Tanzania, a country with recent discoveries of substantial natural gas deposits, we analyze why local content tends to become such a central issue in debates and policy processes, despite its potentially problematic aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper uses survey data from 1458 households in 60 communities from 24 districts in 5 regions of Ghana and logistic regression to examine conflicts as a contest for mineral wealth in mining communities, estimates the determinants of conflicts in these mining communities and examines how these contests could erode and/or enhance Ghana’s gains from mining. The paper finds that the likelihood of a conflict occurring in a mining area is about 56.7%. Village effect was found to be a significant positive predictor of mining conflict. Also, improvement in primary education, employment opportunities to community members of ages 25–50, the strength of institutions and the absence of small-scale miners in a mining community reduces the probability of conflicts occurring by 12.8, 35.8, 6.57 and 17.7%, respectively. While an increase in pollution levels increases the likelihood of conflicts occurring by 7.1%, primary occupation in manufacturing and services, and increase in household monthly expenditure significantly increases the likelihood of conflicts within the mining communities as the cost of living increases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]