IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v70y2018i1d10.1007_s10640-017-0117-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Technical Synergies and Trade-Offs Between Abatement of Global and Local Air Pollution

Author

Listed:
  • Jorge Bonilla

    (Universidad de los Andes)

  • Jessica Coria

    (University of Gothenburg)

  • Thomas Sterner

    (University of Gothenburg)

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the synergies and tradeoffs between abatement of global and local pollution. We build a unique dataset of Swedish combined heat and power plants with detailed boiler-level data 2001–2009 on not only production and inputs but also on emissions of $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 and $$\hbox {NO}_{\mathrm{x}}$$ NO x . Both pollutants are regulated by strict policies in Sweden. $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 is subject to the European Union Emission Trading Scheme and Swedish carbon taxes; $$\hbox {NO}_{\mathrm{x}}$$ NO x —as a precursor of acid rain and eutrophication—is regulated by a heavy fee. Using a quadratic directional output distance function, we characterize changes in technical efficiency as well as patterns of substitutability in response to the policies mentioned. The fact that generating units face a trade-off between the pollutants indicates the need for policy coordination.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorge Bonilla & Jessica Coria & Thomas Sterner, 2018. "Technical Synergies and Trade-Offs Between Abatement of Global and Local Air Pollution," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 70(1), pages 191-221, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:70:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10640-017-0117-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10640-017-0117-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-017-0117-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10640-017-0117-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chambers, Robert & Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Vardanyan, Michael, 2013. "Generalized quadratic revenue functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 173(1), pages 11-21.
    2. Charles Blackorby & R. Robert Russell, 1981. "The Morishima Elasticity of Substitution; Symmetry, Constancy, Separability, and its Relationship to the Hicks and Allen Elasticities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(1), pages 147-158.
    3. Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Pasurka, Carl, 2016. "Technical change and pollution abatement costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 715-724.
    4. Rolf Färe & Carlos Martins-Filho & Michael Vardanyan, 2010. "On functional form representation of multi-output production technologies," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 81-96, April.
    5. Burtraw, Dallas & Krupnick, Alan & Palmer, Karen & Paul, Anthony & Toman, Michael & Bloyd, Cary, 2003. "Ancillary benefits of reduced air pollution in the US from moderate greenhouse gas mitigation policies in the electricity sector," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 650-673, May.
    6. R. Färe & S. Grosskopf & G. Whittaker, 2013. "Directional output distance functions: endogenous directions based on exogenous normalization constraints," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 267-269, December.
    7. Wei, Chu & Löschel, Andreas & Liu, Bing, 2013. "An empirical analysis of the CO2 shadow price in Chinese thermal power enterprises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 22-31.
    8. M. Murty & Surender Kumar & Kishore Dhavala, 2007. "Measuring environmental efficiency of industry: a case study of thermal power generation in India," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 38(1), pages 31-50, September.
    9. Xepapadeas, Anastasios & de Zeeuw, Aart, 1999. "Environmental Policy and Competitiveness: The Porter Hypothesis and the Composition of Capital," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 165-182, March.
    10. Rolf Färe & Shawna Grosskopf & Carl A. Pasurka & William L. Weber, 2012. "Substitutability among undesirable outputs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 39-47, January.
    11. Forsund, Finn R & Hjalmarsson, Lennart, 1983. "Technical Progress and Structural Change in the Swedish Cement Industry 1955-1979," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1449-1467, September.
    12. Ambec, Stefan & Coria, Jessica, 2013. "Prices vs quantities with multiple pollutants," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 123-140.
    13. Antonio Peyrache & Cinzia Daraio, 2012. "Empirical tools to assess the sensitivity of directional distance functions to direction selection," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(8), pages 933-943, March.
    14. Hayfield, Tristen & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2008. "Nonparametric Econometrics: The np Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i05).
    15. Finn Førsund & Lennart Hjalmarsson & Vladimir Krivonozhko & Oleg Utkin, 2007. "Calculation of scale elasticities in DEA models: direct and indirect approaches," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 45-56, October.
    16. R. G. Chambers & Y. Chung & R. Färe, 1998. "Profit, Directional Distance Functions, and Nerlovian Efficiency," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 98(2), pages 351-364, August.
    17. Agee, Mark D. & Atkinson, Scott E. & Crocker, Thomas D. & Williams, Jonathan W., 2014. "Non-separable pollution control: Implications for a CO2 emissions cap and trade system," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 64-82.
    18. Atakelty Hailu & Robert Chambers, 2012. "A Luenberger soil-quality indicator," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 145-154, October.
    19. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Noh, Dong-Woon & Weber, William, 2005. "Characteristics of a polluting technology: theory and practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 469-492, June.
    20. Rolf Färe & Shawna Grosskopf & William L. Weber, 2001. "Shadow Prices of Missouri Public Conservation Land," Public Finance Review, , vol. 29(6), pages 444-460, November.
    21. Bonilla, Jorge & Coria, Jessica & Mohlin, Kristina & Sterner, Thomas, 2015. "Refunded emission payments and diffusion of NOx abatement technologies in Sweden," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 132-145.
    22. Kumar, Surender & Managi, Shunsuke, 2011. "Non-separability and substitutability among water pollutants: evidence from India," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(6), pages 709-733, December.
