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- Volume 10, 2018
Annual Review of Resource Economics - Volume 10, 2018
Volume 10, 2018
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The Effect of Corporate Environmental Performance on Corporate Financial Performance
Vol. 10 (2018), pp. 425–444More LessThis review explores the effect of corporate environmental performance on financial performance. In particular, it reviews the empirical evidence on this effect. Conceptually, stronger environmental performance may lead to worse or better financial performance. The empirical literature generally finds a positive link from good environmental performance to financial success. However, many studies reveal a negative link. Given this mixed evidence, literature reviews and meta-analyses help to discern the conditions under which better environmental performance prompts financial success or disappointment. Similarly, this review organizes the empirical evidence by the specific measures of environmental performance and financial performance to discern which links are positive or negative. Lastly, the review identifies shortcomings in the empirical literature and offers suggestions for future research. For example, analyses should more fully explore the factors shaping the links from environmental to financial performance, such as firm size and economy type (e.g., mature market).
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The Economics of Species Conservation
Vol. 10 (2018), pp. 445–467More LessA quarter of all species around the globe are threatened with extinction; this article reviews research in economics on how best to counter those threats. Normative research has developed useful tools for cost-effectively choosing areas of habitat to protect. Such work has also designed working-lands contracts that can induce efficient quantities and patterns of conservation on private lands. Positive research finds evidence that payments for ecosystem service programs are effective, but legal protections for threatened species have a mixed record of success. Economists have also measured both the nonmarket benefits and the costs of species conservation. Emerging work is tackling the particular challenges to species conservation posed by climate change, the demand for exploiting charismatic megafauna, and global population growth. Future research would do well to build on those three areas and to study distributional issues in the benefits and costs of species conservation.
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Collective Rights–Based Fishery Management: A Path to Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management*
Vol. 10 (2018), pp. 469–485More LessFishery rents may be dissipated across margins not well defined or controlled by an individual transferable quota system. Collective rights–based fishery management (CRBFM), where catch rights are held by a group, can sometimes generate greater benefits and can also address external impacts of the fishery. I discuss potential failures of individual quotas and how these problems were addressed by CRBFM institutions. I then focus on the role of CRBFM in addressing environmental and social impacts external to the group of fishers, such as bycatch, habitat impacts, and spatial conflicts. The review suggests that CRBFM can effectively address both intrafishery and external impacts, provided there is sufficient incentive to do so, including maintaining access to preferred markets or the threat of further regulation. However, CRBFM can create moral hazard and adverse selection problems, and successful CRBFM institutions generally have homogeneous membership with well-aligned interests and/or formal contracts with monitoring and enforcement provisions.
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Economics of Water Recovery in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia
Vol. 10 (2018), pp. 487–510More LessWe review recent water reforms and the consequences of water recovery intended to increase stream flows in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), Australia. The MDB provides a natural experiment of water recovery for the environment that includes (a) the voluntary buy-back of water rights from willing sellers and (b) the subsidization of irrigation infrastructure. We find that (a) the actual increase in the volumes of water in terms of stream flows is much less than claimed by the Australian government; (b) subsidies to increase irrigation efficiency have reduced stream and groundwater return flows; (c) buy-backs are much more cost effective than subsidies; (d) many of the gains from water recovery have accrued as private benefits to irrigators; and (e) more than a decade after water recovery began, there is no observable basin-wide relationship between volumes of water recovered and flows at the mouth of the River Murray.
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Advances in Evaluating Energy Efficiency Policies and Programs
Vol. 10 (2018), pp. 511–532More LessThis paper reviews the recent evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency interventions. After a brief review of explanations for the energy efficiency gap, we explore key issues in energy efficiency evaluation, including the use of randomized controlled trials and incentives faced by those performing evaluations. We provide a summary table of energy savings results by type of efficiency intervention. We also develop an updated aggregate estimate of 2.8 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) of net savings from utility energy efficiency programs but note that this estimate is based on aggregate utility-reported energy savings. Our review of the economics literature suggests that energy savings are often smaller than implied by utility-reported results, but some interventions appear to be cost-effective relative to the marginal cost of electricity supply.
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Regression Discontinuity in Time: Considerations for Empirical Applications
Vol. 10 (2018), pp. 533–552More LessRecent empirical work in several economic fields, particularly environmental and energy economics, has adapted the regression discontinuity (RD) framework to applications where time is the running variable and treatment begins at a particular threshold in time. In this guide for practitioners, we discuss several features of this regression discontinuity in time framework that differ from the more standard cross-sectional RD framework. First, many applications (particularly in environmental economics) lack cross-sectional variation and are estimated using observations far from the temporal threshold. This common empirical practice is hard to square with the assumptions of a cross-sectional RD, which is conceptualized for an estimation bandwidth shrinking even as the sample size increases. Second, estimates may be biased if the time-series properties of the data are ignored (for instance, in the presence of an autoregressive process), or more generally if short-run and long-run effects differ. Finally, tests for sorting or bunching near the threshold are often irrelevant, making the framework closer to an event study than a regression discontinuity design. Based on these features and motivated by hypothetical examples using air quality data, we offer suggestions for the empirical researcher wishing to use the RD in time framework.
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