To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

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Stakeholders’ attention towards the relationship between firms’ financial performance and their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance is progressively increasing, leading analysts and operators to rely always more on ESG rating providers. However, as time passes by and firms and financial markets develop,...

To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

Recognizing the global sustainability challenges, European Union leaders have adopted the European Green Deal with wide-ranging goals for a climate-neutral, resource-efficient, technologically advanced, and socially equitable continent. They have also decided to integrate the UN Member States’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the...

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Can firms capitalize on social objectives? The authors scrutinize a mechanism for firms' private interests in climate externalities: in a dynamic common agency model, the private interest in internalizing externalities arises endogenously from interaction between income growth, social costs, and rents in dirty...

Green tax reform is unpopular, because typically the poor are hurt most by the higher prices of carbon-intensive commodities. If revenues from carbon taxation are recycled, it may be feasible to gain popular support for green tax reform. To investigate this, we estimate...

To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website.   ...

Modern investment theory recommends the use of project-specific risk-adjusted discount rates for investment and policy evaluations. Financial markets tell us that these risk adjustments have been large over the last century. But in reality, many public and private institutions and people use a...

The rise of large digital platforms — from Facebook, Google, and Amazon in the US to JD, Tencent, and Alibaba in China — has led to the unprecedented collection and commercial use of individual data. The paper “The Economics of Social Data” argues...

In the study “The economic impact of climate and weather”, Prof. R. Tol proposes a new conceptual framework to disentangle the impacts of weather and climate on economic activity and growth: a stochastic frontier model with climate in the production frontier and...

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The concepts Circular Economy has become increasingly important in the last decade and this trend is likely to strengthen in the EU in the next years. The European recovery strategy from the Covid-19 emergency is based on the EU Green Deal, which is...

In the study “Optimal regulation of energy network expansion when costs are stochastic”, the authors analyze optimal regulation of the gradual investments in energy networks necessary to accommodate the energy transition. They focus on a real option problem where costs of new network...

Although the spatial dimension is embedded in the vast majority of issues studied by environmental and resource economics, its incorporation into economic models - especially in the form of explicit introduction of a spatial transport mechanism - is not widespread. As a result,...

Social distancing via shelter-in-place (SIP) strategies and wearing masks have emerged as the most effective ways to combat COVID-19. In the United States, choices about these policies are made by individual states. The authors show that the policy choice made by one state...

Due to personal unforseen reasons, the event "World Energy Outlook Insights for the European Green Deal" by Laura Cozzi will be rescheduled to a later date.   ...

Seven partners of excellence - Politecnico di Milano, Athens University of Economics and Business, Yezreel Valley College, University of Haifa, Agrimatic Farms, RWTH Aachen University and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei – present the inaugural event of the AWESOME (Managing Water, Ecosystems and Food...

Most of the literature on the economics of catastrophes assumes that such events cause a reduction in the stream of consumption, as opposed to widespread fatalities. The presented research shows how to incorporate death in a model of catastrophe avoidance, and how a...

Despite being a complex challenge, the development of an effective methodology to evaluate the impact of climate on the company’s activity (and vice versa) is increasingly becoming a priority for firms and investors. As a consequence, the demand for disclosure of climate-related risks...

The interview has been realized in Italian language. To watch the interview, please visit the Italian webpage. ...

The event will be held in Italian language. To find out more, please visit the Italian web page....

The interview has been realized in Italian language. To watch the interview, please visit the Italian webpage. ...

There is still no general consensus on the relationship between corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate financial performance (CFP), neither there is an agreement on the theoretical framework that explains the contradictory results that have emerged over time. A number of reasons may...

The interview has been realized in Italian language. To watch the interview, please visit the Italian webpage. ...

Is Milan an inclusive city? Do we have equity in the city of Padova? Is it possible to ride a bike using the bike paths in Catania? Are there childcare facilities in Pesaro? If in Venice the path towards environmental sustainability is interesting,...

The interview has been realized in Italian language. To watch the interview, please visit the Italian webpage.   ...

The webinar will be held in English language. To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

Understanding the relationship between firms’ financial performance and their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance is a challenge that scholars have been tackling since the Seventies. However, as time passes by, the technology develops, and the data availability increases, the tools and methodologies...

The webinar will be held in English language. To find out more, please visit the Italian page of the website....

The webinar will be held in Italian language. To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website...

The webinar will be held in Italian language. To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

This webinar is organized by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in collaboration with the I and II Level Specialising Master “Design for Development. Architecture, Urban Planning and Heritage in the Global South” Politecnico di Milano - DAStU/Poliedra.In this webinar Catherine Kalisa (UN-Habitat) and Christian...

Since the horizon at which climate change impacts the economy has shortened, the very likely impact of climate change on growth and future output paths might require more involvement of monetary policy. Although monetary policy aims at short-term output and employment stabilization, it...

The webinar will be held in Italian language. To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

In June 2020, the European Parliament had adopted the Taxonomy Regulation, following the publication of the Technical Expert Group’s Technical Report on the EU Taxonomy and on the EU Green Bond Standard (March 2020). These publications contain key information on the functioning of...

The event will be held in Italian. To find out more please visit the Italian website....

The webinar will be held in Italian language. To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

The webinar will be held in Italian language. To find out more please visit the Italian page of the website....

This webinar is organized by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in collaboration with the I and II Level Specialising Master “Design for Development. Architecture, Urban Planning and Heritage in the Global South” Politecnico di Milano - DAStU/Poliedra. In this webinar Philipp Heinrigs (Head of...

The event will be held in Italian. To find out more please visit the Italian website....

This webinar is organized by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in collaboration with the I and II Level Specialising Master “Design for Development. Architecture, Urban Planning and Heritage in the Global South” Politecnico di Milano – DAStU/Poliedra. The webinar will discuss the paper...

The event will be held in Italian language. Please visit the Italian web page...

In December 2019, the European Commission has launched the European Green Deal. This set of actions is aimed at designing a set of deeply transformative policies, mainstreaming sustainability in all EU policies, and reinforce EU’s position as a global leader, assuming the responsibility...

The webinar will be held in Italian language. Visit the Italian webpage....

The webinar will be held in Italian language. Visit the Italian webpage....

The webinar will be held in Italia. Visit the Italian webpage....

Reporting frameworks following the guidelines like the Recommendations set out by the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and the EU’s Non-Binding Guidelines on Non-Financial Reporting are progressively being implemented by firms. However, firms still lack a sound assessment and measuring...

The event will be held in Italian language. L'evento è promosso da Forum per la Finanza Sostenibile e Société Générale Securities ServicesIl settore immobiliare deve affrontare importanti sfide ambientali e sociali, come la riduzione delle emissioni inquinanti e la crescita dell’urbanizzazione su scala...

On the 18th of June, the European Commission has released the update of the Non-Binding Guidelines for Non-Financial Reporting (NBG). This document, which is part of the EU Action Plan on Financial Sustainable Growth, takes into account the Recommendations of the Task Force...

As the the evidence on the links between climate change and business is becoming clearer, the debate on these connections is expanding and engaging an increasing number of stakeholders and discussants. At the European level, the discussion fits into the regulatory framework set...

SpeakersBenno Albrecht, Jacopo Galli, Francesco Musco, Domenico Patassini – IUAV Sara Amare, Daniel Semunugus, Biniam Tekle, Haile Gebre-Egziabher – Mekelle University Silvia Beghelli, Stefano Pareglio, Riccardo Spani – Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Victor Bay – Kinshasa UniversityMathewos Bekele – City of Addis Ababa...

This paper investigates health externalities generated by air transportation. As a source of exogenous variation, we use an unannounced five-month trial that reduced early morning aircraft landings at London Heathrow airport. Our measure of health is prescribed medication usage for conditions known to...

FEEM’s researchers of the “Firms And Cities Towards Sustainability - FACTS” Research Program as spekers of the series of seminars   “FEEM@IUAV”. Seminars will be held at the “Scuola di Dottorato Magistrale in Pianificazione e Politiche per la Città, il Territorio e l’Ambiente” of...

Evidence on the links between climate change and business is becoming increasingly clear. Business decisions will either slow or accelerate the pace at which climate change will unfold. Companies face growing pressure from investors to address the risks and opportunities related to climate...

Meeting the targets of climate change mitigation set by the Paris Agreement entails a huge transformation of the energy sector, as low- or no-carbon technologies are predicted to gradually substitute traditional, fossil-based technologies. From a technology perspective, power generation is at the same...

The links between environmental policies, innovation/invention and socio-economic performance have been variously analyzed at micro and meso levels through quantitative lenses. Though the literature that investigates the effects of energy prices and environmental policies has expanded, there is still room for original analyses...

The event will be held in Italian.To find out more, please visit this page....

The recently adopted Italian National Energy Strategy (2017) sets out a plan for the complete phase-out of coal production by 2025, which today still accounts for more than 15% of the electricity generated in Italy. Given the pace of electrification of the energy...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between immigration flows and internal mobility in Italy during the period 2003-2011. Using semiparametric negative binomial gravity models with smooth spatio-temporal trends, and dealing with endogeneity issues through a control function approach, we provide evidence of...

