Dissertation
Essays on Environmental Economics
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/112233
Abstract
This dissertation applies theoretical and empirical methods to investigate policies and political issues that are related to environmental degradation and regulation. Chapter one analyzes effects of the nominal exchange rate on pollution emissions. The overall effect is decomposed into scale, composition and technique effects, which reflects the size, structure and abatement technology of the economy, respectively. The overall and composition effects are found to be positive and significant for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, while countries with floating regimes experience a positive but less significant scale effect and an insignificant overall effect. Chapter two examines welfare implications of two environmental taxes that result in a fixed aggregate tax revenue: the double-dividend and the integrated tax-subsidy. The former alters existing distortionary taxes (e.g., labor tax), while the latter changes the pollution tax of relatively clean goods based on an adjustment of the pollution tax on more pollution intensive goods. Results show that the double-dividend policy dominates in revenue-recycling effect and tax-interaction effect and results in higher social welfare. Chapter three explores effects of bureaucratic quality on firm productivity and social welfare, given the existence of with-sector product substitutability. Bureaucratic quality is defined as how the government cares about social welfare relative to other incomes; within-sector product substitutability is denoted by the perceived differentiation of firms’ products in a sector. A lower bureaucratic quality is found to lead to higher average and cutoff firm productivity within a sector. However, the social welfare is negatively affected when the bureaucratic quality decreases. Product substitutability has a positive effect on firm productivity, but it does not affect firm’s lobbying behavior.
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Details
- Title
- Essays on Environmental Economics
- Creators
- Haowei Yu
- Contributors
- Gregmar I Galinato (Advisor)Mark J Gibson (Committee Member)Philip R Wandschneider (Committee Member)Jonanthan K Yoder (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- School of Economic Sciences
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 119
- Identifiers
- 99900581427101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation