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The issue of immiserizing growth has been largely discussed in the literature since 1958. It describes a country context contending with high volume of exports relatively to its imports on the international market that benefits from high economic growth but losses in households’ welfare. This study aims to investigate the contribution of transport infrastructure to tackle immiserizing growth in developing countries, focusing on the Cameroon economy, a contending with a significant lack in the development of road transport infrastructure. Further, the study enriches the debate on the wider economic impacts, closely related to immiserizing growth. The loss of welfare is observed upstream to the investigations, as a response to the application of two types of fiscal policies: the import tariff and the capital income tax. Through a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, the effect of road transport infrastructure is explored, using the externalities approach. This is an innovative methodology recently applied to access the economic impacts of infrastructure investment making a difference between productive and non-productive infrastructure investments. The findings reveal that productive transport infrastructure not only reduces the wider economic impact by improving households’ welfare but also enhances economic growth. A 10 percent increase in road transport infrastructure investment funded by import tariff leads to a welfare improvement of 1.94% and 1.66% in both short and long terms compared to respective losses of 0.58% and 0.15% if the generated financial funds are allocated in non-productive infrastructure such as monuments, defense etc. The similar tendency is observed for the capital income tax funding. Thus, policymakers are recommended to accentuate the road construction, in order to shorten the complex interplay between public decisions and households’ living conditions.

The worldwide increasing concern for climate change persuades policy makers to take into account also the environmental aspects when designing and assessing the effectiveness of economic policies. Fiscal reforms can be combined with environmental measures to achieve the complex target represented by economic growth and environmental protection. In this vein, this study proposes the reorganisation of federal taxation on corporate and personal income in USA, financed by the introduction of a carbon tax on economic activities. The study uses a dynamic CGE model calibrated on a US Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) with environmental accounts. The economic, socioeconomic and environmental impact assessed in this study gives two major policy recommendations: firstly, the reduction in personal income tax that is more geared to economic growth compared to the reduction in corporate income tax, and secondly, not to be detrimental for growth, the carbon tax introduction must be part of a policy framework. Indeed, if the personal income tax reduction is financed with the introduction of a carbon tax on economic activities, there is no harm to the economic growth and a benefit for the environment arises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Subsidized energy system of Iran, with its high financial burden, failed to achieve its intended economic goals, resulting in increased energy consumption and pollutant emissions. Energy product subsidies in Iran are among the highest in the world and have important implications for developing countries. This study examines the impact of subsidy removal policy on energy and emission intensities using a Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model. The findings reveal that after subsidy removal, total output experiences an annual growth of around 1.5%, with output composition changes mainly favoring agriculture and services that are less energy dependent. However, prices soar by at least 10% owing to the higher costs of energy products. The decreasing trend in energy intensity after subsidy reform is accompanied by a decrease in emission intensity. Higher prices of energy after subsidy removal and the corresponding improvement in the efficiency of energy consumption lead to lower emission intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, South Asian countries have committed their mitigation targets to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This study examines the effectiveness of these efforts by developing a dynamic computable general equilibrium-water-energy (CGE-WE) model. Using the GTAP database version 9, it examines how different sectors respond to these policies in South Asia. Besides, it argues that an improved irrigation system can reduce the output losses caused by the mitigation policies. In a nutshell, the cost of improving irrigation system is USD 159.7 million in Bangladesh, 224 million in India, 9.1 million in Nepal, 38.5 million in Pakistan and 10.4 million in Sri Lanka. The proposed adaptation strategy can save more than USD 76.43 billion in the region after fulfilling the region's commitment toward the global mitigation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public infrastructure investment is believed to be one of the key factors in addressing South Africa

The emission of carbon dioxide per unit of GDP for Iran is more than 30% higher than what is available around the world. The present study aims to implement a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model to evaluate the impact of pollutants (NO x , SO 2 , CO, CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O) emissions tax on their emissions and households’ welfare. In welfare analysis, consumer utility maximization is examined based on both standard utility and the pollution incorporated utility functions. Two levels of emission tax known as medium and high emission tax were evaluated. In medium emission tax scenario, tax rates are equal to medium estimates of damage costs while the rates are twice more than the medium estimates in high emission tax. In general, the simulation results indicated a significant effect of emission tax on the pollutant emissions rather than output contraction. However, the effect of taxing on the emission of pollutants increased significantly under incorporating pollution disutility, compared to standard utility alternative, leading to higher welfare and lower emissions. In addition, the emissions of all pollutants in high tax scenario except for CH 4 and N 2 O decreased by at least 20%, compared with their current level at the end of the simulation horizon. Further, the distribution of welfare gains improved under the pollution incorporated option, compared to the standard one as it favored low income and rural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By replacing the current income tax with a national sales tax, the FairTax proposal would end the double taxation of saving inherent in the existing tax code and, by doing so, raise output, employment, investment and capital stock relative to the benchmark economy. While these positive effects would be felt almost immediately, the FairTax is very much an investment in the future. Its full benefits would be realized only after the economy achieved a new 'steady state,' some 20-25 years into implementation. Only by that point, will the effects on growth have been fully absorbed into the economy and the wellbeing of most households across most income groups improved. The policy choice, then, is between the status quo, and a new policy that would inflict some short-run pain as the price of a permanently expanded economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article observes that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have shown spectacular economic growth during the last decades and informs that the UAE has among the highest environment footprint per capita in the world. It presents carbon emission projections using a dynamic multisectoral computing the general equilibrium (CGE) model AdSusMod. The article also states the impact of taxation and price liberalization in stimulating behavioral change among consumers.

