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2. Environmental regulation in a transitional political system: delegation of regulation and perceived corruption in South Africa
- Author:
- Pedro Naso
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
- Abstract:
- I study the economic motivations behind a reduction in the discretionary power of environmental regulators, and the impact that such reduction has on perceived corruption in South Africa. I examine the transition from the Air Pollution Protection Act of 1965 to the Air Quality Act of 2005, a change from full to partial delegation of regulation. By constructing a principal-agent model, I argue that this transition might have occurred because of an increase in the dispersion of rent-seeking motivations of public agents. This happens because, from the principal’s perspective, the possible harm— loose pollution control and misappropriation of environmental fines— generated by corrupt agents is greater than the potential benefits brought by diligent agents. In my empirical analysis, I use diff-indiffs models for a two-period panel with 191 South African firms to show that the regulatory change decreased treated firms’ perceived corruption, but did not improve other institutional quality measures.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Environment, Regulation, and Pollution
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Africa
3. Impacts of legal and regulatory institutions on economic development
- Author:
- Pedro Naso
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
- Abstract:
- Since the second half of the 20th century, with the contributions of Coase, Williamson and North, the economic literature has emphasised the role of institutions in explaining differences in economic performance. According to the most diffused view, countries with good institutions will invest more in physical and human capital, will use productive factors in a more efficient way, and will achieve greater income level. But what are good institutions? And how should governments implement them? Answers to these questions have proven to be difficult mainly because of two characteristics of institutions: (i) institutional functioning is complex: the way institutions affect economic agents’ incentives is dependent on these agents’ individual preferences and the way they interact, which are difficult to predict; and (ii) they are context specific – the same institution in different contexts might result in a different economic outcome.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Environment, Regulation, and Economic Policy
- Political Geography:
- Africa, South Africa, and Sierra Leone
4. Land grabs, big business and large-scale damages
- Author:
- Christophe Gironde
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
- Abstract:
- The history of the world is a story of lands conquered by violence. Today, money has replaced weapons. Lands are bought. In very large quantities. The current wave of land grabbing is a phenomenon of hard conquest and a dramatic one for local populations and the environment.
- Topic:
- Environment, Land Law, Violence, Money, Land Rights, and Land
- Political Geography:
- South Asia
5. Do financing constraints matter for the direction of technical change in energy R&D?
- Author:
- Joëlle Noailly and Roger Smeets
- Publication Date:
- 03-2018
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
- Abstract:
- The objective of this study is to examine the impact of firms' financing constraints on innovation activities in renewable (REN) versus fossil-fuel (FF) technologies. Our empirical methodology relies on the construction of a firm-level dataset for 1,300 European firms over the 1995-2009 period combining balance-sheet information linked with patenting activities in REN and FF technologies. We estimate the importance of the different types of financing (e.g. cash flow, long-term debt, and stock issues) on firms' patenting activities for the different samples of firms. We use count estimation techniques commonly used for models with patent data and control for a large set of firm-specific controls and market developments in REN and FF technologies. We find evidence for a positive impact of internal finance on patenting activities for the sample of firms specialized in REN innovation, while we find no evidence of this link for other firms, such as firms conducting FF innovation or large mixed firms conducting both REN and FF innovation. Hence, financing constraints matter for firms specialized in REN innovation but not for other firms. Our results have important implications for policymaking as the results emphasize that small innovative newcomers in the field of renewable energy are particularly vulnerable to financing constraints.
- Topic:
- Environment, Sustainable Development Goals, Green Technology, Renewable Energy, and R&D
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
6. The new US tax credits and carbon negative technologies
- Author:
- Tim Flannery
- Publication Date:
- 03-2018
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
- Abstract:
- It is no longer possible to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement – of keeping average global temperatures to ‘well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C1 - without removing large volumes of CO2 from the atmosphere.2 This will involve the development and deployment of carbon negative technologies at the gigatonne scale. Because developmental pathways for such technologies are likely to be decades-long, it is necessary that largescale investment begin now, if we hope to have mature technologies operating at the appropriate scale by 2050.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Environment, Industrial Policy, Capitalism, Economic growth, and Global Warming
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus