IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/dyncon/v37y2013i7p1322-1341.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Avoiding an ecological regime shift is sound economic policy

Author

Listed:
  • Heijnen, P.
  • Wagener, F.O.O.

Abstract

We extend the shallow lake model by adding the capital stock of an industry. A government can mitigate the effects of pollution arising from industrial activities by imposing the requirement to abate emissions. Within this framework two scenarios are examined: in the social optimal benchmark, the social planner optimally allocates investment. In the competitive equilibrium, market forces determine the investment in capital, but the government can still abate emissions. We find that irreversible environmental regime shifts are avoided in the competitive equilibrium by means of a static level of abatement when it is socially optimal to do so.

Suggested Citation

  • Heijnen, P. & Wagener, F.O.O., 2013. "Avoiding an ecological regime shift is sound economic policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1322-1341.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:37:y:2013:i:7:p:1322-1341
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jedc.2013.03.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188913000481
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jedc.2013.03.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabien Prieur, 2009. "The environmental Kuznets curve in a world of irreversibility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(1), pages 57-90, July.
    2. Karl-Göran Mäler & Anastasios Xepapadeas & Aart de Zeeuw, 2003. "The Economics of Shallow Lakes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(4), pages 603-624, December.
    3. Marten Scheffer & Steve Carpenter & Jonathan A. Foley & Carl Folke & Brian Walker, 2001. "Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems," Nature, Nature, vol. 413(6856), pages 591-596, October.
    4. Dieter Grass & Jonathan P. Caulkins & Gustav Feichtinger & Gernot Tragler & Doris A. Behrens, 2008. "Optimal Control of Nonlinear Processes," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-540-77647-5, December.
    5. John, A & Pecchenino, R, 1994. "An Overlapping Generations Model of Growth and the Environment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1393-1410, November.
    6. Jesús Crespo Cuaresma & Tapio Palokangas & Alexander Tarasyev (ed.), 2010. "Dynamic Systems, Economic Growth, and the Environment," Dynamic Modeling and Econometrics in Economics and Finance, Springer, number 978-3-642-02132-9, May.
    7. Baumol, William J, 1972. "On Taxation and the Control of Externalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 307-322, June.
    8. Tahvonen, Olli & Salo, Seppo, 1996. "Nonconvexities in Optimal Pollution Accumulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 160-177, September.
    9. Wagener, F. O. O., 2003. "Skiba points and heteroclinic bifurcations, with applications to the shallow lake system," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1533-1561, July.
    10. A. Bovenberg & Ben Heijdra, 2002. "Environmental Abatement and Intergenerational Distribution," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 23(1), pages 45-84, September.
    11. Dechert, W.D. & O'Donnell, S.I., 2006. "The stochastic lake game: A numerical solution," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(9-10), pages 1569-1587.
    12. Greiner, Alfred & Semmler, Willi, 2005. "Economic growth and global warming: A model of multiple equilibria and thresholds," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 430-447, August.
    13. Bovenberg, A. Lans & Heijdra, Ben J., 1998. "Environmental tax policy and intergenerational distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 1-24, January.
    14. Kossioris, G. & Plexousakis, M. & Xepapadeas, A. & de Zeeuw, A. & Mäler, K.-G., 2008. "Feedback Nash equilibria for non-linear differential games in pollution control," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1312-1331, April.
    15. Ranjan, Ram & Shortle, James, 2007. "The environmental Kuznets curve when the environment exhibits hysteresis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 204-215, October.
    16. Kiseleva, Tatiana & Wagener, F.O.O., 2010. "Bifurcations of optimal vector fields in the shallow lake model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 825-843, May.
    17. Grass, D., 2012. "Numerical computation of the optimal vector field: Exemplified by a fishery model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1626-1658.
    18. W.A. Brock & D. Starrett, 2003. "Managing Systems with Non-convex Positive Feedback," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(4), pages 575-602, December.
    19. George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2008. "Growth enhancing policy is the means to sustain the environment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(1), pages 207-219, January.
