Marginal Damage Research Articles

Optimal pricing for carbon dioxide removal under inter-regional leakage

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) moves atmospheric carbon to geological or land-based sinks. In a first-best setting, the optimal use of CDR is achieved by a removal subsidy that equals the optimal carbon tax and marginal damages. We derive second-best policy rules for CDR subsidies and carbon taxes when no global carbon price exists but a national government implements a unilateral climate policy. We find that the optimal carbon tax differs from an optimal CDR subsidy because of carbon leakage and a balance of resource trade effect. First, the optimal removal subsidy tends to be larger than the carbon tax because of lower supply-side leakage on fossil resource markets. Second, net carbon exporters exacerbate this wedge to increase producer surplus of their carbon resource producers, implying even larger removal subsidies. Third, net carbon importers may set their removal subsidy even below their carbon tax when marginal environmental damages are small, to appropriate producer surplus from carbon exporters.

A RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INCIDENCE OF FACIAL NERVE DYSFUNCTION IN SUPERFICIAL PAROTIDECTOMY PATIENTS

Salivary gland neoplasms constitute 5 percent of head and neck tumors. Among them 80% arise from parotid gland , 10% from submandibular gland, 10% from sublingual and other minor salivary glands.In parotid neoplasms, 80% are benign and 20% are malignant. Most common benign tumor is pleomorphic adenoma, which accounts for 40-70% of all salivary gland neoplasms. Other benign parotid tumors are various monomorphic adenomas (warthin tumor, oncocytoma, basal cell adenoma, canalicular adenoma), ductal papilloma and capillary hemangioma. Most common malignant tumor is mucoepidermoid carcinoma, which is further divided into low and high grade tumors. Adenoid cystic carcinoma constitute 10% of all salivary gland neoplasms with characteristic indolent growth and perineural invasion. Rapid increase in size, pain and facial nerve palsy are signs of malignancy.Based on the location of tumor and pathological status supercial or total conservative parotidectomy can be done. Facial nerve as well as it's branches are very close to the gland, they are at high risk of injury.Therefore successful surgery depends on the indentication and preservation of facial nerve. Marginal mandibular nerve damage is most commonly encountered complication. Temporary neuropraxia is common and expected to recover with in few months following Surgery. It is mainly due to stretching of Vasa vasorum. The main objective of this AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: study is to access the incidence of facial nerve dysfunction as temporary or permanent, complete or incomplete in post supercial parotidectomy Patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted from June 2016 to June 2019 in the department of general surgery, government general hospital, kakinada among the Patients who underwent surgery for parotid neoplasms. Am RESULTS: ong 50 remaining Patients, 36 were female and 14 were male patients with male to female ratio of 1:2.5. The mean age was 39+/-9 years. Among 54 Patients 50 underwent supercial parotidectomy .Among 50 Patients who underwent surgery, 18 were observed to have no complications in the immediate postoperative period. And 28 patients presented with transient facial weakness, which was incomplete and temporary in the immediate postoperative period. Only 4 patients had permanent facial weakness which was complete Overall inc CONCLUSION: idence of temporary and permanent facial nerve dysfunction in this study is 63.3% and 6.6% respectively without using any intraoperative monitoring with a nerve stimulator or magnication.And the incidence is mainly depending on the location of the tumor, extent of the surgery, excessive traction, proper anatomical knowledge and experience of the surgeon.

Economics of Soil Carbon and its Specifics in Ukraine

Anthropogenic emissions are one of the main causes of global warming. Carbon dioxide is the most commonly produced greenhouse gas. Sequestration is one of the options to decrease the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. One of the main types of carbon sequestration is the biological carbon sequestration method of soil carbon sequestration. There are various estimates of the SCS potential of soils since the knowledge of soil carbon conservation processes is still limited. However, it is evident that degraded soils have more potential to sequester carbon. The aim of the paper is to analyze the social cost of soil organic carbon in soils of Ukraine, discuss different ways used to estimate the price of soil organic carbon and the carbon sequestration potential of different soils. The social cost of carbon was used to estimate the value of soil organic carbon stocks in Ukraine because it shows the avoided social cost of carbon emissions. The social cost of carbon represents the net present value of the climate change impact of additional carbon released into the atmosphere (marginal global damage costs). Estimation of the social cost of SOC stock in different types of soils in Ukraine makes it possible to compare alternative land use options and to make right policy choices. The results depict the high importance of Ukrainian soils in preventing global climate changes through carbon storage. Czornozem soils are especially rich in SOC, and therefore more valuable in terms of the ecosystem services they provide. The sequestration potential of most types of Ukrainian soils exceeds the sequestration potential of forests. The article proposes measures and practices for soil carbon sequestration and SOC protection. The implementation of the measures to preserve and accumulate SOC will contribute to the increase in biological productivity of agricultural soils and, consequently, boost the yield of cultivated crops, which will have a positive effect on food security

Geographically resolved social cost of anthropogenic emissions accounting for both direct and climate-mediated effects.

