Previous literature on the Environmental Kuznets Curve has focused extensively on why or why not such a relationship is observed given specific scenarios. More recent literature has shifted attention towards factors that may explain differences in the distribution or threshold of the curve. The purpose of this paper is to determine why we witness different cutoff points for environmental improvement given the same dependent variable. For this analysis, the relationship between CO2 emissions and GDP growth is observed in the United States and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) from 1981-2006. The results suggest that the standard for environmental improvement is lower for the BRIC countries compared with the United States. Factors that explain this are FDI inflow, share of production from different industries, share of energy from different sources, and overall incentives.

The first essay of this dissertation studies the determinants and effects of firms' participation in a voluntary pollution reduction program (VPR) initiated by government regulators. This research presents empirical evidence in support of the "enforcement theory" for VPRs, which predicts that (1) participation is rewarded by relaxed regulatory scrutiny; (2) the anticipation of this reward spurs firms to participate in the program; and (3) the program rewards regulators with reduced pollution. The results also indicate that firms' VPR participation, and pollutant reductions themselves, were prompted by a firm's likelihood of becoming a boycott target and/or being subject to environmental interest group lobbying for tighter standards.In the second essay, a nonparametric regression estimator which can accommodate two empirically relevant data environments is proposed. The first data environment assumes that at least one of the explanatory variables is discrete. In such an environment, a "cell" approach which estimates a separate regression for each discrete cell, has generally been employed. The second data environment assumes that one needs to estimate a set of regression functions that belong to different individuals. In both environments the proposed estimator attempts to reduce estimation error by incorporating extraneous data from the other individuals or "cells" when estimating the regression function for a given individual or "cell". The simulation results for the proposed estimator demonstrate a strong potential in empirical applications.In the third essay, the nonparametric approach proposed in the second essay is used to estimate the parameters of the short-term interest rate diffusion. The nonparametric estimators of the drift of the short rate proposed by Stanton (1997) and Jiang (1998) can produce spurious nonlinearities due to the persistent dependence and limited sampling period of interest rates. The simulations show that the proposed estimator significantly attenuates the spurious nonlinearities of Stanton's nonparametric estimator. An empirical study of the US term structure of interest rates is presented based on the proposed estimator and two other competing models. The results suggest that the estimation of the short rate diffusion parameters using additional data from yields of different maturities has significant economic implications on the valuation interest rate derivatives.

<p> The second chapter examines how both domestic and foreign tobacco regulations affect the flow of tobacco trade. I develop a gravity equation incorporating a comprehensive set of domestic and foreign tobacco regulations into a country's tobacco import demand and estimate their bilateral effects. The results suggest a country's tobacco imports are significantly affected by their trading partner's tobacco regulations. There are two important results: spatial regulations reduce tobacco trade regardless of trade direction and marketing regulations in importing countries may actually increase tobacco imports. These results highlight the importance of understand regulations in an increasingly multilateral economy. </p><p> The third chapter investigates the effects of varying levels of access and excludability on a common pool resource with intrinsic quality characteristics. I analyze the case of deer hunting on leased properties by hunting clubs and estimate the lease size elasticity of both harvest and antler quality. The results suggest lease size has a small but significant effect. For all clubs with smaller than average hunting leases, a simulated increase to the average size results in approximately a 4.5 percent increase in the average antler quality of deer harvested. Although I analyze properties leased by hunting clubs, the results are applicable to various other management scenarios. </p><p> The fourth chapter develops the relationship between excess demand and purchase options. I illustrate a mechanism allowing firms to smooth sales across periods with uncertain quality and increase expected profit over the market clearing strategy. By "underpricing" high quality goods and offering a purchase option guaranteeing a single price regardless of quality, firms create excess demand and increase consumer willingness to pay for their purchase option. The firm maximizes profit by choosing a guaranteed price low enough to create sufficient excess demand and consumer willingness to pay for the purchase option that markets clear when quality is low. Using a numeric example, I demonstrate a case where this behavior increases profit over the market clearing strategy.</p>

<p> The theme that binds together the four papers in this dissertation is the tracking of physical quantities of water used by industries in the economy, and an exploration of whether and how this tracking could be helpful in informing water policies, as applied to the state of Nevada or sub-regions of Nevada. The concept of water footprints has been wildly popular in disciplines outside of economics and has been used to help make policy decisions normally considered to lie within the economist's realm. Yet many economists shun 'footprints' in general and water footprints in particular, seeing them as descriptive methods that have little or nothing to add to policy analysis. This thesis attempts to bridge a gap between economists, engineers and planners and the popular imagination about what economic concepts footprints are related to and how they can best be used in policy analysis.</p>

Res. Project (M.R.M.) - Simon Fraser University, 2004. / Theses (School of Resource and Environmental Management) / Simon Fraser University.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 173 p.; also includes graphics (some col.). Includes bibliographical references (p. 148-154).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New South Wales. / Photocopy of original held in Defence Academy Library, University College, University of New South Wales. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued online.

