A literature review is conducted of five recently developed methodologies to determine an optimal non-anthropocentric animal welfare levy that internalizes the social costs of animal suffering into the price of animal products, whereby animal and human welfare are counted equally. Chicken meat may get a levy of €30–€8,000 per kilogram, where the best estimates are closer to this upper value. Products from animals larger than chickens usually have a more than ten times lower levy than chicken meat and eggs. The non-anthropocentric animal welfare levy is several orders of magnitude higher than an anthropocentric animal welfare levy that is purely based on human’s altruistic preferences for animal welfare. At such high levels, farmed animal suffering could easily be the largest market failure in our global economy. A politically feasible implementation of a fee-and-dividend animal welfare levy is discussed.
Purpose This review characterizes the governance challenges arising from the potential deployment of solar geoengineering. The authors survey existing theoretical models that analyze the strategic incentives such technologies generate. In particular, this study examines the conditions under which the “free-driver problem”, where a single nation or small group of nations initiates solar geoengineering without the consent of the international community, might be avoided or mitigated and explores the implications for international climate governance when mitigation and solar geoengineering policies interact. Design/methodology/approach The authors focus on a subset of theoretical contributions and examine them in depth to clarify the mechanisms underlying free-driving and to explore potential solutions. Findings Overall, the literature suggests that governance mechanisms such as voting rules, transfer schemes and self-enforcing agreements can, in principle, mitigate free-driving and support stable cooperation on solar geoengineering. Theoretical models indicate that geoengineering may either undermine or strengthen incentives for mitigation and international cooperation, and under specific conditions can even facilitate the formation of large climate agreements avoiding its deployment. Originality/value By bringing together insights from public good, coalition formation and game theoretical literature, this review highlights the conditions under which cooperation can emerge and identifies key gaps for future research on the governance of solar geoengineering.
This paper contains a synthesis of the pros and cons of four alternative approaches to several aspects of the economics of species preservation, some of which dual-purpose, being liable to be simultaneously interpreted also in terms of area preservation. The first consists of a comparative assessment of preservation vs economic development. The second relies on a microeconomic approach to the analysis of area preservation under binding budget constraints. The third is borrowed from the economic policy debate about the suboptimality of the private provision of public goods, to show that the preservation of species or natural areas may rely on a time consistent tax policy designed by the government. The fourth tackles explicitly the problem of the perpetual survival of a species defined as a common good, ensured by an optimally regulated access. All of these approaches, although apparently treating particular aspects, could become an integral part of the main debate on the preservation of species and natural areas, as they offer several effective responses to problems intrinsically connected with the latter.
Transitioning to clean energy is necessary to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. Accelerating decarbonisation requires improving energy efficiency and making large-scale green energy investments, inter alia in residential homes. Household energy behaviours and investment decisions are mostly suboptimal as individuals often face significant psychological barriers and are subjected to cognitive biases. Consequently, one-size-fits-all interventions, that are aimed at fostering green energy behaviours, lead to information overload and rebound effects, thereby being inefficient. A growing proposition in behavioural sciences is to personalise the delivery of behavioural interventions (BIs) to facilitate the uptake of energy-efficient behaviours. This is typically done, for example, by tailoring different BIs to individuals to overcome individual biases in the adoption of green appliances and renovations. Nonetheless, there is no clear know-how to use different statistical methods to tailor BIs. While researchers rely on various techniques to customise BIs for specific groups, this segmentation process lacks coherence overall. In this paper, we systematically review and sort the literature on statistical classification and clustering models, including machine learning methods, that have been used to optimise BIs for improving residential energy efficiency. Our review provides a holistic overview of these different methods, along with recommendations for practitioners to use them. It further highlights the role that machine learning algorithms can play in automating BIs, for example, by using sophisticated data analysis and pattern recognition to identify intricate relationships between decision-making factors. These insights can lead to highly optimised personalised strategies for increased energy efficiency.
In this paper, we survey recent econometric contributions to measure the relationship between economic activity and climate change. Due to the critical relevance of these effects for the well-being of future generations, there is an explosion of publications devoted to measuring this relationship and its main channels. The relation between economic activity and climate change is complex with the possibility of causality running in both directions. Starting from economic activity, the channels that relate economic activity and climate change are energy consumption and the consequent pollution. Hence, we first describe the main econometric contributions about the interactions between economic activity and energy consumption, moving then to describing the contributions on the interactions between economic activity and pollution. Finally, we look at the main results on the relationship between climate change and economic activity. An important consequence of climate change is the increasing occurrence of extreme weather phenomena. Therefore, we also survey contributions on the economic effects of catastrophic climate phenomena.