The magnitude and distribution of physical and societal impacts from long-lived greenhouse gases are insensitive to the emission source location; the same is not true for major coemitted short-lived pollutants such as aerosols. Here, we combine novel global climate model simulations with established response functions to show that a given aerosol emission from different regions produces divergent air quality and climate changes and associated human system impacts, both locally and globally. The marginal global damages to infant mortality, crop productivity, and economic growth from aerosol emissions and their climate effects differ by more than an order of magnitude depending on source region, with certain regions creating global external climate changes and impacts much larger than those felt locally. The complex distributions of aerosol-driven societal impacts emerge from geographically distinct and region-specific aerosol-climate interactions, estimation of which is enabled by the full Earth System Modeling Framework used here.

Environmental taxation, information precision, and information sharing

AbstractWe analyze how environmental taxes should be optimally levied in a sequential game in which regulators and firms face costs uncertainties. First, the regulator chooses the intensity of emissions taxes to reduce externalities. Then, facing common and private information with noisy signals, firms compete in the marketplace and choose outputs. We show that, under nonuniform quality of signals across firms, the regulator may calibrate differentiated tax policy. We also show that the social impact of more precise private signals hinges largely and fundamentally on the value of the ratio of the slopes of the marginal damage and the marginal consumer surplus. Finally, we investigate information sharing between polluters and its impacts on welfare. We stress that, when there are threats of severe environmental damages under deep uncertainties, collusion is welfare reducing and may jeopardize the regulatory process. Regulators need to set an appropriate precautionary policy. Numerical simulations illustrate the results that the model delivers.

The design of the intertemporal trading ratio of carbon quotas

Carbon emission trading achieves both economic and environmental benefits. The imbalance between quota supply and demand restricts the development of the carbon market. The key to solving the issue is to set a reasonable intertemporal trading ratio. Currently, the study of carbon trading ignores the influence of environmental externalities, which leads to the deviation of market participants' behavior choices and government policy making. Considering the influence of non-price factors, taking environmental externalities as the cut-in point, use the optimal control method to analyze the issue of carbon quota conversion, and to make clear the driving factors and mechanism of the intertemporal trading ratio. Results show that the condition of choosing an optimal intertemporal trading ratio is when the value path of per-unit carbon emissions is equal to the marginal cost path of emission reduction. The intertemporal trading ratio depends on the firm discount rate, the natural attenuation rate of carbon emissions, the ratio of the social marginal damage value to the social marginal cost of emission reduction, and the combination effect among marginal cost of emission reduction, marginal profit of production from purchasing carbon quota and price of carbon transaction. The effect of different driving factors on the intertemporal trading ratio is heterogeneous in different situations. The results provide a reference for setting reasonable parameters of carbon trading policy.

North–South asymmetry, unilateral environmental policy and carbon tariffs

AbstractThis paper focuses on the potential impact of a carbon tariff on carbon emissions, North–South trade and welfare. We use a North–South trade model, where North implements a unilateral environmental policy on domestic carbon‐intensive industries followed by a carbon tariff on imports from South. Unlike the existing studies, we allow asymmetry in clean production technologies and marginal environmental damage. We show that a carbon tariff can reduce the global carbon emission via the use of a more advanced clean production technology in North, which increases the firm profit and welfare. However, improvement in welfare of North is associated with a decrease in global trade flows and welfare of South. We find that, in the presence of asymmetry in clean production technologies between North and South, a carbon tariff introduced by the North can eliminate carbon leakage, but the exports of South decrease below the pre‐unilateral environmental policy level and hence North can potentially use a carbon tariff for trade protectionism in the name of reducing carbon leakage in South.

