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This paper estimates the dynamic conditional correlations in the returns on WTI oil one-month forward prices, and one-, three-, six-, and twelve-month futures prices, using recently developed multivariate conditional volatility models. The dynamic correlations enable a determination of whether the forward and various futures returns are substitutes or complements, which are crucial for deciding whether or not to hedge against unforeseen circumstances. The models are estimated using daily data on WTI oil forward and futures prices, and their associated returns, from 3 January 1985 to 16 January 2004. At the univariate level, the estimates are statistically significant, with the occasional asymmetric effect in which negative shocks have a greater impact on volatility than positive shocks. In all cases, both the short- and long-run persistence of shocks are statistically significant. Among the five returns, there are ten conditional correlations, with the highest estimate of constant conditional correlation being 0.975 between the volatilities of the three-month and six-month futures returns, and the lowest being 0.656 between the volatilities of the forward and twelve-month futures returns. The dynamic conditional correlations can vary dramatically, being negative in four of ten cases and being close to zero in another five cases. Only in the case of the dynamic volatilities of the three-month and six-month futures returns is the range of variation relatively narrow, namely (0.832, 0.996). Thus, in general, the dynamic volatilities in the returns in the WTI oil forward and future prices can be either independent or interdependent over time.

This paper discusses a methodology to assess the performances of tourism management of local governments when economic and environmental aspects are considered as equally relevant. In particular, the focus is on the comparison and efficiency assessment of Italian municipalities located on the costal areas. In order to assess the efficiency status of the considered management units, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a methodology for evaluating the relative efficiency of decision making units, is applied. The efficiency index measure used in DEA analysis accounts for both environmental and economic features correlated to the tourism industry. Further, potential managerial improvements for those areas resulting far from the efficiency frontier can be investigated.

Choosing long-term goals is a key issue in the climate policy agenda. Targets should be easily measurable and feasible, but also effective in damage control. Once goals are set globally, given the uncertainty affecting long-term strategies and region-specific preferences for different policy instruments, policies will be better represented by a diversified portfolio to be revised over time, rather than “once and forever” decisions. It therefore becomes crucial to understand to what extent different strategies (or policy portfolios) are consistent with long-term targets, that is, when they imply emission paths which do not irreversibly diverge from globally set goals. The present paper aims to investigate emission paths implied by plausible policy scenarios against those derived by imposing alternative long-term targets, comparing, for example, differences in peak periods. Plausible policy scenarios are for instance Kyoto-type targets with or without participation by the U.S. and/or by developing countries. Different long-term targets considered focus on stabilisation of CO2 concentrations, radiative forcing and the increase in atmospheric temperature relative to pre-industrial levels. In order to account for the uncertainty surrounding the climate cycle, for each long-term goal multiple paths of emission - the most probable, the optimistic and the pessimistic ones - are considered in the comparison exercise. Comparative analysis is performed using a newly developed version of the FEEM-RICE model, a regional economy-climate model of optimal economic growth which is based on Nordhaus and Boyer’s RICE model crucially extended in order to account for induced technical change. In particular, both carbon and energy intensity are affected by a new endogenous variable – Technical Progress – which captures both the role of Learning by Researching and of Learning by Doing. These are in turn determined by the optimal levels of Research and Development and of Emission Abatement.

The identification of the forces that drive stock returns and the dynamics of their associated volatilities is a major concern in empirical economics and finance. This analysis is particularly relevant for determining optimal hedging strategies based on whether shocks to the volatilities of returns of oil companies stock prices, relevant stock market indexes and oil spot and futures prices are high or low, and positively or negatively correlated. This paper investigates the correlations of volatilities in the stock price returns and their determinants for the most important integrated oil companies, namely Bp (BP), Chevron-Texaco (CVX), Eni (ENI), Exxon-Mobil (XOM), Royal Dutch (RD) and Total-Fina Elf (TFE). We measure the actual co-risk in stock returns and their determinants “within” and “between” the different oil companies, using multivariate cointegration techniques in modelling the conditional mean, as well as multivariate GARCH models for the conditional variances. We focus first on the determinants of the market value of each company using the cointegrated VAR/VECM methodology. Then we specifiy the conditional variances of VECM residuals with the Constant Conditional Correlation (CCC) multivariate GARCH model of Bollerslev (1990) and the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) multivariate GARCH model of Engle (2002). The “within” and “between” DCC indicate low to high/extreme interdependence between the volatilities of companies' stock returns and the relevant stock market indexes or Brent oil prices.

The identification of the forces that drive oil stock prices is extremely important given the size of the Oil&Gas industry and its links with the energy sector and the environment. In the next decade oil companies will have to deal with international policies to contrast climate change. This issue is likely to affect companies' shareholder values. In this paper we focus on the long-run financial determinants of the stock prices of six major oil companies (Bp, Chevron-Texaco, Eni, Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total-Fina-Elf) using multivariate cointegration techniques and vector error correction models. Weekly oil stock prices are analyzed together with the relevant stock market indexes, exchange rates, spot and future oil prices over the period January 1998- April 2003. The empirical results confirm the statistical significance of the major financial variables in explaining the long-run dynamics of oil companies' stock values.