This paper provides an analysis of the link between the global market for crude oil and oil futures risk premium at the aggregate level. It offers empirical evidence on whether the compensation for risk required by the speculators depends on the type of...

In the European Union (EU) periurban agriculture is under the same agri-environmental policy regime designed for general agriculture. We argue that the specific needs of periurban agriculture may justify ad hoc agri-environmental policy measures. We present results from a Choice Experiment (CE) performed...

We estimate the spatial distribution profile of the population living without access in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using NOAA’s VIIRS satellite night light imagery and the CIESIN’s GPW gridded population dataset, we produce a high-resolution map of the unlit population in the region for year...

We test whether prosumers change their electricity consumption behavior after the installation of solar photovoltaic panels. Based on a large sample of residential PV installation in Wallonia, the answer is positive and we observe a significant consumption increase after the installation of the...

In this paper I will discuss an aspect of the problem of how to divide the World’s remaining “carbon budget” - the amount of CO2-e that can be emitted if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. I will argue that there is...

The event will be held in Italian.Diversi studi evidenziano come sempre più turisti prestino attenzione alla sostenibilità dei servizi turistici nel pianificare e acquistare la propria vacanza. Avere un modello di business che contempli pratiche di sostenibilità e politiche di gestione green è...

The presentation will be based on a recent OECD report. It provides a new perspective on the nature of urban sprawl, its causes and its consequences. This perspective, which is based on the multi-dimensionality of the phenomenon, sets the foundations for the construction...

Floods and droughts force over 25 million people into poverty annually, 30 times more than all other natural disasters combined (WB 2017). Developing a reservoir system to mitigate these risks requires an integrated understanding of long-term variability in supply and how supply and...

Heat-related mortality tends to be associated with heatwaves that do not allow for sufficient acclimatisation to hot weather. In contrast, damage functions and most heatwave emergency response plans do not account for acclimatisation. Using an excess heat measure that accounts for acclimatisation, this...

With the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 °C and pursue efforts to 1.5 °C. Equitable distribution across countries of emissions rights consistent with these goals is contentious and involves divergent views of distributive justice. With the...

The MUSE model (the ModUlar energy systems Simulation Environment), the new modelling environment developed at Imperial College London, simulates plausible pathways of the energy systems transition to a low-carbon economy on a global scale. The model simulates the behaviour of real investors, including...

In the frame of the 2009 EU directive promoting the use of energy from renewable energy sources, Italy has reached 6 years in advance its 2020 target of a 17% share of renewable energy in the final energy consumption. In this study we...

Discrete choice as a method of preference elicitation has dominated applications for decades. However, since the turn of the century influential econometricians have persuasively advocated the use of subjective probabilities. The seminar discusses the challenges associated with the latter, the progress to date...

Following the Paris Agreement highlighting the pursuit of efforts to limit the atmospheric temperature rise to 1.5° C above its pre-industrial level, the research question has been raised that what the role of climate engineering in compliance with 1.5° C-temperature target would be....

Carbon prices provide strong incentives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. A cap-and-trade program provides certainty with respect to future emission levels but uncertainty with respect to emissions prices. A carbon tax provides price certainty but uncertainty with respect to future emissions. Using a...

In this talk I will present the models we are currently developing and applying: SHERPA and SHERPA-city.SHERPA addresses “urban background” concentrations (spatial resolution of 7x7km, over the whole Europe), and it is a “surrogate model” of a fully-fledged Physically Based Model. Its main...

Despite the lack of robust empirical evidence, a growing number of media reports attempt to link climate change to the ongoing violent conflicts in Syria and other parts of the world, as well as to the migration crisis in Europe. Exploiting bilateral data...

Most of the studies that can be found in the literature analyze storage from a user’s point of view (the kind of service storage provides). Moreover the analysis of such literature suggests different approaches providing a framework for the various services which could...

The seminar will be held in Italian.For more information, visiti this page (in Italian)....

Solar geoengineering (SG), also known as solar radiation management, has received increasing attention as an option to temporarily stabilise global temperatures. A key concern surrounding these technologies is of a strategic nature: International anarchy, heterogeneous preferences over the optimal amount of cooling, and...

The green paradox is an effect by which an increasing tax per unit on oil production, aimed at tracking damages from CO2 emissions, induces an increase in world production and a decrease in price in the near term. The increase is a rational...

Energy and power supply in Eastern African countries are among the world’s lowest, and the region represents only 1.5% of global primary energy consumption vis-à-vis 6% of total population. Only a minor share of the energy resources in the region is currently...

The energy demand sectors industry, transport and buildings are together directly responsible for around 51 % of the global energy-related CO2 emissions and indirectly drive the emissions in the energy supply sectors. The demand sectors are characterized by many subsectors, technologies, heterogeneous end-users...

We analyze the implications of environmental policy on pollution in a stochastic framework with finite horizon and sustainability concern. The social planner seeks to minimize the social (environmental and economic) costs associated with pollution. We allow for the planner to attach different relative...

Following the development of natural gas trading hubs in Europe, forward products have become a response to the higher exposure to price risk faced by energy companies. Yet, a significant share of trade occurs over-the-counter (OTC), where inter-dealer brokers act as intermediaries and...

The 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 23) to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in November 2017 with the view to make progress on the development of the operational details of the Paris Agreement.The...

This paper reports the results from a laboratory experiment designed to study strategic communication by an expert who is concerned about appearing to be well informed. A reporter privately observes a signal about a state of the world and reports a message to...

Climate change raises the issue of intergenerational equity. As climate change threatens irreversible and dangerous impacts, possibly leading to extinction, the most relevant trade-off may not be between present and future consumption, but between present consumption and the mere existence of future generations....

The Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation has launched a study to investigate the role of quality food and wine products within the development process, not just tourism, of a rural region such as Basilicata characterized by quality food and wine products and quality production...

This webinar, which is dedicated to the Best Climate Practice Award, is the occasion to showcase the most innovative and compelling projects that have participated in the 2017 edition of the contest, and to explore the landscape and challenges of climate resilience and...

A revolutionary new approach to measuring changes in forest carbon density has helped scientists determine that the tropical forest regions now emit more carbon than they capture, due to extensive deforestation and degradation.The landmark paper, “Tropical forests are a net carbon source based...

Climate change is projected to be a powerful stressor on terrestrial ecosystems in the second half of the 21st century, especially under high-warming scenarios such as RCP6.0 and RCP8.5.Direct human impacts such as land use and land use change, pollution, and water resource...

AIM has been working on climate change modeling and making policy suggestions for more than 20 years. The talk is going to introduce the recent AIM activities which have basically three direction.First, integrating various environmental and societal issues related to climate change is...

In the run-up to the Paris Climate Agreement and thereafter, there has been heated debate as to what the Loss and Damage debate should cover. Some have suggested that compensation for losses already incurred is to be its focus. Other observers have suggested...

The Italian electricity retail market is fully liberalized since 2007, allowing all households to choose between a regulated tariff and those offered in the free market. However, as of 2015, almost 70% of households remains with the regulated contract and only 3.6% moves...

This paper explores factors that impact residential adoption of environmental technologies by comparing approaches to technology adoption from economics and psychology. We design a large scale door-to-door field experiment in the spirit of Della Vigna, List, and Malmendier (2009) that identifies the influence...

Currently, a noticeable research effort is being fostered to improve the quality of sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) weather predictions, a field still with a high capacity of improvement. European energy companies have a strong interest in such climate information to improve energy efficiency...

When thinking about global environmental policies, such as climate change mitigation and transnational biodiversity conservation, one of the most pressing concerns is an understanding of how individual public goods contributions change when benefits from public goods provisions cross national borders and generations. We...

Poterba (1991a) has much influenced the literature on the distributional effects of carbon pricing. Poterba argues that the incidence of energy/environmental taxes across households is better appreciated if the relative tax burdens are measured against total expenditure, interpreted as a proxy for lifetime...

On June, 1st, 2017, US president Donald Trump announced that his country would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord and on July, 8th, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that his country would probably not ratify the agreement either. The paper investigates...

The Paris Climate Agreement has put forests at the center of the stage. According to the countries’ pledges, forests will account for about 25% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions planned for 2030. However, to achieve and track this mitigation potential,...

Using the gravity framework, I investigate whether being part of the European Union (EU) reduces trade frictions between European countries. First, I show that European trade exhibits significant trade frictions in 26 manufacturing sectors, as measured by economies of scale in trade costs:...

The objective of this research is to analyze to which extent CDM investments have provided Brazilian municipalities with development benefits through the assessment of impacts on income, poverty and other development indicators. This study contributes to this strand of the literature in two...

The optimal operation of water resources systems is a wide and challenging application domain for optimal control methods and tools. Water resources systems are highly non linear systems, with large dimensional state and control spaces, affected by uncertainty and characterized by multiple competing...

The transition towards a low-carbon economy involves the enterprises as primary actors. Indeed, a transformation of business models is currently taking place, such that the business case for sustainability is today a popular concept among scholars and practitioners. In times of great transformations,...

Melbourne, like other large Australian cities, is growing outwards more than upwards. Together with the shift from manufacturing to services, this leaves a large proportion of the population to choose between unaffordable housing in inner areas with high concentrations of employment, or long...