Taxes or subsidies to promote investment in green technologies for a supply chain considering consumer preferences for green products

This paper investigates the impact of green subsidies and emissions taxes on the development of green technologies for a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer is responsible for green technologies investing, and the retailer is responsible for marketing and selling products to consumers with green preferences. The government is free to choose between emissions taxes or green subsidies to promote green technologies. The results show: (1) Subsidy policies provide a greater incentive for manufacturers to reduce pollution. (2) When the marginal cost of investment in green technology is low, or the marginal damage cost of pollution is high, green subsidies than emission taxes lead to higher profits for manufacturers. (3) Green subsidies lead to higher profits for retailers than emissions taxes when the marginal cost of investment in green technology is lower. (4) Manufacturers and even supply chains are more profitable with environmental regulations than without them. This finding verifies the existence of Porter's hypothesis. (5) If the marginal cost of green technology is low or the marginal damage cost of pollution is high, the government seeking to maximize social welfare should choose a green subsidy policy; otherwise, it should apply an emissions tax.

Study on the heterogeneity of China’s agricultural economic growth in the context of temperature shocks

Under the background of the new development concept, compared with the absolute impacts, the relative impacts of climate change on agricultural growth deserve more attention. Based on the data from China for years 1991 and 2018, this paper uses historical fluctuations in temperature within cities to identify the heterogeneous effects on aggregate agricultural outcomes during farming and fallow periods. The results show that: first, as temperature rises reduce the economic growth rate of each agricultural sector, and the areas that are relatively vulnerable (i.e., areas where disposable income of farm households is below the sample mean) are more significantly affected by the negative impact of temperature rise; second, the impact of temperature rise on agricultural economic growth is mainly concentrated in the farming period, while the marginal damage of temperature rise is on a decreasing trend; third, the heterogeneous impact of temperature rise on agricultural economic growth during the agricultural fallow period is also not negligible. At the same time, its impact on agricultural economy is still in the primary stage, that is, its marginal damage tends to increase with the increase in temperature fluctuation. These results inform identifying the climate’s role in agricultural development and provide a theoretical and operational perspective for further optimizing the adaptive policy systems. With wide coverage of adaptive technology, we should pay more attention to the even distribution of technological dividends and continuously improve the coping ability of vulnerable groups.

Modeling the Linkage between Vertical Contracts and Strategic Environmental Policy: Energy Price Marketization Level and Strategic Choice for China

The lower price of energy leads to higher coal consumption in China. The idea of an “environment-for-trade policy” could be used to achieve an international competitive advantage, which, in turn, has important implications. To address the issue, we develop properties to examine the link between the low price of energy and strategic environmental policy in China and investigate the choice of policy instruments in a strategic environmental policy model with vertical contracts. In addition, to contribute to the literature on strategic environmental policy, this paper also develops properties to investigate different choices of instruments for the environmental policy and includes the degree of energy marketization for the wholesale price in the study. To do so, we assume that the wholesale price of the polluting input increases with the market price. By using this assumption, this paper analyzes the effects of two instruments of the environmental policy on social welfare and concludes that there is no reason to expect both downstream and upstream firms to establish a high wholesale price. Due to the low level of marketization, when the government selects an emission tax as the policy instrument, the optimal tax rates should be higher than the marginal damage of emissions. However, the optimal resource tax is uncertain when its effect on environmental damage is taken into account. In other words, the resource tax is ineffective as a policy instrument. Our results can be used to draw some practical policies for countries to use their energy effectively. To promote energy sustainability, governments should liberate resource prices and reform the system to get efficient environmental policies.

Environmental awareness of the private firm and optimal privatization in a mixed duopoly

This study investigates the optimal privatization policy in a mixed duopoly where the private firm may have environmental awareness. It finds that if the marginal environmental damage is low (high), partial privatization is optimal and its optimal level increases (decreases) with the degree of the private firm's environmental awareness. However, if the marginal environmental damage is moderate, full nationalization or full privatization can be optimal and the optimal privatization level does not depend on the degree of the private firm's environmental awareness. This study highlights the role that environmental pollution and private firms' environmental awareness play in determining optimal privatization policy.

