Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-85). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-178). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--2002. / Title from initial PDF page image (viewed Dec. 13, 2006). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2004. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-96). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

I consider the influence of foreign environmental policy on domestic manufacturing activity using theory and empirics. A tractable three-country spatial model yields a theory of locational com- parative advantage in the production of pollution-intensive manufactured goods: greater market access to countries with stringent environmental policy encourages output in the polluting sector. Operationalizing the model empirically, I find robust evidence that high market access to countries with stringent environmental policy increases manufacturing value added. Both the theoretical and empirical analyses suggest that estimates of the Pollution Haven Effect that ignore third country environmental policy - yet make the stable unit treatment value assumption - can be misleading. Chapter Two We investigate the impact of short-term weather and long-term climate on self-reported life satisfaction using panel data. We find robust evidence that day-to-day weather variation impacts life satisfaction by a similar magnitude to acquiring a mild disability. Utilizing two sources of variation in the cognitive complexity of satisfaction questions, we present evidence that weather bias arises because of the cognitive challenge of reporting life satisfaction. Consistent with past studies, we detect a relationship between long-term climate and life satisfaction without individual fixed effects. This relationship is not robust to individual fixed effects, suggesting climate does not directly influence life satisfaction. Chapter Three This chapter considers the related policy challenges of deindustrialisation and 'leakage' which can arise when environmental regulation is differentiated across regions. A dynamic two-region 'New Economic Geography' (NEG) model is adopted in which agglomeration forces may make firms tolerant of regulatory disadvantage. Each region ratifies an international environmental agreement (IEA) requiring it to tax transboundary pollution created by local firms. In contrast to previous NEG studies, the model adopted is considerably more tractable, enabling comparative static analysis to be conducted analytically rather than through computer simulation. The model is extended to consider the relationship between the prescribed tax rates and deindustrialisation caused by the relocation of firms. Firm relocation in response to a given tax differential depends crucially on trade costs and the initial location (configuration) of industry. For some industry configurations, agglomeration forces are strong and a set of tax differentials exist which cause no international relocation of polluting firms. For other initial industry configurations in which agglomeration forces are weaker, the same set of tax differentials may cause complete inter-national relocation to the less stringently regulated region. Trade liberalization can actually make industry less likely to relocate in response to a regulatory disadvantage. The model is further extended to consider the issue of carbon leakage, which arises in the regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For relatively low tax differentials, agglomeration forces create rents which tend to anchor industry in the higher taxing region, avoiding carbon leakage. If the tax differential is too great, however, agglomeration forces cause all firms to relocate to the lower taxing region where they optimally emit more GHGs. Environmental outcomes may therefore be improved by reducing the tax rate in the higher taxing region in order to discourage industry relocation. When industry is diversified between regions, firms respond to higher (lower) relative domestic taxes by increasing (decreasing) output and polluting more (less).

This dissertation explores the central role of numbers in environmental policy and discourse, with a particular focus on the "economic turn" in nature conservation. The aim has been to understand and explain why, despite the parallel increase in environmental problems and in quantitative information about the environment, the faith in and focus on numbers to do something about the problems seem as strong as ever. The dissertation draws on discourse analysis and insights from historical and sociological studies about numbers and quantification and combines it within a critical realist methodology. The main empirical case analysed is the UN-backed study of "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity" (TEEB), supplemented by an historical review of the development of environmental statistics since the 1970s and a review of the developments within conservation science with respect to the role of numbers. The historical review demonstrates a change from biophysical numbers to new measures of equivalence (e.g. CO2-equivalents), paralleling the move from central planning and administrative rationality to neoliberalism and market rationality. While monetary valuation has been much criticised in the environmental politics literature for leading to the commercialisation of nature, this study shows a more nuanced picture: the role of monetary valuation has rather been to "bridge" the transition from administrative rationality to market rationality. It is the newly developed measures of equivalence which allow setting up new markets for financial instruments and compensation schemes for environmental damage. In the case of TEEB, monetary valuation and its related arguments of efficiency, rational decision-making etc., are first and foremost rhetorical since the main recommendations (economic incentives and markets) are taken for granted. The centrality of numbers in current environmental policy discourse is explained by a combination of structural conditions, the search for business opportunities and actors' perceptions of money as the only possible language of communication. Some structural conditions are of a more general kind specific for modernity, while others are specific for the neoliberal era. A main problem with the number focus in environmental policy, is that it allows to not address the underlying drivers of the problems, and hence strengthens the "actualist" perception of reality. The study concludes that numbers have potential as evidence of environmental problems. However, change does not happen by the numbers themselves (contra mainstream economics), but must achieve political support. Further research is needed to understand better how numerical information can be combined with approaches which move beyond actualism, instrumentalism and relativism.

Thesis (docteur ès sciences économiques et sociales)--Université de Genève, 1983. / Bibliography: p. 258-264.