International Cooperation for Transboundary Pollution Abatement: An Empirical Investigation of Model Assumptions
Joint with Keila Meginnis, Tobias Börger, Nick Hanley, Robert Johnston, Tom Ndebele & Ghamz E. Ali Siyal
| Revising for Land Economics
International environmental agreements (IEAs) for transboundary pollutants impose a standard set of simplifying assumptions: (1) citizens in each country care only about environmental damages in their own country and (2) the likelihood of a country joining or remaining within an IEA can be represented using the preference ordering of a representative agent. This paper examines empirically the validity of these assumptions, drawing from a case study of marine plastic pollution, using data from a cross-country discrete choice experiment in the UK and US. Results suggest that foundational assumptions of IEA models may be violated for pollutants such as marine plastics.
Cooperative Agreement between Countries of the North Atlantic Ocean reduces Marine Plastic Pollution but with Unequal Economic Benefits
Joint with Nicola Beaumont, Tobias Börger, James Clark, Nick Hanley, Robert Johnston, Keila Meginnis & Chris Stapenhurst
| Accepted at Communications Earth & Environment
| Previously circulated as “Significant Benefits from International Cooperation over Marine Plastic Pollution” (preprint on Research Square)
Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans threatens ecosystems and biodiversity. The connected nature of the marine environment suggests that coordinated actions by countries sharing an ocean border may provide more effective pollution control than unilateral actions by any one country. However, countries often fail to cooperate, even when joint economic benefits would be higher under cooperation. Here we present a modelling framework to determine the potential economic benefits of cooperative marine plastic pollution management. The framework integrates an estimated plastic transfer matrix from a particle tracking model with game theory to derive the economic benefits of international cooperation for 16 countries bordering the North Atlantic Ocean. Subject to modelling uncertainties, a fully cooperative agreement yields aggregate annual net benefits of around $36 billion and a 64% reduction in emissions. The net benefits of cooperation persist over alternative scenarios and considering the impact of uncertainties but vary in magnitude and distribution.
Innovation and Environmental Stringency: The Case of Sulfur Dioxide Abatement
Joint with Cees Withagen | link to paper on SSRN (dorment)
A weak version of the Porter hypothesis claims that strict environmental policy provides positive innovation incentives, hence triggering improved competitiveness and securing environmental quality. In a comparative way, this paper empirically tests this hypothesis across countries by linking environmental stringency to innovation proxied by patents in the field of SO2 abatement over the period 1970-2000. Three different models of environmental stringency are examined. Two of these models do not reveal a positive significant effect on innovation as a result of increased stringency. In the theoretically preferred model, however, a positive relationship between environmental stringency and innovation is obtained.