    20. Tahvonen Olli & Kuuluvainen Jari, 1993. "Economic Growth, Pollution, and Renewable Resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 101-118, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dmitry Gromov & Thorsten Upmann, 2021. "Dynamics and Economics of Shallow Lakes: A Survey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Wagener, Florian & de Zeeuw, Aart, 2021. "Stable partial cooperation in managing systems with tipping points," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    3. Wagener, F.O.O., 2013. "Economics of environmental regime shifts," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-08, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    4. Richard W. Ryan & Daniel S. Holland & Guillermo E. Herrera, 2014. "Ecosystem Externalities in Fisheries," Marine Resource Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 39-53.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Florian Wagener, 2013. "Shallow lake economics run deep: nonlinear aspects of an economic-ecological interest conflict," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 423-450, December.
    2. Dmitry Gromov & Thorsten Upmann, 2021. "Dynamics and Economics of Shallow Lakes: A Survey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Ben J. Heijdra & Pim Heijnen, 2009. "Environmental Policy and the Macroeconomy under Shallow-Lake Dynamics," CESifo Working Paper Series 2859, CESifo.
    4. Ben Heijdra & Pim Heijnen, 2013. "Environmental Abatement and the Macroeconomy in the Presence of Ecological Thresholds," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(1), pages 47-70, May.
    5. Wagener, F.O.O., 2013. "Economics of environmental regime shifts," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-08, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    6. Wagener, Florian & de Zeeuw, Aart, 2021. "Stable partial cooperation in managing systems with tipping points," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    7. Elke Moser & Andrea Seidl & Gustav Feichtinger, 2014. "History-dependence in production-pollution-trade-off models: a multi-stage approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 222(1), pages 457-481, November.
    8. Tatiana Kiseleva & Florian Wagener, 2015. "Bifurcations of Optimal Vector Fields," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 24-55, February.
    9. Aart Zeeuw & Chuan-Zhong Li, 2016. "The Economics of Tipping Points," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(3), pages 513-517, November.
    10. Yuri Yegorov & Dieter Grass & Magda Mirescu & Gustav Feichtinger & Franz Wirl, 2020. "Growth and Collapse of Empires: A Dynamic Optimization Model," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 186(2), pages 620-643, August.
    11. Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2005. "Economic growth and the environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1219-1271, Elsevier.
    12. Moghayer, S. & Wagener, F.O.O., 2009. "Genesis of indifference thresholds and infinitely many indifference points in discrete time infinite horizon optimisation problems," CeNDEF Working Papers 09-14, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    13. Kossioris, G. & Plexousakis, M. & Xepapadeas, A. & de Zeeuw, A., 2011. "On the optimal taxation of common-pool resources," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 1868-1879.
    14. Zeiler, I. & Caulkins, J.P. & Tragler, G., 2011. "Optimal control of interacting systems with DNSS property: The case of illicit drug use," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 60-73, April.
    15. Zeiler, I. & Caulkins, J.P. & Tragler, G., 2011. "Optimal control of interacting systems with DNSS property: The case of illicit drug use," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 60-73.
    16. Crépin, Anne-Sophie & Biggs, Reinette & Polasky, Stephen & Troell, Max & de Zeeuw, Aart, 2012. "Regime shifts and management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 15-22.
    17. I. Zeiler & J.P. Caulkins & G. Tragler, 2011. "Optimal Control of Interacting Systems with DNSS Property: The Case of Illicit Drug Use," Post-Print hal-00978258, HAL.
    18. Yegorov, Yury & Wirl, Franz & Grass, Dieter & Eigruber, Markus & Feichtinger, Gustav, 2022. "On the matthew effect on individual investments in skills in arts, sports and science," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 178-199.
    19. Ben J. Heijdra & Pim Heijnen, 2021. "Reversible Environmental Catastrophes with Disconnected Generations," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(2), pages 211-252, May.
    20. Dieter Grass, 2015. "From 0D to 1D spatial models using OCMat," Papers 1505.03956, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal abatement; Capital stock; Irreversibility; Regime shift;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • Q20 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:37:y:2013:i:7:p:1322-1341. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jedc .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.