Suchergebnisse

Die vorliegende Dissertation widmet sich methodischen und empirischen Forschungsfragen mit Bezug auf saisonale Arbeitsmärkte und Politiken zur nachhaltigen Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen. Hierfür wird ein gesamtwirtschaftlicher Modellierungsansatz angewendet, für den das im südöstlichen Himalaya gelegene Königreich Bhutan als empirische Fallstudie dient. Das methodische Forschungsziel der Arbeit ist, die Relevanz der Darstellung von saisonalen Arbeitsmärkten innerhalb von allgemeinen Gleichgewichtsmodellen (sog. CGE Modelle) zu ergründen. Dies stellt eine Neuheit in der Literatur dar. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass Modelle ohne saisonale Arbeitsmärkte systematisch Ergebnisse, wie Angebotsreaktionen und Wohlstandseffekte, verzerren. Die Saisonalität von Arbeit hat eine hohe Relevanz für gesamtwirtschaftliche Analysen im Kontext landwirtschaftlich geprägter Volkswirtschaften, insbesondere für Untersuchungen des Strukturwandels und agrarpolitischer Interventionen. Empirisch wird die wechselseitige Abhängigkeit von Politiken zum nachhaltigen Management natürlicher Ressourcen mit Zielen des Umweltschutzes und der ländlichen Entwicklung untersucht. Basierend auf unterschiedlichen Modellierungsansätzen, konzentrieren sich drei Studien auf agrar- und forstpolitische Szenarien in Bhutan. Es wird gezeigt, dass Bhutans Ziel, seinen landwirtschaftlichen Sektor auf 100% ökologische Landwirtschaft umzustellen, zu substantiellen Wohlfahrtsverlusten und negativen Folgen für die Ernährungssicherung führen würde. Die Analyse verschiedener forstpolitischer Szenarien demonstriert, dass eine höhere Forstnutzung in Bhutan im Sinne der gesamtwirtschaftlichen und ländlichen Entwicklung nachhaltig möglich ist. Die Arbeit weist auf verschiedene zukünftige Forschungsfelder hin, wie zum Beispiel die Integration von Ökosystemdienstleistungen, was als eine der wesentlichen Einschränkungen bei der modellgestützten Analyse von Politiken zur Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen identifiziert wurde. ; Using an economy-wide modelling approach, this dissertation investigates methodological and empirical research questions related to seasonal labour markets and natural resource policies. The Kingdom of Bhutan, located in the south-eastern Himalayas, serves as a case study. The methodological research objective of this thesis is to gain an understanding of the relevance of seasonal labour markets in the context of economy-wide modelling. The depiction of seasonal labour markets at national scale using a seasonal social accounting matrix (SAM) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) model presents a novel development within the literature. It is demonstrated, that the absence of seasonal labour markets leads to systematic bias of model results. The consequences are distorted supply responses and biased welfare effects, underlining the pivotal implications of seasonality for economy-wide analysis in the context of agrarian economies, particularly for scenario analysis involving structural changes and agricultural policy interventions. The empirical research objective addresses the interdependence of natural resource policies with objectives of environmental conservation and rural development. Employing modelling techniques, three studies focus on specific agricultural and forest policy scenarios in Bhutan. Simulating Bhutan's ambitious policy objective to convert to 100% organic agriculture demonstrates substantial welfare losses and adverse impacts on food security, causing trade-offs with objectives of rural development and food self-sufficiency. Analysing forest policy reforms shows that increased forest utilization contributes to economic development, particularly in rural areas, without jeopardizing the country's forest conservation agenda. The dissertation points at numerous areas of future research, as for example the incorporation of ecosystem services, which is identified as one key limitation of economy-wide analysis of natural resource policies.

AbstractAnimal-mediated pollination is important for agricultural seed and crop production, and critical to overall ecosystem health. However, the scientific literature focused on the economic valuation of pollination services has thus far neglected the role of pollination services in seed production. The marketed food output of many crops is not dependent on pollination services, but these crops indirectly depend on pollination services with respect to their seed production. This study proposes a partial equilibrium framework for identifying the value of pollination services. Using Germany as a case study, we find the value of pollination services is about 33% higher when seed production is considered. This increased valuation is driven by two effects: higher seed costs due to high dependence on pollination services, and a higher demand for seeds due to the land expansion needed to mitigate a potential pollinator collapse. This study demonstrates that more sophisticated approaches are needed to estimate the economic value of pollination services more accurately.

Social accounting matrices (SAMs) are the core underlying data for economy-wide simulation models such as computable general equilibrium models. This paper reports the development of a SAM for Uzbekistan for the year 2014. The last SAM developed for Uzbekistan is based on the year 2001 (Müller, 2006) and Uzbekistan is listed among the top ten countries by GDP and population by the Global Trade and Analysis Project for which a recent input-output is missing. The SAM documented in this technical paper is characterized by a detailed representation of the agricultural sector. Generally, data availability in Uzbekistan is a challenge and the development process had to rely on myriad data sources. The final SAM values are estimated using an information-theoretic, cross-entropy approach. Using a Bayesian perspective, the degree of uncertainty of cell entries' prior values reflected the availability and quality of data sources. In total, this SAM consists of 88 accounts. There are 31 commodity accounts and 31 accounts describe economic activities of which 17 activities are part of the agricultural sector. The factor accounts comprise five types of labor, capital, and main natural resources: land and water. There are three household accounts, one government, and five tax accounts. The authors hope that this SAM will allow researchers to investigate research questions that are of high priority for Uzbekistan's future economic development, particularly those related to the future role of agriculture and water.

In 2010, the Municipality of Cuenca, through its environmental management commission (EMC), and the World Bank, through the environment and natural resources department, started a collaboration targeted towards strengthening EMC's capacity to better manage Cuenca's environmental assets and to provide EMC with hard evidence and data that will serve as departing point for decision-makers towards the formulation of public policy. Two main areas of focus were chosen: (i) costs of environmental degradation for Cuenca; and (ii) climate change impacts and resilience measures for Cuenca. This report describes the findings of the first area of focus. This report tries to capture the main results and to describe the assumptions and input data utilized, through a detailed step-by-step description of an internationally-accepted and validated methodology, an explanation of input data needs, equations used, assumptions made, and alternative calculation streams; and through the demonstration of this methodology as it is applied to the real case of air pollution in Cuenca. Analyses about the cost of environmental degradation are often used as an environmental priority-setting tool, because it gives the estimated socio-economic costs of environmental degradation (air pollution, inadequate water supply, sanitation, hygiene, and others). In this report, the methodology was used only for air pollution; similar studies can be replicated for other areas in order to have a full description of the different sources of pollution and the subsequent costs that Cuenca is subject to. Economic analysis (cost-benefit analysis) can be applied as a useful tool to prioritize among these interventions options with respect to their efficiency and cost effectiveness. Some policy reforms may also require to understand the political economy of reforms, for example, when taxi technology or bus technology of private firms is to be changed.