We use a CGE model to simulate the effects of a one-year US border closure. Relative to previously used input-output modeling, CGE modeling offers a flexible framework for capturing bottleneck and labor-market effects. Our analysis suggests that the costs of a prolonged closure could be much greater than indicated by input-output studies. We find that cutting all imports by 95% in an environment of sticky real wages would reduce GDP by 48%. However, if bottleneck imports (mainly oil) were exempt and workers accepted real wage cuts then the GDP reduction would be only 11%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike many countries affected by the global financial crisis, New Zealand did not announce a formal fiscal stimulus package. However, via a series of policy announcements beginning in October 2008, by March 2009 the government budget balance had moved towards deficit by 1.6% of 2011 GDP. We interpret this discretionary movement towards deficit as New Zealand's fiscal stimulus package. The package largely comprises three policies: cuts to personal income taxes, cuts to business taxes, and infrastructure spending. We investigate the individual and joint effects of these policies using a dynamic CGE model of the New Zealand economy. We find that the package has a small positive effect on short-run employment, but at a cost to long-run real consumption. We examine an alternative package, which generates a larger short-run employment gain, for a similar long-run real consumption cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is an urgent global issue, and the agricultural sector is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In order to accurately analyze agricultural GHG emissions, this study constructed a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of Chinese agriculture. We aimed to examine the trends and structure of agricultural GHG emissions, and grain production in China. Results show that (i) China's agricultural CO 2 emissions will increase from 47.77 MtC in 2008 to 239.99 MtC in 2050. The input of agricultural materials is the primary source for this rise. (ii) Non-CO 2 GHG emissions contribute the most to agricultural GHG, which will reach 2214.55 MtC in 2050. (iii) The total agricultural GHG emissions in China will maintain an overall upward trend from 2008 to 2050, increasing from 220 MtC in 2008–2413.64 MtC in 2050 with an average annual growth rate of 5.87%. (iv) GHG emissions from grain production will reach 919.09 MtC by the year 2050. GHG emissions per grain production and emissions per area will increase to 343.81 kgC/t, and 4.46 tC/ha by the year of 2050, respectively. These findings carry several policy implications to China's agriculture low-carbon development, such as improve the agricultural materials utilization efficiency, optimize manure management and treatment, and promote organic planting technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The model developed by Devarajan and Go [Devarajan S., & Go S. (1998). The simplest dynamic general-equilibrium model of an open economy. Journal of Policy Modeling, 20(6), 677–714] presents the simplest possible general-equilibrium model of an open economy in which producers’ and consumers’ decisions are both intra-and inter-temporally consistent. Unfortunately, there is possible leakage in that imported capital goods are taxed twice, yet these taxes do not show up fully in the government''s budget constraint. Additionally, one of the proposed terminal conditions is implied by the other equations because of Walras’ Law. Therefore, the model description is lacking an appropriate terminal condition. In this paper an alternative set of equations is presented that removes the possible leakage and has an additional terminal condition with respect to one of the stock variables. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Barcelona Initiative is the central element of the EU’s Mediterranean policy. We study the implementation of this policy with respect to Syria using a dynamic general equilibrium model with credit constraints and capital market imperfections. Dismantling formal tariffs has only limited effects on the Syrian economy, while reducing non-tariff barriers produces by far larger results. EU association promises broadly positive effects for factor incomes and sectoral outputs, with some temporarily negative effects in agricultural sectors. Nevertheless, we find evidence of severe trade distorting effects making preferential trade policy clearly welfare inferior to multilateral trade liberalization within the WTO framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, Lebanon has undertaken a number of economic reforms, covering international trade and internal fiscal policy issues in particular. Simultaneously, debt has been skyrocketing, partially justified by reconstruction needs after the end of the civil war. Fostering economic growth seems to be the only way out of the debt trap, but reforms intended to stimulate growth may well have adverse short-run effects on public and external deficits. We construct a dynamic open-economy computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with debt constraints in the sense that external debt requires physical capital as collateral. The CGE model allows us to study the effects of a number of important economic policy issues, such as fiscal policy reform, World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, and foreign direct investment, in a multisectoral dynamic setting under the realistic assumption that debt constraints relax when the economy starts growing. Included in the results are reports on scenarios of trade liberalization and political stabilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]