EfD Joint Report 2012/13
This report presents the Environment for Development Initiative (EfD), its members and work during 2012/13. For a free hardcopy, please send an email to: info@efdinitiative.org
The Environmental Economics Program in China (EEPC) has three main tasks: building capacity of rigorous economic analysis into environmental policy in China, policy outreach, and graduate education that emphasizes systematic training in modern environmental economics.
This report presents the Environment for Development Initiative (EfD), its members and work during 2012/13. For a free hardcopy, please send an email to: info@efdinitiative.org
This report presents EfD China, its members and work during 2012/13.For a free hardcopy, please send an email to: info@efdinitiative.org
A growing number of experimental studies focus on the differences between the lab and the field. One important difference between many lab and field experiments is how the endowment is obtained. By conducting a dictator game experiment, we investigate the influences of windfall and earned endowment on behavior in the laboratory and in the field.
This paper assesses how tenure reform in China's collective forest sector affects Chinese farmer households’ perception of tenure security and propensity to invest in their forestland. A large database consisting of information from 3,180 households in eight provinces from south to north is used to explore factors correlated with more strongly perceived tenure security and determinants of forest-related investment.
A prevailing view in the literature is that social sanctions can support, in equilibrium, high levels of obedience to a costly norm. The reason is that social disapproval and stigmatization faced by the disobedient are highest when disobedience is the exception rather than the rule in society.
This paper presents the application of an auction scheme for the allocation of funds for environmentally improving land use change (LUC) amongst farm households in Sichuan Province, China.
Using a sequential discrete choice experiment, we investigate preferences for distributing the economic burden of reducing CO2 emissions in the two largest CO2-emitting countries: the United States and China.
Using a sequential discrete choice experiment, we investigate preferences for distributing the economic burden of reducing CO 2 emissions in the two largest CO 2-emitting countries: the United States and China. We asked respondents about their preferences for four burden-sharing rules to reduce CO 2 emissions according to their country's relative (1) historical emissions, (2) income level, (3) emissions per capita, and (4) current emissions.
This report presents EfD China, its members and work during 2011/12.For a free hardcopy, please send an email to: info@efdinitiative.org
Using individual travel diary data collected before and after the rail transit coverage expansion in urban Beijing, this paper estimates the impact of rail accessibility improvement on the usage of rail transit, automobiles, buses, walking, and bicycling, measured as percent distance traveled by each mode in an individual trip.
Many economic decisions are made jointly within households. Running an experiment on intertemporal choice, we investigate the relative influence of spouses on joint household decisions. We let each spouse first decide individually and then jointly with the other spouse.
We examine the effects of schools and parents, the two of the most important sources of influence, on views of human-nature relationship of 6th grade primary school children in China.
Environmental information transparency performs social and learning functions indispensable for green growth. Still facing the challenges of a lack of local commitment and less than optimal institutional capacity, there is no doubt that China has made substantial progress on granting and enforcing public right to environmental information.
This paper reports results from a stated preference survey designed to estimate the willingness to pay for mortality risk reductions in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
This study provides an overview and analysis of China’s timber market trends over the last two decades, along with projections to the year 2020.
This article analyzes two cases of environmental advocacy initiatives in China: institutionalizing environmental information transparency and sanctioning environmental violations.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is seeking new approaches to improve water management outcomes in the face of a growing water crisis caused by ongoing pollution control and watershed management challenges.
This paper discusses the public sector's role in PES internationally. In general, the public sector's role in ecosystem services markets is both critical, and evolving.
Policy makers in the People's Republic of China have been experimenting with new approaches to environmental management, resulting in a wide array of policy and program innovations under the broad heading of eco-compensation.
Economic growth has multiplied the environmental challenges faced by the People's Republic of China but has also created opportunities, by increasing available funding for environmental management and conservation.
The Pearl River Delta (PRD) in Southern China is a region where the manufacturing industry is rapidly developing, accounting for about 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) with 4% of China’s population.
One of the policy goals motivating programs to increase renewable energy investment is that renewable electric generation will help reduce emissions of CO2 as well as emissions of conventional pollutants (e.g., SO2 and NOx).
In previous research, a deliberative process for integrating stakeholder perspectives in the ranking of risks was introduced and empirically tested with lay groups composed predominantly of Americans. In this paper, we explore the viability of this process with lay groups of Chinese, because previous research has shown that Americans and Chinese differ substantially along many dimensions of cognition and social organization relevant to decision-making.
Whether government has the political will and capacity to control pollution is crucial for environmental outcomes. A vast country such as China, with centralized policymaking but idiosyncratic local implementation of environmental regulations and drastic regional disparities in wealth, raises the question how does the central government stimulate local environmental commitment to accommodate such diversity?
This paper analyzes how fossil fuel-producing countries can counteract climate policy. We analyze the exhaustion of oil resources and the subsequent transition to a backstop technology as a strategic game between the consumers and producers of oil, which we refer to simply as ‘OECD’ and ‘OPEC’, respectively.
By comparing three cases of environmental activism in China, our paper answers the following three questions about public participation in environment protection in China: (1) what are the drivers for public participation, (2) who are the agents leading the participation, and (3) do existing laws facilitate public participation?