In this paper we investigate crude oil and products price dynamics. We present a comparison among ten price series of crude oils and fourteen price series of petroleum products, considering four distinct market areas (Mediterranean, North Western Europe, Latin America and North America) over the period 1994-2002. We provide first a complete analysis of crude oil and product price dynamics using cointegration and error correction models. Subsequently we use the error correction specification to predict crude oil prices over the horizon January 2002-June 2002.The main findings of the paper can be summarized as follows: a) differences in quality are crucial to understand the behaviour of crudes; b) prices of crude oils whose physical characteristics are more similar to the marker show the following regularities: b1) they converge more rapidly to the long-run equilibrium; b2) there is an almost monotonic relation between Mean Absolute Percentage Error values and crude quality, measured by API° gravity and sulphur concentration; c) the price of the marker is the driving variable of the crude price also in the short-run, irrespective of the specific geographical area and the quality of the crude under analysis.

Specializing in tourism is an option available to a number of less developed countries and regions. But is it a good option? To answer this question, we have compared the relative growth performance of 14 “tourism countries” within a sample of 143 countries, observed during the period 1980-95. Using standard OLS cross-country growth regressions, we have documented that the tourism countries grow significantly faster than all the other sub-groups considered in our analysis (OECD, Oil, LDC, Small). Moreover, we have shown that the reason why they are growing faster is neither that they are poorer than the average; nor that they have particularly high saving/investment propensities; nor that they are very open to trade. In other words, the positive performance of the tourism countries is not significantly accounted for by the traditional growth factors of the Mankiw, Romer and Weil type of models. Tourism specialization appears to be an independent determinant. A corollary of our findings is that the role played by the tourism sector should not be ignored by the debate about whether smallness is harmful for growth (e.g. Easterly and Kraay (2000), who conclude that there is no growth disadvantage in smallness). Half of the thirty countries classified as microstates in this literature are heavily dependent on tourism. Once this distinction is adopted, it is easy to see that the small tourism countries perform much better than the remaining small countries. In our findings, smallness per se can be bad for growth, while the opposite is true when smallness goes together with a specialization in tourism.

At the end of 2002, FEEM celebrated a major achievement in its publication history: 1000 published working papers. This paper provides an analysis of FEEM working papers according to different viewpoints. First, it assesses the evolution of the contents of FEEM working papers by identifying the main research areas that they cover and how these research areas have evolved over time. Then, it quantifies the success of FEEM working papers by computing the number of downloads from FEEM web site and the quantity and quality of subsequent publications in top economic journals. Finally, it compares the number of working papers published by FEEM with those published by other leading research institutions both in Europe and the US.

This paper re-examines the issue of asymmetries in the transmission of shocks to crude oil prices onto the retail price of gasoline. Relative to the previous literature, the distinguishing features of the present paper are: i) use of updated and comparable data to carry out an international comparison of gasoline markets; ii) two-stage modeling of the transmission of oil price shocks to gasoline prices (first refinery stage and second distribution stage), in order to assess possible asymmetries at either one or both stages; iii) use of asymmetric error correction models to distinguish between asymmetries that arise from short-run deviations in input prices and from the speed at which the gasoline price reverts to its long-run level; iv) explicit, possibly asymmetric, role of the exchange rate, as crude oil is paid for in dollars whereas gasoline sells for different sums of national currencies; v) bootstrapping of F tests of asymmetries, in order to overcome the low-power problem of conventional testing procedures. In contrast to several previous findings, the results generally point to widespread differences in both adjustment speeds and short-run responses when input prices rise or fall.

This paper presents an estimate of the costs of reducing CO2 emissions asagreed in Kyoto by Annex 1 countries. Unlike most of the existing literature, this paper uses an Almost Ideal Demand System model for energyproducts to estimate the role of each country within the Annex 1 market. A major result is the provision of marginal (and total) abatement costs foreach. The recent position of the US is also discussed, showing the cost ofsome alternative outcomes.

The number of studies seeking to empirically characterize the reduced-form relationship between a country economic growth and the quantity of pollutants produced in the process has recently increased significantly. In several cases researchers have found evidence pointing to an inverted-U "environmental Kuznets" curve. In the case of a major greenhouse gas, CO2, however, the evidence is at best mixed. This paper attempts to shed further light on this issue by using a newly developed dataset on emissions and by employing a new highly flexible functional form.

This paper presents an estimation of the cost of reducing CO2 emissions as agreed in Kyoto by Annex I countries. Unlike most of the existing literature, this paper focuses on European Union countries' abatement costs and, using a simple model, estimates the role of each EU country within a EU market as well as an Annex 1 market. As a major result, marginal (and total) abatement costs for each EU country (as well as the EU total cost) are presented. Some conclusions on the redistribution of income among market participants related to the trading system are also shown.

The number of studies seeking to empirically characterize the reduced-form relationship between a country's economic growth and the quantity of various pollutants produced has recently increased significantly. In several cases researchers have found evidence in favor of an inverted-U "environmental Kuznets" curve. In the case of a major greenhouse gas, CO2, however, the evidence is at best mixed. This paper attempts to shed further light on this issue by using a newly developed data set covering over one hundred countries around the world for the last twenty five years and by considering alternative functional forms together with an effort to rigorously discriminate among competing alternatives.

Having grown faster than world GDP since the 1950s, international tourism is today one of the most important tradable sectors, with expenditure on tourist goods and services representing some 8% of total world export receipts and 5% of world GDP. Starting from a broad perspective, two main facts could be pointed out: a) countries specialised in the tourism sector have experienced in the recent past a good economic performance and b) they have a (relatively) small dimension. This paper examines these facts considering with particular attention the dimension point of view. We use a two-sector endogenous growth model to define the conditions required for small countries with a relative large endowment of natural resource to specialise in tourism and to enter the faster growth path. A model based on the size of the natural resource suitable for tourism development is presented and discussed.