<p> Ecosystem services (ES), payments for ecosystem services (PES), and the development of markets for PES are transformational concepts and practices that emerged from environmental and ecological economics. Although the establishment of regulatory markets tends to be &ldquo;top down,&rdquo; there is evidence that more locally acceptable and successful markets tend to come from the community, from the &ldquo;bottom up.&rdquo; This meta-analysis analyzes 20 recent articles that examined approximately 454 PES cases from around the world, most organized from the bottom up. Cross-case analysis reveals possible best practices. Involving communities in design, decision-making, governance, and operation of local PES programs is found in many cases to contribute to improvements in both ecosystems and community livelihoods. Devolving project administration and ES provision monitoring to the local level is found to lower costs, increase project legitimacy, community equity, and leaves efficiency and fairness tradeoff decision-making in the hands of local communities. This in turn adds to feelings of competence, autonomy, and control. The experience of cooperative learning, skill acquisition, and enhanced individual and community capacities that results from participation in PES program design is found to positively influence social, cultural, economic, and multilevel political dynamics, allowing local sustainable resource use and management to emerge. In several cases, there are indications that this leads to a changed local and regional political economy due to successful value capture of enhanced ES resulting from restored ecosystems, as well as indications of other transformative changes in communities. These findings are used to provide recommendations to a watershed restoration initiative in the borderlands of Southern Arizona. </p><p>

abstract: This dissertation consists of three chapters. Chapter one examines whether spending different amount of time outdoors on weekends and weekdays change the estimates of the impact of ground level ozone on the incidents of respiratory disease and asthma in California. This chapter contributes to the literature that focuses on the short term effect of air pollution on public health. Using the American Time Use Survey data, I find that on average people spend 50 minutes outdoors on weekends more than weekdays. Incorporating this difference in estimating the health impact of ozone changes the results significantly, especially for adults 20-64. The specification also allows me to find a precise estimate for each day of the week. In chapter two I estimate the effect of exposure to ozone on skills of children aged 3 to 15 years. I use the Letter-Word (LW) test scores from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) as a measure of children's skills. Due to omitted variable bias, OLS estimate of ozone effect on children's skill is positive and imprecisely estimated. To mitigate the omitted variable bias I use the instrumental variables approach. This method accounts for endogeneity of pollution. The effect of ozone on children's skills becomes negative but only marginally significant. In chapter three, I estimate a production function of skill formation for children 3 to 15 years old and simultaneously account for their childhood exposure to ozone. I find that a one standard deviation increase in ozone leads to a 0.07 standard deviation reduction in the LW test scores on average. The LW test score of 3 year olds drops by 0.10 standard deviation in response to one standard deviation increase in pollution levels, while for the 14 year olds this effect is only half as much, 0.04 standard deviation. I also find that households exhibit compensatory behavior and mitigate the negative effect of pollution by investing more on their children. I quantitatively demonstrate that certain policies, such as a reduction in pollution levels or income transfers to families, can remediate the negative impact of childhood exposure to pollution on adult outcomes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2017

<p> This research is composed of three essays. It highlights the driving factors of land conversion and crop acreage response focusing on North Dakota agriculture and estimates the benefits of conservation land measures at west central South Dakota watershed. The major questions that are addressed here are how and why agricultural producers decide among different land use choices, crop selection, and land conservation measures and how their decision vary over time? The first essay examines the long run land conversion trend interconnected with change in crop, oil, and ethanol prices, climate and renewable fuel policy mandates. Data are obtained from Cropland Data Layer from 1997 to 2015 period of National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) at the USDA. The first essay employs a Seemingly Unrelated Tobit Regression approach to better understand the connection between land conversion and crop prices, biofuel policies, biophysical environment. Key findings indicate land-use conversion from grassland to cropland is relatively higher across the ND counties. </p><p> The second essay is designed to investigate the relationship between crop acreage response and socio-economic and environmental drivers. We use prices for crude oil, planted acres of major crops (corn, wheat, soybean, hay) and prices from the period of 1990 to 2015. This essay focuses on corn acreage response due to crop prices, energy policies, climate and other socio-economic factors using a Fixed Effect parameter framework. </p><p> The final essay estimates environmental benefits due to adoption of conservation practices. In other words, it analyzes the economic and environmental benefits of implemented conservation practices at Bad River watershed in South Dakota using an integrated framework. For example, in an article in the Global Journal of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development (2016), a Benefit Cost Analysis model is utilized to assess soil conservation benefits and evaluate economic impacts of conservation measures at a watershed scale. The economic analysis includes estimation of benefit cost ratio, annual rate of return of conservation practices. Key findings suggest that benefit value of sediment reduction average $2.13 per ton expressed in constant (year = 2000) dollars and the ratio of benefits to costs is greater than 1.</p><p>