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies may be critical to achieving deep decarbonization. Yet a lack of technical and commercial maturity of CDR technologies hinders potential deployment. This talk assesses near-term opportunities to research, develop, and demonstrate CDR technologies by leveraging existing infrastructure, technologies,...

The 2015 circular economy package has created an important momentum to support the transition towards a more circular economy in the EU. This package included legislative proposals on waste, with long-term targets to reduce landfilling and increase recycling and reuse. In order to...

Who is the Environmental Defense? What is our history? How do we fit into the environmental community in the U.S. and around the world? What role has EDF played in the several climate change policies that Trump proposes to rollback and what we...

Polar amplification is an established scientific fact which has been associated with the surface albedo feedback and with heat and moisture transport from the Equator to the Poles.In a recent paper, Brock and Xepapadeas (2017)* unified a two-box climate model, which allows for...

The methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse. Some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties' perceptions of affordable warmth at home; whereas others calculate objective indicators. Although these different proposals...

Installed generation capacity, average electricity access and per capita electricity consumption are the world lowest across the African continent, while the level of electricity disservice the highest. There is no doubt that this situation is playing an important role in dampening structural transformation...

Presentazione del lavoro di dottorato svolto in collaborazione con l’Università degli studi della Basilicata, riguardante la valutazione della qualità ambientale del Lago Pertusillo secondo un approccio multidisciplinare. Il lago di Pietra del Pertusillo è un invaso artificiale ubicato nell’Alta Val d’Agri, nella parte...

This webinar will focus on the progress made in recent years on the topic of ecosystem-based approaches for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA). It will discuss the advances on the policy front by considering the perspectives from the climate...

We study gender differences in bilateral bargaining based on an artefactual field experiment in rural Uganda through variation in gender composition of the bargaining pairs as well as in disclosure of identities. We find that disagreement is common independently of the disclosure condition,...

Scientific and policy attention for natural capital and ecosystem services have grown fast during the last decade. As a result, awareness on the value of the stock of natural capital and the flow of ecosystem services it provides increased. Decision-makers from governments, business...

We investigate impacts of deep economic integration between Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia constituting the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).The absence of tariff barriers in bilateral trade opens opportunities for harmonization of NTBs. Policy measures aimed on NTBs reduction are in line with the...

The presentation will demonstrate the key role water plays for sustainable development in all its dimensions – from an economic, social and environmental perspective. The content will be based on the UN World Water Development Report (WWDR) 2017 “Wastewater: The Untapped Resource”.   It...

In 2015, the High Ambition Coalition (HAC), an amalgamation of developed and developing countries, entered the world stage at COP21 in Paris. In the presentation based on my master thesis, I assess the past performance and the potential future role of the HAC...

Ecosystems sustain society and human well-being by providing a wide spectrum of ecosystem services. Nonetheless, markets and policymakers fail to reflect the value of ecosystems appropriately in their decisions, leading to an unsustainable exploitation rate of many ecosystems over the last decades. The...

The European Union includes energy efficiency among those priority measures that citizens and Member States are asked to adopt for the achievement of as reduction of CO2 emissions and the development of green markets based upon clean energies.   This concept is strengthened also...

Households value diversity in many settings, including financial assets, gender of children, and occupations. This paper quantifies the extent to which multi-car households exhibit preferences for a diversified vehicle portfolio. We deploy a novel identification strategy to examine how an exogenous change in...

Energy storage is arguably a vital element in maintaining a healthy reliable balance between supply and demand in the presence of intermittent green technologies such as wind power. When trying to understand the current and future role of energy storage, the first consideration...

The paper is co-authored by Francesco Vona and Giovanni Marin.The seminar is based on a paper that evaluates the historical influence of energy prices on a series of measures of environmental and economic performance for a panel of French manufacturing establishments during the...

Stefano Pareglio presenterà i risultati di un'analisi, condotta in collaborazione con alcune grandi imprese italiane, sulle modalità di individuazione, valutazione, gestione e mitigazione dei rischi climatici. L'indagine svolta intende promuovere un dibattito volto ad accrescere la consapevolezza delle imprese italiane, anche in relazione...

Fertility is an important driver of global carbon emissions via its effects on population growth, yet little is known about the potential for climate change to affect fertility patterns. Such a reverse effect could have two major impacts on the climate-economy system. First,...

Why aren’t we investing more in disaster resilience, despite the rising costs of disaster events? Decision-makers in governments, businesses, households, and development agencies tend to focus on avoiding losses from disasters, and perceive the return on investment as uncertain – only realised if...

The reliability of damage models employed in the estimate of potential cost from natural disasters is influenced by many factors, among them some of the most important are a reliable spatial representation of the exposed value and a damage function which has been...

Drought risks and water scarcity are expected to intensify as a result of human-induced climate change and could pose threats to the stability of the domestic agri-food markets. Some areas in Europe, notably the Mediterranean countries, are more prone to prolonged drought spells...

Co-authors: Angelica Gianfreda, Lucia Parisio, and Matteo PelagattiThe massive introduction of RES in electricity markets has in influenced the long-run dynamics of electricity prices and their interactions with conventional thermal production sources. Taking into account the Northern Italian zone characterized by a high...

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is broadly understood to be a key mitigation technology, yet modeling analyses provide different results regarding the applications in which it might be used most effectively. The GCAM model consistently shows significant deployment in electricity generation and in...

The paper presented in this seminar is co-authored by Marinella Davide.At the end of 2015 two important summits took place whose outcomes will potentially lead to a redefinition of the international policy environment in the near future. In September, the adoption of the...

The early entry into force of the Paris Agreement has really turned COP 22 into a “COP of Action”, as its official slogan declares. Important issues discussed in Marrakech include the definition of guidance for the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and adaptation communication;...

ICCG, International Center for Climate Governance, a joint initiative of the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and Fondazione Giorgio Cini, is pleased to host in Milan the prize-giving ceremony of the Best Climate Practices Award 2016 "Expanding access to climate finance". The 2016...

The paper presented in this seminar is co-authored by Chloé Le Coq, Henrik Orzen and Sebastian Schwenen. The creation of adequate investment incentives has been of great concern in the restructur-ing of the electricity sector. However, to achieve this regulators have applied different...

This paper focuses on coastal protection against SLR. This is a typical case requiring public interventions to coordinate huge investments addressed to build protective infrastructure that will become a quasi-public good. To address properly this issue the ICES CGE model has been enhanced...

Co-Authors: C. Gallier, J. Lohse, C. Reif & D. Römer Empirical and experimental evidence raises the possibility that parochialism, i.e. individuals’ narrow concern for local outcomes, will inevitably interfere with efficiency in the multi-level social dilemmas familiar from environmental policy. We conduct a...

2016 Climate and Environment Cinema is a series of four events jointly organized by the International Center for Climate Change (ICCG) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). They will take place from May to October 2016. Each session will include the...

Co-authors: Francesco Bosello, Jacopo Zotti, Fabio Eboli The DYNAMIX project aimed at identifying dynamic and robust policy mixes with concrete potential to bring the EU on a path leading to absolute decoupling of resource use and economic growth by 2050, for a selected...

I will present an overview of my current research projects and my research interests to seek collaboration on future research projects. In particular, I will focus on electricity interconnection and market design, analysis of consumer behaviour and smart meters, and the effects of...

All electricity generation technologies create risks to society, such as global warming, induced seismicity, or severe industrial accidents. Scientific inquiry and wider energy debate often revolve around individual technologies. As electricity demand is supplied by a technology portfolio, phasing out one technology in...

MDBs play multiple roles in supporting climate initiatives in emerging markets – including policy reform, firm-level technical assistance, placing investments, tapping into sources of concessional funds, and mobilizing additional co-investors. These will be illustrated through 3 case studies:green bonds,scaling solar initiatives, andgreen buildings....

Next 4 October 2016,   Teatro Scuola Linguaggicreativi   will host   ICCG – International Center for Climate Governance, a joint initiative of Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Fondazione Giorgio Cini Onlus – with the project “Ciack4Change”, the format proposed during Venetonight, the European Researchers’ Night...

On September 30th, 2016 at 19:30, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,  the VenetoNight event will host ICCG – International Center for Climate Governance, a joint initiative of Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Fondazione Giorgio Cini – with the project “Ciack4change”.Ciack4Change is an event...

This paper aims to evaluate the causal effect of the London Congestion Charge on the level of pollution. To this end, we have assembled a unique dataset. This consists of daily observations, concentrating on five pollutants: PM10, O3, CO, NOX, SO2. By using...

This work is co-authored by Mistry Malcolm, De Cian Enrica and Wing Ian Sue. This work is co-authored by Mistry Malcolm, De Cian Enrica and Wing Ian Sue.A rapidly growing literature employs historical observations or pseudo-data generated by Global Gridded Crop Models (GGCMs)...

The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements—collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS)—regulate the seventh continent, which is the only continent without a native human population. The main treaty within the ATS came into force in 1961 and suspended all territorial claims in...

This paper presents an agent based model for the study of coupled economic and climate dynamics that endogenously co-evolve across a range of diff erent scenarios. The model o ffers a flexible laboratory to test various combinations of macroeconomic, industrial and climate policies...

