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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]

• International borrowing is introduced in an optimal exogenous growth model, with exhaustible natural resources. • Access to international financial markets does not enable economic growth to be sustainable, with a constant interest rate. • With a debt-elastic interest rate, consumption can grow for a while before decreasing in the long run. This paper studies the optimal growth path of a natural resource-rich country, which can borrow from international financial markets. I explore to what extent international borrowing can overcome resource scarcity in a small open economy, in order to have sustainable growth. First, a benchmark model with a constant interest rate and technical progress is set up to see if the economy's growth can be sustainable in the long run. Secondly, the case of a debt elastic interest rate is analysed. The main finding of this paper is that borrowing on international capital markets does not permit sustainable growth for a country with exhaustible natural resources, when the interest rate is constant. Nevertheless, when the interest rate is endogenized, the consumption growth rate can be positive before declining. [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]

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]

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]

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]

Many studies have been focusing on the impact of the shale gas boom on our society, but the reverse relationship is not well documented. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of oil and gas prices on shale gas drilling activities. We analyze the well-level production data from all major producing shale gas plays in the United States (US) and identify a major productivity shock in 2009. We then estimate the price elasticity of shale gas drilling using the econometric methods. Our results show that the oil price elasticity increases from insignificant in the pilot stage (2000–2008) to 1.1 (significant) in the expansion stage (2009–2016), and the gas price elasticity increases from insignificant in the pilot stage to 0.6 (significant) in the expansion stage. This is the first quantitative estimation of shale gas drilling responsiveness to oil and gas prices based on near-full-sample well-level drilling data while taking account the structural break. The change in price elasticities indicates that the shale gas drilling becomes more responsive to oil and gas prices after the major productivity shock around 2009. The high oil-price elasticity after 2009 shows the importance of natural gas condensate in supporting shale gas drilling. The estimated oil and gas elasticities are important to forecasting shale gas supply and economic impacts in the new normal. • Examine the influence of energy prices on shale gas drilling and production. • Define two phases in shale gas development: the pilot stage and expansion stage. • Estimate the price elasticities using play-level fixed effects model for the first time. • Oil price elasticity increases from insignificant to 1.1 after the productivity shock. • Gas prices elasticity increases from insignificant to 0.6 across the structural break. [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]

Abstract This paper aims at extending the concept of conditional natural resource curse and examining the quantity as well as the quality of public spending as the main drivers of the oil curse in oil exporting countries. Using nonlinear threshold models, there is evidence in favor of non-linear relationship between oil incomes and economic performances. We show that highly oil dependent countries are more likely to experience inefficiencies in government decision and, by extension, oil revenues misallocation leading to underdevelopment. Relying on human capital as the mirror of the quantity as well as the quality of government spending in education, we find a similar pattern. The alteration in government efficiency is the main mechanism through which oil incomes lead to poor economic performances. Indeed, the direct contribution of oil incomes to total output is rather positive, even if the magnitude of this effect is likely to decrease with the relative level of oil dependence. The estimates indicate that the non-linear model is the better for explaining economic growth divergences across oil exporting countries as well as for reconciling the conflicting results from the empirical literature of the oil curse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania has recently begun the exploration of shale gas reserves and, it is expected that these unconventional resources to be exploited by hydraulic fracturing. The use of this technology is controversial in high-populated areas, where the economic, social and especially the environmental impact is practically unknown. However, for the public opinion, the shale gas exploitation is presented as an operation triggering no major risks. Therefore, several agreements were concluded between the Romanian authorities and the major players in the exploitation field. Against this background, our paper shows that the shale gas exploitation has no real benefits for the Romanian citizens. More precisely, we conduct an exhaustive cost-benefit analysis, considering the economic, social and environmental consequences of the shale gas exploitation, and we show that in the long run, the costs considerably overlap the benefits. The use of hydraulic fracturing procedure, which implies huge costs with the water consumption and wastewater treatment, influences the outcome of our investigation. These findings are sustained by the sensitivity analysis we have performed. [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]