This paper uses data from a 2003 rural survey to examine the determinants of household provision of environmental services under China’s Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), the largest payment for environmental services program in the developing world.
State-owned forest enterprises (SOFEs) in northeast China and Inner Mongolia play important roles both in timber production and in the maintenance of ecological security. However, since the late 1970s, forest resource and economic crises have seriously restricted these functions.
Fuel Taxes and the Poor challenges the conventional wisdom that gasoline taxation, an important and much-debated instrument of climate policy, has a disproportionately detrimental effect on poor people.
Fuel Taxes and the Poor challenges the conventional wisdom that gasoline taxation, an important and much-debated instrument of climate policy, has a disproportionately detrimental effect on poor people.
Addressing environmental challenges. including climate change has been rationalized in China as both necessary for solving domestic problems and capable of gaining new business opportunities and competitive advantages.
Using a choice experiment, we investigated preferences for distributing the economic burden of decreasing CO2 emissions in the two largest CO2-emitting countries: the United States and China. We asked respondents about their preferences for four burden-sharing rules to reduce CO2 emissions according to their country’s 1) historical emissions, 2) income level, 3) equal right to emit per person, and 4) current emissions.
Whether government has the political will and capacity to control pollution is crucial for environmental outcomes. A vast country such as China, with centralized policymaking but idiosyncratic local implementation of environmental regulations and drastic regional disparities in wealth, raises the question how does the central government stimulate local environmental commitment to accommodate such diversity?
Using nationally representative data, the present paper examines the impact of China's ongoing rural tax reform on farmers. The difficulties in further local governance restructuring are also discussed.
Drawing on a dataset covering a large number of randomly sampled villages across China, the present paper examines the issue of residential solid waste management service provision in rural China.
Decentralization experiments are currently underway in the Chinese forestry sector. However, researchers and policy makers tend to ignore a key question: what do forest farmers really want from reform?
This report presents EfD China, its members and work during 2010.For a free hardcopy, please send an email to: info@efdinitiative.org
This paper extends the basic model of Fausmann, and theoretically analyzes how forest tenure reform, tax reform, and market development affect timber supply.
We conducted a survey in the Guangdong province in China to measure happiness among preadolescents and their parents. The objective of this study was to investigate what explains preadolescents’ happiness level and whether their happiness is related to the happiness level of their parents. We do not find any significant relationship with respect to the latter, and the factors that explain the variation in happiness among parents do not explain the variation among children. In general, children´s happiness is not explained by socio-economic factors, in fact not even by having divorced parents, which is a situation that clearly decreases the happiness level of parents. Instead, relations with parents and friends are important for the well-being of preadolescents.
Aiming to alleviate rural poverty, stimulate investment in forests, and improve forest conservation, the Chinese government set forth a policy leading to small private holdings of previously village administered forest lands.
Hypothetical bias is one of the main issues bedeviling the field of nonmarket valuation. The general criticism is that survey responses reflect how people would like to behave, rather than how they actually behave. In our study of climate change and emissions reductions, we took advantage of the increasing bulk of evidence from psychology and economics that addresses the effects of making promises, in order to investigate the effect of an oath script in a contingent valuation survey.
As the biggest carbon emitter in the world, China is facing tremendous pressure domestically and internationally. To promote the international efforts to tackle climate change, the Chinese government announced its 2020 carbon intensity target and is actively taking part in the international climate negotiations.
In the past two decades, China has achieved impressive economic growth with an annual growth rate of about 10%. Meanwhile, the scale and seriousness of environmental problems are clearly evident, threatening China's future sustainable development. Managi and Kaneko's new book tackles a variety of important topics underlying the nexus of economic growth and environmental protection in China.
The design of a sensor-placement scheme capable of detecting all possible contamination events for a water distribution system before consumers are put at risk is essentially impossible given current technologies and budgets.
The following policy recommendation is provided based on the research findings of this project.
Near ground ozone pollution has become one of the most challenging air pollution problems in Beijing, and as the rapid development of economy and urbanization in Beijing and surrounding areas, the situation is getting worse.
With the rapid social and economic development, the vehicle population in China has been growing fast in recent years, especially the population of private car in big cities. As the rapid growth in vehicles causes air pollution from car emissions, traffic congestion and energy shortage, both policy makers and scholars are interested in finding ways to solve those problems, while ensure the basic travel needs of citizens are met. This study chose Beijing as the case area, and analyzed two typical policies implemented in Beijing, which got widespead concern and dispute. It's expected that the result of this study is able to provide references for related research and decision-making.
In previous research, a deliberative process for integrating stakeholder perspectives in the ranking of risks was introduced and empirically tested with lay groups composed predominantly of Americans.
One of the policy goals motivating programs to increase renewable energy investment is that renewable electric generation will help reduce emissions of CO2 as well as emissions of conventional pollutants (e.g., SO2 and NOx).
Climate change has brought issues of deforestation and forest land governance to the forefront. It is now widely accepted that deforestation and must be addressed in order to effectively reduce sociated weak local land use governance is a key driver behind deforestation and degradation and associated forest degradation are responsible for about 17% of total global carbon emissions—with over 70% of these emissions coming from forest burning and clearing in the five forest-rich countries of Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.