2016 Climate and Environment Cinema is a series of four events jointly organized by the International Center for Climate Change (ICCG) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). They will take place from May to October 2016. Each session will include the...

Over the last five years, North Africa has profoundly changed. After the so-called Arab Springs, the widespread instability engendered a deep power vacuum, which has been filled mainly by jihadism. At the same time, the emergence of the Islamic State as a regional...

The seminar aims to introduce climate models as useful tools to interpret future climate evolutions. Their different typologies, recent development and capabilities, the information they can provide and how these should be correctly interpreted and potentially used outside the climate science environments, will...

This dissertation investigates the impact of climate change and climate variability on influenza, crop yields, and the determinants of climatological disasters. These domains are extremely sensitive to changes in the climatic factors which affect crucial aspects of human existence and welfare and are...

The OECD report on "The economic consequences of outdoor air pollution" provides a comprehensive assessment of the economic consequences of outdoor air pollution in the coming decades, focusing on the impacts on mortality, morbidity, and changes in crop yields as caused by high...

Insights on the past trends and determinants of energy innovation are essential to set the basis for efficient and effective climate and energy policies in the coming years. Yet, the understanding of energy-related innovation dynamics and in particular of the political economy of...

The seminar will explore the concept of ‘carbon risk’, focusing both on the risks that carbon-intensive companies are exposed to (“operator carbon risk”) and on the risks that is passed on to lenders and investors with a stake in these companies (“carbon asset...

A carbon sequestration strategy is proposed in which forests are sustainably managed to optimal carbon productivity, and a fraction of the wood is selectively harvested and stored to prevent decomposition under anaerobic, dry or cold conditions. Because a large flux of CO2 is...

This talk focuses on environmental migration in South Africa. I will first examine the sources of vulnerability within South Africa that may interact with climate variations to influence migration flows. I will then present my recent econometric study on internal migration in post-...

Long-run forecasts of productivity growth and related uncertainty have become important in policy analysis. However, a thin long-run forecast literature has led to a practice of using ranges of point estimates to partially bound this uncertainty rather than fully parameterizing uncertainty in long-run...

Carbon markets 1.0 were, and still are, closely aligned to the Kyoto Protocol, both in terms of governance, as well as in the way they function. Some of the market components are run by the UNFCCC, and they include the Clean Development Mechanism...

2016 Climate and Environment Cinema is a series of four events jointly organized by the International Center for Climate Change (ICCG) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). They will take place from May to October 2016. Each session will include the...

Following a series of global changes, today the rules that so far have governed the markets, the values, the development models paradigms and the world balances are rapidly changing. The current political, social and economic upheaval are generating new balance of global governance...

Sustainable Development Goal 7 on the access to affordable and clean energy (SDG7) has been at the center of last COP21 whose first practical outcome, outlined in the Paris Agreement, is to stimulate implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCS) that will largely...

Monetary policy has significant environmental and social repercussions. The channels through which money in our economies is created, as well as the actions taken by central banks with regard to interest rate levels, asset purchases and macroprudential policy are key factors driving economic...

Using state contingent analysis we discuss how and why irrigators adapt to alternative water supply signals. Focusing on the timing of water allocations, we explore inherent differences in the demand for water by two key irrigation sectors: annual and perennial producers. The analysis...

Economic instruments are varied, and their uptake differs depending on the legal, social, economic and environmental context under consideration. In some contexts pricing and public subsidization form a basis for mitigating impacts, while in others private risk-mitigation arrangements such as insurance and water...

Previous research has shown that revealing players’ identities increases cooperation in public goods games. In this paper we experimentally investigate whether this finding holds true when decisions are made by teams rather than individuals. The results show that, while teams contribute more to...

The mounting number of diverse signs of the possible onset of “runaway global warming” have encouraged scientists to draw attention to the need for technically effective and economically attractive methods of actively removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — more specifically, to a...

2016 Climate and Environment Cinema is a series of four events jointly organized by the International Center for Climate Change (ICCG) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). They will take place from May to October 2016. Each session will include the...

The 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) successfully concluded the mandate that had been agreed upon at COP17 in Durban, South Africa in 2011, by all Parties. There, the...

Harnessing the US$300 trillion in the global financial system will be essential to make a successful transition to a prosperous, low-carbon economy. The UNEP Inquiry has uncovered a ‘quiet revolution’ in policy and market innovations to mobilise capital and mainstream sustainability factors in...

The continuing massive recourse to fossil fuel in both the energy and transport systems is hampering the development of a much needed low carbon economy in the EU. The main question has shifted from whether or not we have to de-carbonize our economy...

The provision of global public goods, such as climate change mitigation and managing fisheries to avoid overharvesting, requires the coordination of national contributions. The contributions are managed by elected governments who, in turn, are subject to public pressure on the matter. In an...

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Matija Kovacic, Juliana Bernhofer? and Francesco Costantini. This paper explores the relationship between linguistic variation and individual attitudes toward uncertainty and risky behavior. According to linguistic relativity hypothesis, linguistic differences in grammatical structure may...

This Policy Seminar will provide the latest updates on international climate change and energy policy. In particular, the speakers will present China’s recently-released  13th Five-Year Plan, with a concerted focus on the strategy it establishes in terms of emissions reduction and clean energy....

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Valentina Bosetti and Cristina Cattaneo. Climate change through a gradual warming, changes in precipitation pattern and the intensification of extreme events such as flood, droughts, storm or extreme hit, may be the cause of...

Land take opponents argue that the anthropic transformation driven by urban growth to the detriment of agriculture and the environment is excessive and often unnecessary. An extensive literature that analyses large cities, linked urban spatial expansion to the socio-economic characters in a territory,...

Water buyback is an increasingly accepted policy to restore environmental flows threatened by overallocation. Purchase tenders compensate irrigators who decide to surrender (part of) their right to withdraw water, provided effective use exists. A major concern in water buyback involves the extent of...

This seminar has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES under REA grant agreement n° 609642 and is based on a paper co-authored by Christoph Böhringer, Thomas F. Rutherford, David G. Tarr and...

The internationalization of companies has become a must in recent years, interpreted as a kind of surviving strategy for them. The entrance into new foreign markets represents a response to the economic and financial crisis as well as to the saturation degree of...

A need for low-carbon world has added a new challenging dimension for the long-term energy scenarios development. In addition to the traditional factors like technological progress, demographic, economic, political and institutional considerations, there is another aspect of the modern energy forecasts related to...

In December 2015, world leaders reached a historic climate agreement at COP21 in Paris, sending a clear signal to governments and businesses to accelerate their efforts to decarbonize their economies, supply chains and business models. Now it’s time to move from diplomacy to...

Co-Authors: Vona Francesco (OFCE SciencesPo), Marin Giovanni (Ceris-CNR and OFCE SciencesPo) and Davide Consoli (INGENIO) This paper is the first to provide comprehensive evidence of green employment dynamics for a panel of US metro and non-metro areas over the period 2006-2014. We propose...

The Carmen-Pajonal-Machona lagoon system (CPM) is located along Mexico Gulf in the State of Tabasco. It is a low-depth coastal wetland which is separated from the ocean by a fragile sand bar. It communicates with the sea through two inlets and hosts important...

The presentation is based on a paper co-authores by Loic Berger and Valentina Bosetti. This paper reports the results of an experiment jointly characterizing risk and model uncertainty aversion. Based on a general framework developed in Marinacci (2015), we explore subjects’ attitudes towards...

Climate change is expected to increase risks to businesses, infrastructure, assets and economies. Understanding how to involve the private sector in responding to these risks – or encouraging them to take advantage of the new business opportunities that may arise from changing climate...

The Policy Seminar will focus on the recent UNFCCC Conference of Parties, COP21, concluded in Paris on December 12 with the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The new global climate deal is expected to enter into force in 2020 after the second commitment...

Standard cost-benefit analysis is inadequate for large scale social risks (natural disasters, technological accidents, terrorism) because it rests on the unrealistic assumption of perfect risk sharing. As a consequence, it focuses only on the aggregate effects of the risk, while it neglects both...

Alps are considered “the Water towers of Europe”: a significant part of surface and groundwater outflows are directly or indirectly depending on the water accumulated in snow, glaciers and permafrost. This inestimable function is threatened by climate change. Changing patterns of rain and...

The economics of climate change involves a vast array of uncertainties, complicating both the analysis and development of climate policy. This study presents the results of the first comprehensive study of uncertainty in climate change using multiple integrated assessment models. The study looks...

We live in a century of urbanisation. Millions have moved to cities in the last decades, another 2.7 billion will join till 2050 - creating new urban powerhouses, transforming large cities to megacities and changing villages to world known centres. Cities provide higher...

Authors: Andrea Bastianin, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera We develop a structural Vector Autoregressive model to study the economic impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on coffee production, export and price in Colombia. The econometric model relies on a recursive identification scheme consistent...

California in now in its fourth year of drought, and the governor has declared a State of Emergency (http://ca.gov/drought/). The State is the largest, most dynamic and most innovative economy in the US. This webinar will outline how economists assess water scarcity, and...

One factor that makes climate change mitigation difficult is its long-term horizon. Here we frame this social dilemma as a "public bad" that captures the key features of the problem and in particular its dynamic externality. In a theory-based experimental platform, we compare...