Price-Responsive Allowance Supply in Emissions Markets

Environmental policy with uncertainty is often posed as a choice between price and quantity instruments. Adding flexibility to fixed policy instruments can improve outcomes. Roberts and Spence noted the efficiency advantages of matching emissions allowances supply to the marginal damage schedule. We propose an implementable approach to making that match, an approach we call “price-responsive supply,” which treats prices and quantities as simultaneously determined in the allowance auction. For competitive environments, price-responsive supply outperforms fixed-price and fixed-quantity instruments. Price-responsive supply can enhance the performance of real-world regulatory environments through an automatic adjustment mechanism that responds instantaneously to new information about abatement costs. We demonstrate the improved performance of price-responsive supply in experiments and simulations. A price-responsive supply schedule, while offering efficiency advantages, also translates the cost-lowering effects of other, coincident policies into accelerated reductions under an emissions cap, thereby helping to resolve the waterbed effect.

On Simple Rules for the Social Cost of Carbon

The objective of this paper is to assess the use of simple rules for the social cost of carbon. It is shown that several interrelated objections may apply. The main issues are the following. First, the underlying theoretical models typically assume that the economy finds itself on a balanced growth path, implying that addressing the issue of designing policies for the short run, which play a role in the actual policy debate, are neglected. Second, for some cases the assumptions made regarding the marginal damages of high temperature or of arge atmospheric CO_{2} stocks are shown to be incompatible with other assumptions made. Third, typically the rules follow from an optimal growth model and associate the social cost for a particular year with GDP for that year, but it is not always acknowledged that it should be optimal rather than actual GDP for that year. I also go into the performance of simple rules as compared to first-best.

Unilaterally optimal climate policy and the green paradox

Consider a Hotelling model with exploration investments, a backstop technology and two groups of countries, a climate coalition and a free-riding fringe.If the coalition is price taker in the fossil fuel market, a higher marginal climate damage leads to a reduction of the coalition’s cumulative fuel consumption, which reduces the fuel price and, thus, induces carbon leakage. If the coalition is sufficiently small or its energy demand is sufficiently price sensitive, both the initial extraction and the cumulative discounted climate damages decrease (no weak/strong green paradox). This also applies if exploration investments are sufficiently productive, so that a lower fuel price leads to a considerably lower total extraction. If the coalition acts strategically in the fossil fuel market, it accounts for terms-of-trade and carbon-leakage effects. Then, a higher marginal climate damage can lead to an increase of the coalition’s cumulative fuel consumption, which prevents a weak green paradox, while a strong green paradox never occurs.In an empirically calibrated economy, we show that a strong green paradox can occur without a weak green paradox and vice versa with a price-taking coalition. With a strategically acting coalition, a weak green paradox can be part of a unilaterally optimal policy reaction.

Effluent Gases Emission from Brickfields in Bangladesh: Policy Guidance Underpinning Bioethical Grounds Mitigating Emission Levels

Recent years’ rapid urbanization and then rural to urban migration have created increasing demands of bricks usages in Bangladesh. However, brick industry has been largely using inefficient, dirty technology and burns woods-coal. It injects huge volume of effluent gases namely CO2, SO2, NOx, CH4, CO etc., in atmosphere. Governments, particularly developing countries have lost the ability to effectively regulate environmental issues, while at the same time corporations have gained unprecedented influence over many facets of society. On this aspect, Bangladesh is no exception. For policy guidance underpinning ethical grounds on the issue, this study analyzes the basic issues of CO2 emission from brickfields in terms of marginal damage (MD) analysis. Findings show that the marginal social costs are higher than marginal private (producer of bricks) costs where brickfields are benefiting with the expense of Bangladeshi society as a whole. As time passes by, rises of brick-prices have been causing upward trends of welfare losses where producers’ surpluses are dominating in the total surplus. This economic situation has been causing higher deadweight loss year after year. Addressing the issues, national strategies and policy actions underpinning bioethical grounds are needed. Reforestation efforts can be achieved in multi-faucets: brick-fields’ charity, government policies on planting trees and policies on motivational efforts inspiring citizens of Bangladesh. Bioethics responsibility trainings in multi-faucets are needed where government’s roles in designing program(s) can be instrumental. Motivational policy can be: i) inspiring celebration individual’s “Birthday, having 1st child in family and Event of marriage” by planting trees, ii) forcing to utilize green tech in brick kilns and iii) policies conducting academic research where financial supports are in need.

Damage Functions and the Social Cost of Carbon: Addressing Uncertainty in Estimating the Economic Consequences of Mitigating Climate Change.

