This thesis investigates environmental and energy policies that Turkey needs to adopt on its way to a sustainable development path. A comparative-static, multi-sectoral CGE model, TurkMod, is developed in order to analyze the potential scenarios available for the Turkish economy to attain a low-carbon society with a reduced reliance on fossil fuel imports. Domestic energy demand has significantly increased in Turkey over the past decades and this has put a lot of pressure on policy-makers as the economy greatly depends on imports of natural gas and oil as far as current energy consumption is concerned. The CGE model in this study is based on a 2012 energy-disaggregated Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) constructed as a part of this thesis as well. The energy-disaggregated SAM incorporates 18 sectors for production activities, 11 products as commodities, 2 factors of production as labor and capital, 3 institutional accounts as firms, households, and the government, a separate account for taxes on commodities, taxes on production and taxes on different types of factor use, a capital account, and finally the rest of the world (ROW) account. Disaggregating the electricity sector to include 8 different types of power generating sectors (5 of which are renewable energy sources) enables electric power substitution in the model. The energy-disaggregated SAM is further linked with satellite accounts which include data on derived energy demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.The macroeconomic and environmental impacts of four distinct sets of scenarios are analyzed with respect to the baseline scenario. The first scenario simulates a 30% increase in energy efficiency in the production sectors and the residential sector and evidence is found for reaching the 21% GHG mitigation target set in Turkey’s pledge for Paris Agreement compliance. The second set of scenarios is the inclusion of a medium-level and high-level carbon tax rates for coal, oil and natural gas. The carbon tax scenarios produce significant effects on both emission reduction targets and substituting fossil fuel technologies with cleaner energy types. The third scenario investigates the sectoral and welfare impacts of providing subsidies for renewable energy sources. Turkey has already adopted a scheme where renewable energies are beings subsidized and promoted, however, this policy does not produce the necessary transformation for the Turkish society when utilized solely on its own. The fourth scenario estimates the effects of changes in world prices of energy on the Turkish economy. A 20% increase in world energy prices, i.e. oil, natural gas, and coal, induces substantial changes in the breakdown of TPES and the power-generating sector, but this scenario is a rather hypothetical one as it cannot be suggested as a viable policy option. All in all, these potential energy scenarios have significant and influential impacts on the Turkish economy and its environment. Notwithstanding, a carbon tax policy proves to be the most viable scenario which leads to reduced energy intensities in all sectors, a 21% GHG emissions abatement, and a transformation of the energy sector towards having a low-carbon content along with a reduced reliance on fossil fuel imports. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The main objective of the dissertation is to develop a dynamic, inter-regional, and multi-sector general equilibrium model of the Belgian economy capable of analysing issues related to the environment, energy, fiscal policies and accounting for distributive effects between household groups. The dissertation focuses on BelMod, a computable general equilibrium model (CGE).<p>BelMod is intended to act as an analytical and quantitative support for decision-making in the energy/environment field and fiscal policies. The tool would be in evaluating ex-ante the cost and benefit of different policies to be implemented. The winners and the losers may easily be identified. BelMod also aims at filling the gaps left by the other models currently used in Belgium, in particular by explicit bottom-up modelling of the three Belgian regions (Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia) in the full integrated framework, by further disaggregating the production and consumption blocks, by distinguishing different types of households to study the distributional effects of environmental and fiscal policies.<p>The effect of let’s say, carbon tax, may affect branches of activities, markets and institutions differently over time and space. Under the “Burden Sharing Agreement”, Belgium committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5 % by 2008-2012 from the 1990 level. Therefore the efficient way of dealing with this issue requires an analytical tool which can take into account the interactions between institutional agents (regional governments, community’s governments, central government, households, firms and rest of the world), their behaviour and the time horizon. The most adequate tool to do so is the general equilibrium model.<p>A CGE model such as BelMod requires a consistent, detailed and well structured database in the form of a social accounting matrix (SAM). A SAM is a square matrix which takes into account the production, consumption, revenues, expenditures and transactions of institutions at a given period of time. The reference year for our SAM is 2003. The SAM we built contains sixty two (62) branches of activity, sixty nine (69) commodities, three (3) regional governments, the French Community, the Central Government, the capital accounts and the Rest of the World.<p>Finally, to illustrate the capabilities of the model we provide two scenario analyses. In the first policy scenario, we simulate the introduction of a carbon tax at 20 euro per ton of CO2 emissions in 2013-2020 and 30 euro per ton of CO2 emissions in 2021-2050. In the second policy scenario, we simulate a linear and gradual increase of the crude oil price to 150 US dollars per barrel in 2050. The increase starts in 2008 and the target (150 US dollars) is reached in 2050.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