We can classify future problems and their contingencies into 3 level of increasing unawareness: White Swans, Grey Swans and Black Swans (Taleb 2007). White Swans are problems with known sets of probable outcomes and contingencies (i.e. complete awareness). Grey Swans are problems that...

The webinar aims at presenting the DYNAMIX results on policy mix assessment for resource efficiency (DYNAMIX project will end in March 2016), generating a discussion around challenges and experiences on policy implementation within the participants, and finally link the results to the current...

This session introduces decision making analysis for urban climate resilience and water related issues with particular focus on multi criteria analysis (MCA) approach. This approach has been widely used in environmental and climate change assessment and decision making on prioritizing different policies, actions,...

The European Union is devoting consideral effort to create a single EU gas market through a series of Directives and regulations. In order to assess whether the new regulatory framework has been successful so far, we investigate the convergence of prices paid by...

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Elena Verdolini and Michele Maurizio Malpede. The term "rebound effect" indicates a reduction in the expected gains associated with increases the energy efficiency due to behavioural or other systemic responses. Specifically, increased energy efficiency...

Visions for urban post – carbon futures have a great potential in triggering urban transitions. We have analysed the results from an exercise of vision building undertaken in eight European cities, where visions were used as a tool helping the transition towards a...

The Green Bonds market tripled in size in 2014. The only aspect outpacing this growth has been the increase in reports, publicity and research around the market and how it may help scale up climate finance. CPI has been conducting internal analysis over...

This paper identifies and analyses some key challenges that OECD and partner economies may face over the coming 50 years if underlying global trends relating to growth, trade, inequality and environmental pressures prevail. For example, global growth is likely to slow and become...

Industrial economies have undergone multiple transitions in their dominant energy input: from biomass to coal, then from coal to oil, and now perhaps from oil to natural gas. I develop a setting in which specialized machines must be used to convert different types...

At the global level, climate and socio-economic changes determine the patterns of the allocation and trade of resources in all markets. Top-Down computable general equilibrium  (CGE) models, using only economics factors of production (capital and labour mostly) and ignoring natural resources constraints, look...

This paper presents an application of a model-based framework specifically conceived to assess future sustainability over time, at country and macro-regional level, across scenarios. The methodology relies upon a multi-step procedure. First, a macro-economic model is extended, tailored and run to keep track...

Multiple criteria decision analysis aims at representing the preferences of a decision maker over a set of alternatives; his final decision is hence the result of an aggregation process based on his preferences and the criteria set. Traditional aggregator tools such as the...

The paper analyzes to which extent risk and equity preferences affect society's willingness to pay to eliminate a social risk, which is defined as a global risk that has differentiated impacts across subgroups of the population. Three approaches to equity are considered: utilitarianism;...

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Malcolm N. Mistry, Enrica De Cian and Ian Sue Wing. There is widespread concern that trends and variability in weather induced by climate change will detrimentally affect global agricultural productivity and food supplies. Reliable...

2015 Climate Cinema is a series of events taking place in five parts from February to June 2015. Each session will show a screening of one to two short films dealing with climate change. These films come from past editions of Think Forward...

WTO agreements discipline the use of subsidies, particularly for upstream manufacturing or exports. Unlike tariff rules, the Subsidies Code lacks exceptions for transboundary externalities like human health or resource conservation, including those related to combatting global climate change. Yet support policies for green...

In the last decade the equilibriums of Latin America seem profoundly changed: the US does not have the important weight that held in the ‘90 for the subcontinent, at the same time the region grows with a balance of trade which is rebalanced...

This seminar is based on a work co-authored by Warwick McKibbin, Adele Morris and Peter Wilcoxen. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun regulating existing stationary sources of greenhouse gases (GHG) using its authority under the Clean Air Act (the Act)....

Climate change is affecting temperatures and precipitation across Europe. However, the observed and projected changes differ across seasons and regions. Further differentiation is necessary between mean water availability and extremes, such as droughts, heavy precipitation and floods. For example, some European regions may...

Coal is China's most important energy commodity. It accounts for the majority of energy consumption, and China produces and consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined.  Such levels of coal production raise economic activity, but at the same...

Geothermal energy holds significant promises for the low carbon energy systems of developing countries. As a renewable electricity source with the ability to both meet base load power demand and backstop fluctuating supply from other renewable sources, it can be a vital component...

2015 Climate Cinema is a series of events taking place in five parts from February to June 2015. Each session will show a screening of one to two short films dealing with climate change. These films come from past editions of Think Forward...

The extraction and processing of unconventional oil is more energy intensive and has larger negative environmental impacts than the extraction of conventional oil. The European Union (EU) estimates that oil sands lead to 22% more emissions than conventional oil. The EU is very...

This seminar is based on a book edited by Raffaello Cervigni, Rikard Liden, Jim Neumann, and Kenneth Strzepek, published in the World Bank series “Africa Development Forum”. To sustain Africa’s growth, and accelerate the eradication of extreme poverty, investment in infrastructure is fundamental....

The goal of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence on co-volatility of commodities. For this purpose we conduct a two steps analysis. First, we use a Dynamic Conditional Correlation GARCH (DCC-GARCH) model of Engle (2002) to examine the time-varying conditional...

Meeting human aspirations in an increasingly resource limited world and in the perspective of a changing climate, requires that resources are used prudently and equitably. Many low income countries are currently undergoing rapid economic development commonly fuelled by two processes: agricultural transformation and...

The relationship between climate change and migration has been poorly understood in the literature and it deserves the attention of scientific community (Stern, 2013; Licker and Oppenheimer, 2013). This work wants to be an additional contribution to the existing literature. The aim is...

This presentation is based on a paper co-authored by Carlo Cambini (Politecnico di Torino), Elena Fumagalli (DIG_Politecnico di MIlano, IEFE-Bocconi University) and Laura Rondi (DIGEP-Politecnico di Torino, CERIS-CNR-Moncalieri-Torino). This paper focus on output-based regulation and empirically investigates the effect of rewards and penalties...

Since 1983, the Millennium Institute (MI) has been engaged in the development of capacity for sustainable development planning within governments, planning institutions, academia, the private sector, and international organizations. Over the last 20 years MI has led the development of simulation models for...

Authors: Pietro Battiston - Istituto Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy; Jaimie Bleck - University of Notre Dame, IN, US; Jacopo Bonan - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and Lab Expo, Fondazione Feltrinelli, Italy; Philippe LeMay-Boucher - Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, UK; Stefano Pareglio - Università...

2015 Climate Cinema is a series of events taking place in five parts from February to June 2015. Each session will show a screening of one to two short films dealing with climate change. These films come from past editions of Think Forward...

Concerns about water scarcity in arid countries focus on irrigation, the most water-demanding sector worldwide. Irrigation is often seen as wasteful and inefficient. In fact, irrigation efficiency can be as low as 40-50 percent, leading to misuse of this finite and precious resource....

This seminar is based on a work co-authored by Elisa Delpiazzo, Gabriele Standardi and Ramiro Parrado. In a background of a financial crisis along with high levels of indebtedness and aging population, high unemployment levels and the need for fiscal outlays for unemployment...

FEEM started investigating the relationship between companies and their stakeholders in the early 1990s, well before corporate social responsibility (CSR) became one of the buzzwords in the business sphere. In this early stage, FEEM developed groundbreaking methods to assess the environmental and social...

This presentation is based on a paper co-authored by Valentina De Marchi, Roberto Grandinetti and James J. Cordeiro. In recent years, the heightened importance of the environmental agenda has increasingly placed environmental innovations (EI) in the forefront of policy maker and corporate action....

2015 Climate Cinema is a series of events taking place in five parts from February to June 2015. Each session will show a screening of one to two short films dealing with climate change. These films come from past editions of Think Forward...

We study the impact of the Fukushima disaster on environmental concerns and well-being in Germany and other industrialized countries, more than 5,000 miles distant. While we do not find evidence that subjective well-being was significantly affected—not in Germany, Switzerland, or the UK—the disaster...

Photosynthesis is a water-intensive biochemical process. As part of the photosynthetic process, plants and surfaces release water into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration. The greater the biomass and crop yields, the greater the volume of water undergoing evapotranspiration. To conserve water, we need to...

The Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance is a new, global initiative that draws on expertise from around the world to design and pilot the next generation of cutting edge climate finance instruments. Based on proposals from around the world, The Lab identified...

Environmental policies address wellbeing and sustainability objectives, affecting firm and household behaviour. A newly developed, cross-country composite proxy of environmental policy stringency (EPS) shows that stringency has been increasing across OECD countries over the past two decades. However, the tightening environmental policies have...

2015 Climate Cinema is a series of events taking place in five parts from February to June 2015. Each session will show a screening of one to two short films dealing with climate change. These films come from past editions of Think Forward...

This paper investigates the determinants through which ownership of energy infrastructures for the transmission of electricity and gas affects the type and level of investment. In particular we examine whether the investment propensity of a sample of European energy network companies from 2004...

Southeast Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions of the World to the impacts of climate change. At the same time, the region is also following a trajectory that could make it a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the future....

As clearly indicated by the recent IPCC report (IPCC, 2014) the Earth’s climate is warming at an unprecedented rate and this warming will likely lead to a rapid rise in sea level. The accelerated sea level rise, aggravated by more frequent extreme events,...