Mitigating the effects of human-induced climate change requires the reduction of greenhouse gases. Policymakers must balance the need for mitigation with the need to sustain and develop the economy. To make informed decisions regarding mitigation strategies, policymakers rely on estimates of the social cost of carbon (SCC), which represents the marginal damage from increased emissions; the SCC must be greater than the marginal abatement cost for mitigation to be economically desirable. To determine the SCC, damage functions translate projections of carbon and temperature into economic losses. We examine the impact that four damage functions commonly employed in the literature have on the SCC. Rather than using an economic growth model, we convert the CO2 pathways from the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) into temperature projections using a three-layer, energy balance model and subsequently estimate damages under each RCP using the damage functions. We estimate marginal damages for 2020-2100, finding significant variability in SCC estimates between damage functions. Despite the uncertainty in choosing a specific damage function, comparing the SCC estimates to estimates of marginal abatement costs from the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) indicates that reducing emissions beyond RCP6.0 is economically beneficial under all scenarios. Reducing emissions beyond RCP4.5 is also likely to be economically desirable under certain damage functions and SSP scenarios. However, future work must resolve the uncertainty surrounding the form of damage function and the SSP estimates of marginal abatement costs to better estimate the economic impacts of climate change and the benefits of mitigating it.

Non‐cooperative and cooperative environmental corporate social responsibility with emission taxes

This study examines emission taxes and environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) under cooperative and non‐cooperative regimes, respectively, and compares Cournot and Bertrand competitions. We show that (i) there exists substitutability between emission taxes and ECSR, while the cooperative case always yields lower emission taxes and higher ECSR; (ii) environmental damage and social welfare are independent of types of ECSR under Cournot, but both are higher in the cooperative ECSR under Bertrand; and (iii) the cooperative ECSR cannot achieve socially desirable outcomes, whereas the non‐cooperative ECSR is beneficial to society under low marginal damage.

Emission tax and strategic environmental corporate social responsibility in a Cournot–Bertrand comparison

This study considers the strategic relations between emission tax and environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) in a Cournot–Bertrand comparison and analyzes two different timings of the games between a tax-then-ECSR (T game) and an ECSR-then-tax (E game). We show that the T game always yields higher emission tax than the E game irrespective of competition modes, but lower ECSR under Cournot competition and higher ECSR when the marginal damage is high under Bertrand competition. We also show that compared with Bertrand competition, Cournot competition yields lower (higher) ECSR in the T (E) game but lower emission tax in the E game and higher emission tax when the product substitutability is low in the T game. We finally show that firms endogenously choose Cournot competition with the commitment of the E game irrespective of marginal damage and product substitutability.

Environmental taxes and the effects of partial privatization on environmental R&D, environment and welfare

This paper considers environmental R&D (ER&D) of clean technology for reducing pollutant emissions in a polluting mixed duopoly and analyzes partial privatization’s impacts on ER&D, environment and welfare. In the situation that environmental taxes are exogenously given, it finds that the impacts of privatization policy on ER&D and environment critically depend on the level of environmental damage. However, regardless of the marginal damage, an appropriate partial-privatization policy can increase social welfare. In addition, it also considers an endogenously determined optimal environmental tax and shows that if the marginal damage is high, partial privatization’s impacts on ER&D, environment and social welfare may be not the same as the exogenous environmental tax situation.

CO2 Emission from Brickfields in Bangladesh: Can Ethical Responsibility by Doing Reduce Level of Emission?

Recent years’ rapid urbanization and then rural to urban migration have created increasing demands of bricks usages in Bangladesh. However, brick industry has been largely using inefficient, dirty technology and burns woods-coal. It injects huge volume of CO2 in atmosphere. For policy guidance on the issue, this study analyzes the basic issues of CO2 emission from brickfields in terms of marginal damage (MD) analysis. Findings show that the marginal social costs are higher than marginal private (producer of bricks) costs where brickfields are benefiting with the expense of Bangladeshi society as a whole. As time passes by, rises of brick-prices have been causing upward trends of welfare losses where producers’ surpluses are dominating in the total surplus. This economic situation has been causing higher deadweight loss year after year. Addressing the issues, national strategies and policy actions are needed. Reforestation efforts can be achieved in multi-faucets: brick-fields’ charity, government policies on planting trees & policies on motivational efforts inspiring citizens of Bangladesh. Motivational policy can be: i) inspiring celebration individual’s “Birthday, Having 1st child in family and Event of marriage” by planting trees, ii) forcing to utilize green tech in brick kilns and iii) conducting academic research where financial supports are in need. Keywords: brickfields, effluent gases emission, causes social costs & deadweight loss, reforestation, motivational efforts of government policies