<h2><br></h2> <p>This dissertation consists of distinct but related essays that delve into the impacts of changing economic conditions and climate mitigation policies on household consumption, health, and welfare outcomes. The first essay examines the effect of variations in economic factors, such as home values, on unhealthy consumption behaviors in the U.S. The second essay examines the distributional effects and possible health advantages of climate mitigation policies in India. The findings in this dissertation have significant implications for preventive health and environmental justice policies, particularly concerning vulnerable populations. </p> <p>The first essay of this dissertation investigates the impact of home value fluctuations on household tobacco and alcohol consumption in the U.S., specifically focusing on consumption based on homeownership status. First, we utilize high-frequency household transaction panel data and ZIP code-level home values to estimate the causal effect of home value fluctuations (or the housing wealth effect) on household tobacco and alcohol consumption for all U.S. households. Second, we predict household homeownership status by supplementing our primary household panel transaction data with a secondary household survey dataset; this allowed us to estimate the housing wealth effect separately for homeowners and renters. Home values are a leading economic indicator and effectively represent variation in housing wealth, whereas prior literature mainly focuses on lagging economic indicators, such as the unemployment rate. Housing wealth is a significant component of household net worth in the U.S. We leverage temporal and geographic fluctuations in household transactions and local home values to show that changes in housing wealth have a causal effect on household tobacco and alcohol consumption. Our findings show that declining home values increase tobacco and alcohol consumption among homeowners, with no effect on renters. Beer and cigarettes mainly drive this effect. Declining home values substantially increase annual consumption of nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, and alcohol by volume, exacerbating public health concerns. In contrast, unemployment shocks increase tobacco and alcohol consumption among homeowners and decrease it among renters. The housing wealth effect is most pronounced among bubble states households, heavy-use consumers, low-income, and white households. The study emphasizes the importance of targeted policy interventions to mitigate the negative effects of fluctuations in housing wealth on unhealthy consumption, especially amid the current unpredictable economic environment and volatile real estate market. </p> <p>The second essay of this dissertation analyzes the distributional impacts of climate mitigation policies consistent with India’s 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution and 2070 net-zero target, using a dynamic global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with heterogeneous Indian households. Specifically, we expand the CGE model to incorporate ten rural and ten urban household income deciles. Additionally, we link the CGE model with a global atmospheric source-receptor model to derive health co-benefits from reduced premature mortality due to lower air pollution. Several policy levers are considered in this study, including carbon pricing, enhanced coal consumption tax (or coal cess), and fossil subsidies phaseout. These are further combined with five alternative revenue recycling options. Our results suggest the potential welfare costs of such mitigation policies are rather moderate and do not exceed 0.5% over 2023-2050, not accounting for health and environmental co-benefits and damages avoided by successfully limiting global temperature rise to well below 2°C. However, health co-benefits from lower air pollution can potentially outweigh the mitigation costs. Combining carbon pricing and fossil subsidy removal is more efficient than carbon pricing alone, generating progressive medium-term welfare gains due to reduced market distortions. Raising coal cess rates is the least efficient policy. Inequality and distributional impacts vary significantly based on the chosen revenue recycling approach. Equal transfer of tax revenue across households proves to be the most efficient and equitable, followed by labor tax subsidies, leading to a Gini index and S20/S80 ratio reduction of 0.01%-1.7% and 0.1%-7%, respectively. Recycling revenues to stimulate green energy investments yields the least favorable distributional impacts and worsens inequality. Trade-offs exist between reducing inequality and fostering investment-driven economic growth when choosing revenue recycling options. Policymakers should prioritize policy mixes and revenue-recycling methods based on their objectives to effectively combat climate change while promoting sustainable growth and reducing income inequality in India. </p>