Climate change negotiations in the framework of the UNFCCC are expected to lead to the adoption of an international agreement at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties in Paris at the end of 2015. The future agreement should combine a...

Sea levels are rising as a result of climate change and thereby amplifying the risk of tidal and storm flooding in coastal communities. Flooding is problematic, leading to many types of damages, particularly destruction or degradation of property due to contact with floodwater....

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Xueqin Cui (Renmin University of China), Laurent Drouet (FEEM and CMCC) and Giacomo Marangoni, (FEEM and CMCC). A limited quota of future cumulative global CO2 emissions is associated with a certain climate stabilization target....

The paper presented in this seminar is co-authored by Ian Sue Wing and Shouro Dasgupta. Estimates of flu-associated deaths in the United States range from around 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 with direct medical costs estimated at over $10 billion. Previous...

This paper is co-authored by Doruk Iris, Sogang University, Jungmin Lee, Sogang University and Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) and Alessandro Tavoni, London School of Economics, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment Provision of global public goods, such as...

The Think Forward Film Festival was established in Venice in 2011, with the aim to study, discuss, and disseminate climate change as well as the issues related to energy efficiency and renewable energy through both short and feature films. The Think Forward Film...

While ‘recovery from waste’ is becoming a popular expression, in some old industrialisation Countries it remains a highly controversial and paralyzing issue. This seminar explores why moving from mentioning the problem to its solutions requires the description of an extended and complex system:...

This brief explains CPI’s understanding and definition of key climate finance terms and the reasons for these definitions to inform the debate and build a common understanding among stakeholders. Policy makers, investors, financial intermediaries and analysts do not always have the same understanding...

Una serata ricca di filmati dall'ultima edizione del “Think Forward Festival”, per intravedere e immaginare il futuro della Terra. Immaginare un futuro con tutte le sue complesse incognite, tenebrose o illuminanti: vedere da vicino la descrizione di una situazione ambientale purtroppo sempre più...

Recent heating and reliability of measurements. The heat balance of the surface of the earth, radiation thermal properties, heat propagation and absorption. Why should we worry? Are we the cause? Past and future of atmospheric CO2. Should we rewrite the 10 commandments?...

The seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Anna Cretì - Paris Dauphine and Ecole Polytechnique, Marc Joëts - Ipag Business School and EconomiX Cnrs and Federico Pontoni - IEFE, Università Bocconi. In the coming years, France will renew hydroelectric concessions through...

This paper is co-authored by Renaud Foucarty and Cheng Wan. This paper studies strategic decentralization in the provision of global public goods. It is well known that cooperation between countries can improve total provision. However, we show that a coalition, with the aim...

City research has a tradition since more than 100 years. While the most of past city assessments are case studies focusing on specific features or spatial sub-entities of urban systems there is an increasing demand to identify gross effects of agglomerations. Looking on...

The work presented in this seminar is co-authored by Matija Kovacic (Department of Economics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice) and Claudio Zoli (Department of Economics, University of Verona). Ethnic heterogeneity can potentially be related to the occurrence of conflicts with long-lasting economic effects....

Due to a changing climate and an increasing world population exposed to natural hazards and extreme weather events, the urge to develop models to assess the economic losses of disasters has increased tremendously. In this urge, not just a large amount of models...

Are you ready to experience an honest-to-goodness modern treasure hunt? ICCG, as part of Venetonight 2014 (European Researchers’ Night) and in collaboration with Play the City (www.playthecity.it), is organizing an exciting treasure hunt with researchers in Venice. You'll have to solve a...

The contemporary water abstraction licence (WAL) regime in Italy is no longer flexible enough to cope with the challenges posed by human-induced climate and global environmental changes. To cope with mounting water stress risk, the reformed WAL policy policies should i) foster sustainable...

The energy sector is the main responsible of GhG emissions and is undergoing a deep change in its technology paradigm, both in industrialised and developing countries. The generating mix of the new power stations is more and more oriented to renewable sources as...

The seminar is based on a work co-authored by Ivan Faiella and Luciano Lavecchia, Bank of Italy. Over the last 15 years, Italian households have experienced a remarkable increase in gas and electricity prices (+80% and + 60% respectively). As a consequence, the...

While urban sustainability has very pragmatic local roots, its relevance has elevated to the highest levels exemplified by the new UN special envoy for cities, Michael Bloomberg. Meanwhile, the international climate negotiations at the UNFCCC develop their own secondary approach avoiding the stall-mate...

In spite of its minor and decreasing share in EU GDP agriculture still plays a fundamental and strategic role in many areas of the economy. This is why the EU has put much effort during the last decades in guaranteeing a stable agricultural...

The paper formalizes Chamberlin's idea that monopoly power depends on the heterogeneity of taste of customers. I do so by demonstrating that elasticity of substitution between goods in the Dixit-Stiglitz framework can be represented as a simple linear function of taste heterogeneity measure....

This paper is co-authored by Francesco Bosello and Ramiro Parrado. In this paper we address one specific criticism that can be raised against the economic climate change impact assessments conducted with CGE models: that of overly optimistic assumptions on the ability of markets...

Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a promising energy technology with zero or low-carbon emissions. It converts solar energy into heat energy, stores it, and uses it to generate electrical power around the clock when it is most needed. To improve knowledge on effective...

A poorly understood area of development and conservation planning is the multi-faceted role that species and ecosystems play in the lives of rural and coastal populations, particularly in developing countries.  Many indigenous peoples and local communities in rural, coastal and remote regions depend...

This seminar is based on a joint paper by Francesco Nicolli and Francesco Vona. The pioneering role of Germany and Europe in environmental policy is justified by the existence of first mover advantages, i.e. with economic benefits due to an early adoption especially...

This research presents how to assess and monitor sustainability of the no-till agricultural practice under the impact of climate change.  The opportunity is given by the ACLIMAS project (EropeAid-SWIM), a demonstration project, which aims to disseminate the relevance of no-till agricultural practices to...

Within the activities of the 2014 art night in Venice, ICCG in collaboration with Think Forward Film Festival presents a selection of short films on climate change and the melting of the Arctic ice: SVANTE AND CLIMATE CHANGE, directed by Mattias Gordon (3’51”)...

This presentation is based on a work co-authored by Laura Bonzanigo & Nidhi Kalra (2014). Countries invest billions of dollars annually in long-term projects. Yet deep uncertainties pose formidable challenges to making near-term decisions that make long-term sense. Methods that identify robust decisions...

The decline of the Italian economy over the last two decades is widely documented. During this period, the world economy has become highly integrated, and foreign outsourcing has become a standard practice for firms. While trade theory predicts benefits from the internationalization of...

This presentation is based on a paper co-authored by Andrea Bigano and Anna Alberini. We evaluate incentives for residential energy upgrades in Italy using data from an original survey of Italian homeowners. In this paper, attention is restricted to heating system replacements, and...

Globalisation has marked a change in the way Latin America has approached welfare issues. Since the 1980s the adoption of economic policies inspired by neo-liberalism have brought about economic growth as well as an increase in the informal job sector and growing urbanization....

This presentation is based on a work co-authored with Ulrike Kornek and Kai Lessman. To study the stability of coalitions in the standard game theoretic model of international environmental agreements, two alternative concepts are used: potential internal stability (PIS) and core stability (CS)....

Recent debates concerning the ethical implications of climate change have concentrated on questions of fairness with respect to the distribution of burdens and shares to meet the challenges of climate changes. The concept of sustainability has been proclaimed specifically as a commitment to...

This paper investigates opinion dynamics and social influence in directed communication networks. We study the properties of a generalized boundedly rational model of opinion formation in which individuals aggregate the information they receive by using weights that are a function of their neighbors'...

This paper examines the intergenerational welfare economics of risk. It characterizes a family of criteria that avoid some serious drawbacks of expected utilitarianism, such as the inability to disentangle risk aversion and inequality aversion, the lack of ethical considerations for learning, and Weitzman's...

We develop a theoretical model of directed technical change in which clean (zero emissions) and dirty (emissions-intensive) technologies are embodied in long-lived capital. We show how obsolescence costs generated by technological embodiment create inertia in a transition to clean growth. Optimal policies involve...

Using the example of the UK and taking account of ongoing climate change, we develop spatially explicit models of the relationship between land use and the production of both market priced agricultural outputs and various non-market goods including emissions and sequestration of greenhouse...

Cities have a role in reducing the impacts on human health and well-being.  In recent years, there has been a growing call for cities to plan for healthy environments, especially in the context of climate change as the research provides concrete evidence on...

This seminar is based on a joint paper by Francesco Nicolli and Francesco Vona We analyse the impact of market liberalisation on renewable energy policies in OECD countries. To this end, we first develop an aggregated indicator of renewable energy policies using principal...

Following on the publication of the first part of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the Summary for Policymakers of the Working Groups II and III are soon going to be released. In this framework, the...

Indonesia’s desire to drive economic growth and reduce climate risk is reflected in the sweeping policy reforms it has introduced in recent years to meet targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Public policy and international and domestic public finance will play a crucial...

