Suchergebnisse

Under a General Equilibrium model of International Trade, industrialized countries export capital intensive goods, while developing countries export natural resource intensive goods. Biodiversity is viewed as the number of species conserved while producing these goods. Higher conservation increases demand, but lowers goods supply. Consumers value biodiversity as the weighted sum of all the different species. If producers of both goods conserve more species, the South's terms of trade will rise in relation to the North's. Furthermore, we believe that a switch in consumer preferences, to a more homogeneous valuation of the species, is likely. This change would drop the South's terms of trade. Therefore, under these circumstances, this region is facing a risk. In conserving additional species, the South would be better off, both because its terms of trade increases and because the risk associated with a switch in preferences decreases.

We analyze a dynamic environmental agreement between two regions. We assume that the agreement is jointly protable, because the eort associated with emission reductions is overcompensated by a cleaner environment in the future The two regions are asymmetric in two respects: their value of a cleaner environment is dierent, and they are responsible for the initial environmental problem in dierent ways. Because the benets of a cleaner environment cannot be transferred, we propose a mechanism on how to share the eorts of lowering current emissions, satisfying two main properties. The rst property is a benets pay principle: the greater one region's relative benet from cooperation, the greater must be its relative contribution. The second property is, a polluter pay principle: a region's relative contribution increases with its responsibility. Moreover, the sharing scheme must be time consistent. At any intermediate time, no country can do better by deviating from cooperation.*

This paper analyzes the dynamic interaction between two regions with interconnected river basins. Precipitation is higher in one river- basin while water productivity is higher in the other. Water transfer increases productivity in the recipient basin, but may cause environmental damage in the donor basin. The recipient faces a trade-o between paying the price of the water transfer, or investing in alternative water supplies to achive a higher usable water capacity. We analyze the design of this transfer using a dynamic modeling approach, and compare solutions with di erent information structure with the cooperative solution. Contrary to standard games, where decision variables di er among players, we assume that both players take the decisions concerning the water transfer. The equilibrium between supply and demand determines the optimal transfer price and amount. If the problem were set as a static game, the non-cooperative solution would match the cooperative solution. However, in a more realistic dynamic setting, in which the recipient uses a feedback information structure, the cooperative solution will not emerge as the equilibrium solution. The transfer amount is lower than in the case of cooperation, while the investment in usable water capacity is higher. Finally we numerically compare our results to the Tagus-Segura water transfer described in Ballestero (2004). Welfare gains are compared for the different scenarios. We show that in all dynamic settings, the long-run transfer amount is lower than in Ballestero's static model. Further, we show that the long-run price settles at a lower level than in Ballestero's model, but is still higher than the average cost-based price determined by the Spanish government.