    23. Li, Qi & Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2009. "A nonparametric test for equality of distributions with mixed categorical and continuous data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 186-200, February.
    24. Sterner, Thomas & Turnheim, Bruno, 2009. "Innovation and diffusion of environmental technology: Industrial NOx abatement in Sweden under refunded emission payments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2996-3006, October.
    25. Joshua Linn, 2008. "Technological Modifications in the Nitrogen Oxides Tradable Permit Program," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 153-176.
    26. Mekaroonreung, Maethee & Johnson, Andrew L., 2012. "Estimating the shadow prices of SO2 and NOx for U.S. coal power plants: A convex nonparametric least squares approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 723-732.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Badunenko, Oleg & Willox, Michael, 2022. "Do carbon taxes affect economic and environmental efficiency? The case of British Columbia’s manufacturing plants," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    2. Acocella, Nicola & Di Giovanni, Tomasz, 2019. "Natural Resources and Environment Preservation: Strategic Substitutability vs. Complementarity in Global and Local Public Good Provision," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 13(3-4), pages 203-227, September.
    3. John K. Stranlund & Insung Son, 2019. "Prices Versus Quantities Versus Hybrids in the Presence of Co-pollutants," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(2), pages 353-384, June.
    4. Jianxin Guo & Xianchun Tan & Xiaoyan Meng & Yanping Li, 2022. "Clean technology investment considering synergistic effects: a case from the steel sintering process," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(12), pages 13748-13770, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bonilla, Jorge & Coria, Jessica & Sterner, Thomas, 2012. "Synergies and Trade-offs between Climate and Local Air Pollution: Policies in Sweden," Working Papers in Economics 529, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    2. Färe, Rolf & Pasurka, Carl & Vardanyan, Michael, 2017. "On endogenizing direction vectors in parametric directional distance function-based models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(1), pages 361-369.
    3. Vardanyan, Michael & Valdmanis, Vivian G. & Leleu, Hervé & Ferrier, Gary D., 2022. "Estimating technology characteristics of the U.S. hospital industry using directional distance functions with optimal directions," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. Zhang, Ning & Huang, Xuhui & Qi, Chao, 2022. "The effect of environmental regulation on the marginal abatement cost of industrial firms: Evidence from the 11th Five-Year Plan in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    5. Zhou, Yi & Zhou, Wenji & Wei, Chu, 2023. "Environmental performance of the Chinese cement enterprise: An empirical analysis using a text-based directional vector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    6. Badau, Flavius & Färe, Rolf & Gopinath, Munisamy, 2016. "Global resilience to climate change: Examining global economic and environmental performance resulting from a global carbon dioxide market," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 46-64.
    7. Lee, Sang-choon & Oh, Dong-hyun & Lee, Jeong-dong, 2014. "A new approach to measuring shadow price: Reconciling engineering and economic perspectives," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 66-77.
    8. Wei, Chu & Löschel, Andreas & Liu, Bing, 2013. "An empirical analysis of the CO2 shadow price in Chinese thermal power enterprises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 22-31.
    9. Rakesh Kumar Jain & Surender Kumar, 2018. "Shadow price of CO2 emissions in Indian thermal power sector," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(4), pages 879-902, October.
    10. Tamaki, Tetsuya & Shin, Kong Joo & Nakamura, Hiroki & Fujii, Hidemichi & Managi, Shunsuke, 2018. "Shadow prices and production inefficiency of mineral resources," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 111-121.
    11. Zhang, Ning & Huang, Xuhui & Liu, Yunxiao, 2021. "The cost of low-carbon transition for China's coal-fired power plants: A quantile frontier approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    12. Ke Wang & Yujiao Xian & Chia-Yen Lee & Yi-Ming Wei & Zhimin Huang, 2019. "On selecting directions for directional distance functions in a non-parametric framework: a review," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 278(1), pages 43-76, July.
    13. Adewale Henry Adenuga & John Davis & George Hutchinson & Trevor Donnellan & Myles Patton, 2019. "Environmental Efficiency and Pollution Costs of Nitrogen Surplus in Dairy Farms: A Parametric Hyperbolic Technology Distance Function Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(3), pages 1273-1298, November.
    14. Limin Du & Aoife Hanley & Chu Wei, 2015. "Marginal Abatement Costs of Carbon Dioxide Emissions in China: A Parametric Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 61(2), pages 191-216, June.
    15. Zhou, P. & Zhou, X. & Fan, L.W., 2014. "On estimating shadow prices of undesirable outputs with efficiency models: A literature review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 799-806.
    16. Surender Kumar & Rakesh Kumar Jain, 2021. "Cost of CO2 emission mitigation and its decomposition: evidence from coal-fired thermal power sector in India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 693-717, August.
    17. Chunbo Ma and Atakelty Hailu, 2016. "The Marginal Abatement Cost of Carbon Emissions in China," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(China Spe).
    18. Deng, Zhongqi & Jiang, Nan & Pang, Ruizhi, 2021. "Factor-analysis-based directional distance function: The case of New Zealand hospitals," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    19. Wei, Xiao & Zhang, Ning, 2020. "The shadow prices of CO2 and SO2 for Chinese Coal-fired Power Plants: A partial frontier approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    20. Holzer, Jorge & DePiper, Geret, 2019. "Intertemporal quota arbitrage in multispecies fisheries," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 185-207.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental policies; Shadow pricing; Directional distance function; Climate change; Local pollution; Policy interactions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:70:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10640-017-0117-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.