We study how leaders influence the unethical conduct of followers. To avoid selection issues present in natural environments, we use a laboratory experiment in which we form groups and assign leadership roles at random. We study an environment in which groups compete, with...

Happiness is a fundamental societal metric. Normally it is measured through self-reported answers to questionnaires which do not necessarily reflect experienced utility of respondents. In this paper, we examine instead messages posted on the social networking service Twitter, investigating idiosyncratic shocks of happiness....

We analyze participation in international environmental agreements (IEAs) in a dynamic game where countries pollute and invest in green technologies. If complete contracts are feasible, participants eliminate the hold-up problem associated with their investments; however, most countries prefer to free-ride rather than participate....

Following on the publication of the first part of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the Summary for Policymakers of the Working Groups II and III are soon going to be released. In this framework, the...

This talk presents the long-term global energy technology diffusion patterns required to reach a stringent climate change target. If for example the maximum average atmospheric temperature increase is to be limited to 2°C, total CO2 emissions have to be reduced massively, so as...

In many economic decisional problems, agents confront the choice of how much uncertainty to face, solving a trade-off between (average) profitability and risk, like in a portfolio problem. For example, a government choosing between two economic policies in order to attain some given...

Social well-being is intrinsically multidimensional. Welfare indices attempting to reduce this complexity to a unique scalar measure abound in many areas of economics and public policy. Ranking alternatives based on such measures depends, sometimes critically, on how the different dimensions of welfare are...

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Heike Auerswald, Carsten Schmidt, Marcel Thum and Gaute Torsvik.                             Many decisions in politics and business are made by teams rather than by single individuals. In contrast, economic models typically assume an individual rational decision...

This paper develops a dynamic, global, economy-climate (or integrated-assessment) model with high regional resolution.  The model features a very large number of regions and substantial region-specific detail; rich economic interactions between regions (such as capital flows); and uncertainty about weather and climate.  The...

Much research focuses on energy policy from the perspective of a company, country or bloc perspective but less frequently on the societal perspective. Examining how Energy Productivity and the way in which it is formulated is one example of the ways in which...

In this paper, we examine the term structures of interest rates and risk premia when the random walk of economic growth is affected by some parametric uncertainty. Using a time-consistent expected utility framework, we show that parametric uncertainty does not affect assets prices...

Quando consideriamo gli sprechi di energia, alla maggior parte di noi vengono in mente lo standby degli elettrodomestici o le lampadine a basso consumo. In pochi pensano al cibo come possibile causa di inefficienze. In realtà, il settore agroalimentare consuma e spreca...

L'International Center for Climate Governance (ICCG), in collaborazione con l'ufficio Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development (OPC) e Climate, Energy and Tenure Division (NRC), presenta presso la sede FAO di Roma una selezione dei migliori cortometraggi della passata edizione del Think Forward Film Festival....

In this study we investigate the determinant factors, including economic and political ones that impact on crude oil production of OPEC members and non-OPEC producers. To achieve this goal, we develop two multivariate production models: the first one investigates the determinant factors behind...

Understanding where the world stands in relation to its low-carbon and climate-resilient investment goals is a more urgent task than ever. CPI’s Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013 identifies global climate finance flows of USD 359 billion in 2012. Key findings include: The...

The microsimulation models represent a valid approach for introducing the distributional dimension in a CGE framework and allow assessing inequality and poverty changes induced by a shock. The paper describes the development of a non-behavioural microsimulation model and its application to evaluate the...

Social norms have been included in the theory of collective action to overcome difficulties in explaining why commons may perform better when self-regulated. The role of trust has been identified in several contexts of local social dilemmas, but only recently has been extended...

Authors: Sergio Currarini, Carmen Marchiori and Alessandro Tavoni Recent research has shown how explicitly modelling the network structure of social and economic relations can provide significant theoretical insights, as well as account for previously unexplained empirical evidence. Relevant areas of application range from...

Authors: Luisa Gagliardi, Giovanni Marin, Caterina Miriello This paper investigates the link between environment-related innovation and job creation at firm level. Employing Italian data on 4,789 firms, matched with patent records for the period 2001-2008 we test whether “green” innovation, measured using the...

Natural resources often provoke conflicts within societies (Collier, 2007). This presentation analyzes the interaction between institutional quality and natural resources. The first part presents a theoretical investigation of revolutions in resource-dependent countries. Using an experiment, the second part then provides a behavioral perspective...

Historically elevated commodity prices, particularly oil prices, have prompted an ongoing debate over whether high commodity (oil) prices are the result of tight fundamentals or pure financial speculation. While we have observed an increase in the financialization of commodity markets, the weight of...

The Think Forward Film Festival was established in Venice in 2011, with the aim to study, discuss, and disseminate climate change as well as the issues related to energy efficiency and renewable energy through both short and feature films. The Think Forward Film...

What makes money essential for the functioning of modern society? Through an experiment, we present evidence for the existence of a relevant behavioral dimension in addition to the standard theoretical arguments. Subjects faced repeated opportunities to help an anonymous counterpart who changed over...

This paper first shows that firms respond strategically to ENERGY STAR, a voluntary certification program for energy efficient products. In the US appliance market, firms offer products that bunch at the certification requirement, and charge a price premium for certified models. The second...

In the last years it has been increasingly recognised that climate change will adversely affect development and poverty eradication efforts being made by developing countries. Strengthening resilience through adaptation measures is essential to ensure that development achievements are not compromised or negated by...

This research measures the economic benefits that European farmers gain from climate adaptation. A structural Ricardian model of farm type choice and conditional income is estimated using data on climate, soil, geography and regional socio-economic characteristics for 23452 individual farms across Western Europe....

Research on cities and climate change has primarily focused on the economic and social costs of climate change (Tol, 2009; Owen, 2009; Davoudi et al, 2009). There has been limited focus on the impact of climate change on human health at the level...

Marianne Fay, Chief Economist of the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network (SDN), will provide a comprehensive overview of the World Bank report “Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development”. In the report, World Bank economists set out an economic argument and framework...

The Policy Drivers of Photovoltaic Industry Growth in California, Germany, and Japan gives a detailed description of the policy approaches adopted by the countries that have been most successful in setting up a photovoltaic technology industry. It examines the links between technological paths,...

In the present study we decompose the change in global calorific supply due to climate change by cereal, climate variable, and region, over varying scenarios of economic development and greenhouse gas emissions . We employ a statistical model to estimate the long-run sensitivity...

The correlation between grains and crude oil price returns has increased dramatically over the past decade. Alternative explanations are the use of food commodities as biofuels feedstocks and the financialization of agricultural futures markets. We estimate and implement a modified version of the...

One of the main arguments behind environmental regulation is that it provides incentives to adopt more efficient abatement technologies. In this paper we compare different commitment tax schemes in terms of adoption and efficiency when accounting for a non-competitive R&D sector that offers...

Demand Side Response activities are designed to incentivise flexibility of electricity demand. At the moment in the UK and Europe the focus of Demand Side Response is on retail and industrial consumers rather than residential ones. However, the introduction of smart meter roll-outs...

Is global climate change upon us? Indeed, a vast majority of scientists agree that global warming of the past century has been anthropogenically forced and will continue at earnest if the CO2 rise remains unabated. Yet, large uncertainties remain on the magnitude, regional...

After twenty years, global climate negotiations are at an impasse. To overcome it we propose a compromise for reducing emissions based on four steps: 1) limiting initial action to the Major Economies Forum (MEF) members, 13 economies responsible for 81% of emissions; 2)...

Il clima cambia e così anche le strategie che mettiamo in atto per contrastarne le conseguenze. Le buone pratiche rappresentano una soluzione ottimale per affrontare la complessità delle problematiche ambientali, ma vi sono delle barriere da abbattere affinché queste dimostrino tutta la loro...

Water is essential for all socio-economic development and for maintaining healthy ecosystems. As population increases and development calls for increased allocations of groundwater and surface water for the domestic, agriculture and industrial sectors, the pressure on water resources intensifies, leading to tensions, conflicts...

Several factors including the growing demand for energy to fuel economic development, the need for diversifying into environmentally sustainable supply sources and energy security, and climate change considerations have contributed to the need for accelerating public and private investments in renewable energy. Many...

Natural disasters currently cause an average of $98.9 billion dollars of damages and impact 227.5 million people annually. What role does adaptation play in these impacts? The paper answers this question with evidence from tropical cyclones. The paper begins with a theoretical treatment...

The use of CGE models to study the role and costs of mitigation in climate policy has provided a vast literature. However, most of the models used have focused on mitigation policies analyzing  emission reductions focused only on CO2 emissions. Although CO2 emissions...

“Regional Assessment of Climate Change in the Mediterranean” è un compendio in tre volumi che riassume i quattro anni di ricerca all’interno del Progetto Integrato CIRCE, coordinato dall’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia d’Italia. Nel testo si esaminano la variabilità e le...

The paper studies the relationship between prevention and risk sharing in the optimal design of a climate policy. If countries could credibly commit to risk transfer mechanisms, heterogeneity in impacts would not be a problem. Instead, inefficient risk sharing looks like a second...

GCMs incorporate deterministic chaos to reflect real-world chaotic dynamics of weather. This implies that small changes in external forcing can generate very different weather patterns, especially at local level. By using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) multi-model dataset I show...

