IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rie/riecdt/82.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sustainability as a Policy Tool

Author

Listed:
  • Villamizar, Rodrigo
  • Villamizar-Villegas, Mauricio
  • Arango, Lucia
  • Castelblanco, Geraldine

Abstract

In this policy note we propose a new country-based sustainability index comprised of three main drivers: climate change, energy use, and resource depletion. We argue that increases in clean energy intensity (clean energy per dollar of GDP), decreases in carbon intensity (carbon emission per dollar of GDP), and water intensity (water used per dollar of GDP) significantly affect sustainability. Supplementary, we compare our proposed index with macroeconomic indicators like GDP, Income per capita and other development indices such as the Human Development Index and the GINI, showing marked differences, which we interpret as unexplored areas for sustainable gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Villamizar, Rodrigo & Villamizar-Villegas, Mauricio & Arango, Lucia & Castelblanco, Geraldine, 2021. "Sustainability as a Policy Tool," Working papers 82, Red Investigadores de Economía.
    • Handle: RePEc:rie:riecdt:82
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.redinvestigadores.org/bitstream/handle/Riec/103/SI%20Version%20July%205%202021%20V_final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2014. "Temperature and the Allocation of Time: Implications for Climate Change," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 1-26.
    2. Yongyang Cai, 2019. "Computational Methods in Environmental and Resource Economics," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 59-82, October.
    3. Robert S. Pindyck, 2013. "Climate Change Policy: What Do the Models Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 860-872, September.
    4. Tatyana Deryugina & Solomon M. Hsiang, 2014. "Does the Environment Still Matter? Daily Temperature and Income in the United States," NBER Working Papers 20750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Richard L. Revesz & Peter H. Howard & Kenneth Arrow & Lawrence H. Goulder & Robert E. Kopp & Michael A. Livermore & Michael Oppenheimer & Thomas Sterner, 2014. "Global warming: Improve economic models of climate change," Nature, Nature, vol. 508(7495), pages 173-175, April.
    6. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2012. "Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 66-95, July.
    7. Solomon M. Hsiang & Amir S. Jina, 2014. "The Causal Effect of Environmental Catastrophe on Long-Run Economic Growth: Evidence From 6,700 Cyclones," NBER Working Papers 20352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Smith, Richard L. & Tebaldi, Claudia & Nychka, Doug & Mearns, Linda O., 2009. "Bayesian Modeling of Uncertainty in Ensembles of Climate Models," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 104(485), pages 97-116.
    9. Julio Berbel & Alfonso Expósito, 2018. "Economic challenges for the EU Water Framework Directive reform and implementation," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 20-34, January.
    10. Iverson, Terrence, 2012. "Communicating Trade-offs amid Controversial Science: Decision Support for Climate Policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 74-90.
    11. Maximilian Auffhammer, 2018. "Quantifying Economic Damages from Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 33-52, Fall.
    12. Partha Dasgupta, 2008. "Discounting climate change," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 141-169, December.
    13. David Anthoff & Richard Tol, 2014. "Climate policy under fat-tailed risk: an application of FUND," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 220(1), pages 223-237, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Matthias Kalkuhl & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2016. "Knowing the Damages is not Enough: The General Equilibrium Impacts of Climate Change," CESifo Working Paper Series 5862, CESifo.
    2. Charles Fries & François Gourio, 2020. "Adaptation and the Cost of Rising Temperature for the U.S. economy," Working Paper Series WP-2020-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    3. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Wenz, Leonie, 2020. "The impact of climate conditions on economic production. Evidence from a global panel of regions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.t., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114941, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.T., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    6. Newell, Richard G. & Prest, Brian C. & Sexton, Steven E., 2021. "The GDP-Temperature relationship: Implications for climate change damages," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    7. Hjort, Ingrid, 2016. "Potential Climate Risks in Financial Markets: A Literature Overview," Memorandum 01/2016, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    8. Franziska Piontek & Matthias Kalkuhl & Elmar Kriegler & Anselm Schultes & Marian Leimbach & Ottmar Edenhofer & Nico Bauer, 2019. "Economic Growth Effects of Alternative Climate Change Impact Channels in Economic Modeling," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1357-1385, August.
    9. Gregory Casey & Stephie Fried & Ethan Goode, 2023. "Projecting the Impact of Rising Temperatures: The Role of Macroeconomic Dynamics," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(3), pages 688-718, September.
    10. Solomon Hsiang & Paulina Oliva & Reed Walker, 2019. "The Distribution of Environmental Damages," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(1), pages 83-103.
    11. Riccardo Colacito & Bridget Hoffmann & Toan Phan, 2019. "Temperature and Growth: A Panel Analysis of the United States," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(2-3), pages 313-368, March.
    12. Letta, Marco & Montalbano, Pierluigi & Tol, Richard S.J., 2018. "Temperature shocks, short-term growth and poverty thresholds: Evidence from rural Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 13-32.
    13. R. Jisung Park & Joshua Goodman & Michael Hurwitz & Jonathan Smith, 2020. "Heat and Learning," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 306-339, May.
    14. Signe Krogstrup & William Oman, 2019. "Macroeconomic and Financial Policies for Climate Change Mitigation: A Review of the Literature," IMF Working Papers 2019/185, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Richard S J Tol, 2018. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 4-25.
    16. Kahn, Matthew E. & Zhao, Daxuan, 2018. "The impact of climate change skepticism on adaptation in a market economy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 251-262.
    17. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    18. Jacopo Ponticelli & Qiping Xu & Stefan Zeume, 2023. "Temperature and Local Industry Concentration," Working Papers 23-51, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    19. Donadelli, M. & Jüppner, M. & Riedel, M. & Schlag, C., 2017. "Temperature shocks and welfare costs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 331-355.
    20. Yongyang Cai, 2020. "The Role of Uncertainty in Controlling Climate Change," Papers 2003.01615, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainability; Climate change; Energy use; Resource depletion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:rie:riecdt:82. 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: CAIE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/redcoea.html .

    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.