Central America and the Caribbean is one of the most hazard-prone regions in the world. In addition, the region is heavily affected by poverty, unemployment, critical management of natural resources, and urban conglomeration in capital cities, especially in the Small Island Developing States,...

Heterogeneity with respect to underlying country characteristics can have diverse effects on the formation of international environmental agreements. Given that such agreements can be seen as coalitions forming to provide an international public good, relevant dimensions of heterogeneity are, for instance, countries' endowments,...

James Lennox is an Australian researcher at FEEM in Venice until 30 November 2014 under a European Union FP7 Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship. He was most recently working for Landcare Research in Auckland, New Zealand. The aim of his research project at...

The recent growth of China's automobile industry has been tremendous. From 2005 to 2011, the sales number of passenger vehicles increased over 300%. However, in the same period, the motor gasoline consumption only increased about 55%. One possible explanation for the differences between...

We build a sub-national version of GTAP (Global Trade Analysis Project) for Italy. GTAP is a widespread model and database among CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) users covering  more than 50 sectors and 100 countries in the world. We develop an innovative method to...

Authors: Silvia Albrizio, Hélia Costa In the context of an emission trading scheme, we study how uncertainty over the environmental policy affects firms' investment in low-carbon technologies. We develop a three period sequential model that combines the industry and the electricity sectors and...

Within the activities of the Art Night in Venice, the Think Forward Film Festival (http://thinkforwardfestival.it/home-en/) hosts the screening of the following short movies: NOBETTERPLACE, directed by Johanna Ickert (21’24”) GOD IS RAIN, directed by Rehad Deasai (6’19’’) and of the winner of the...

Authors: Emanuele Massetti, Robert Mendelsohn, Shun Chonabayashi We test three functional forms that relate land values and temperatures in a Ricardian model of US agriculture for the East of the US: a quadratic relationship based on average seasonal temperature and precipitations, a non-linear...

Il monitoraggio del proprio impatto sul clima e sull’ambiente, la trasparenza nel comunicarlo e la messa in atto di azioni per limitarlo costituiscono una parte fondamentale dell’impegno che un’azienda si assume nel momento in cui decide di integrare nel proprio modo di fare...

The alternative of cooperation vs. non-cooperation is a central issue in the analysis and the understanding of international environmental agreements relating to climate change. It has been much studied by means of game theoretic tools, applied most often to static economic models –...

In this study, we questioned the ability of European electricity TSOs to achieve unprecedented capital expenditures, given their current financial situation. We identified a significant financing gap in case of a steady  increase in tariffs, wondered what would be the costs for users...

Authors: Carolyn Fischer and Stephen W. Salant This paper contributes to the recent literature on the Green Paradox (Hoel, 2011 and Harstad, 2012) that distinguishes between regulated and unregulated regions in a Hotelling framework. In our model, different grades of oil are characterized...

Until a few years ago it was believed that the United States would become the first importer of gas in the world, with gas imports growing by the year. Today, the exploitation of shale gas deposits has unexpectedly rendered the United States gas...

This presentation will provide the main results and recommendations from the BIOCORE project as funded by the European Commission FP-7 programme. The key discussions from: the online valuation survey; hedonic pricing method; benefit transfer values and vulnerability studies will be highlighted. The final...

Expectations play a crucial role in human interactions and they can be used as a guidance in decision-making. Although recent papers highlight the importance of expectations in decision-making, we still lack direct evidences of how expectations are integrated into an agent’s decision process....

Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and non- profit sector as well as in firms that engage in Corporate Social Responsibility activities. This paper compares the effectiveness of social incentives - that take the...

The UK Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) is one of the world leaders of climate research, with a new programme focused on climate variability, climate change and the biophysical impacts. This talk aims to highlight some recent research that has implications for mitigation...

The EU Emissions ‘Trading System (EU) was intended as the flagship of EU energy and environmental policy. After the introduction in 2005 and two trading periods the market for carbon allowances is on the verge of breaking down. We present an extensive data...

Nel 2009 la Commissione Europea scriveva nel libro bianco sull’adattamento ai cambiamenti climatici che “anche se a livello mondiale riuscissimo a limitare e poi a ridurre le emissioni di gas serra, ci vorrà del tempo prima che il pianeta riesca a smaltire...

As addressing climate change becomes a high priority it seems likely that there will be a surge in interest in deploying nuclear power. Other fuel bases are too dirty (coal), too expensive (oil, natural gas) or too speculative (solar, wind) to completely supply...

Many types of economic and social activities involve significant behavioral complementarities (peer effects) with neighbors in the social network. The same activities often exert externalities, that cumulates in "stocks" affecting agents' welfare and incentives. For instance, smoking is subject to peer effects, and...

Regardless the European Union guidelines the will to mainstream climate change into sectorial policies in Poland is weak. The reasons for that wereexamined. Adoption of climate change models examining future water resources and needs at the national scale, show little evidence for long-term...

This paper introduces a theoretical model of an emissions trading scheme with auctioning as the method of initial allocation of permits. Risk-averse polluters and speculators, participating in the scheme, respond idiosyncratically to an economy-wide shock. The model suggests that a polluter’s willingness to...

This paper investigates the efficiency and distributional implications of a carbon tax as part of a fiscal reform package in the United States. We develop a new dynamic general-equilibrium Auerbach-Kotlikoff-type overlapping generations (OLG) model in which growth is fully endogenous, based on increasing...

There is great uncertainty about the impact of anthropogenic carbon on future economic wellbeing. We use DSICE, a DSGE extension of the DICE2007 model of William Nordhaus, which incorporates beliefs about the uncertain economic impact of possible climate tipping events and uses empirically...

Authors: Jacopo Bonan, Olivier Dagnelie, Philippe LeMay-Boucher, Michel Tenikue Mutual health organizations (MHOs) have been present in the city of Thiès in Senegal for years. Despite their benefits, in some areas take-up rates remain low. We offer an insurance literacy module, which communicates...

Co-author: Ian Sue Wing, Dep. of Earth and Environment, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA This paper assess the impacts of climate change on the productivity of four major crops across the world while accounting for the role of adaptation. High-resolution data...

Authors: Monica Bonacina, Anna Creti, and Federico Pontoni The Italian water sector has encompassed major changes since mid-90s when law 96/94 has entered into force. Next to private participation, integration of services and growth in production scales, the reform was intended to revolutionize...

There is a wide agreement among researchers that increase in wage inequality across the OECD countries was caused by introduction of skill-biased production methods, which generated higher demand for skilled than for unskilled workers. However, does a skill-bias of production methods originate from...

Authors: Yaella Depietri, Torsten Welle, Fabrice G. Renaud More than three quarters of the European population lives in urban areas and this proportion is increasing, leading in some cases to increased vulnerability of cities to hazards. The health impacts of heat waves are...

The impact of climate changes is increasingly evident through movements of climatic variable such as temperature and precipitation. Quantification of this impact is necessary in order to better understand the economic implications these changes. Average global temperature has increased by 0.74 Celsius in...

Climate change constitutes a major threat to Sub-Saharan Africa. But it might also be  an opportunity in disguise, to accelerate the access to low carbon energy sources (one of Africa's most important untapped assets); and to enhance the quality and effectiveness of investments...

L’impatto dei rifiuti sui fenomeni di riscaldamento globale è causato soprattutto dalle emissioni di metano rilasciate dalla decomposizione della frazione biodegradabile nelle discariche. Il potenziale contributo alla riduzione dei gas climalteranti di una corretta gestione dei rifiuti non si limita all’impatto dello smaltimento...

The use of integrated assessment models, which combine models from different fields, raises the need for developing specific modelling concepts in order to provide results to support policy decisions within a practical time frame. Integrated assessment models for air policy relate technologies, the...

Authors: Manfredi Vale, Silvia Battaiotto, and Sonia Longo In recent years, companies and enterprises have matured awareness towards environmental issues, implementing concrete techniques to measure and evaluate their pressures on the environmental sphere. So, it is very interesting develop a benchmark of performance...

The abundant philosophical literature on climate change mainly explains how (according to an ethic of justice) we can redress climate injustice between generations, between rich and poor etc.; but says little on why we should do so, or what motivations we may have...

The Caribbean are among the most disaster-prone regions in the world. The frequent droughts, floods, hurricanes, storms, landslides and earthquakes constitute a threat to the region’s economies, growth and social development. In the way natural hazards are dealt with, the countries of the...

Authors: Simon Dietz, Carmen Marchiori and Alessandro Tavoni The theory of international environmental agreements overwhelmingly assumes that governments engage as unitary agents. Each government makes choices based on benefits and costs that are simple national aggregates, and similarly on a single set of...

The incorporation of an air quality sub-model in integrated assessment models (IAMs) has been an increasingly active research topic in the last decades. However, due to the high computational resources that air quality models require, the integrated assessment approaches frequently use model reduction...

Il processo negoziale in ambito UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) ha mostrato la propria complessità già dopo la COP3 (1997) in Kyoto con la finalizzazione del testo del Protocollo di Kyoto. Da allora abbiamo assistito al fallimento della COP15 (2009)...

We find that pending federal emission standards more than low natural gas prices are promoting a shift from coal to natural gas as the dominant fuel for U.S. power generation. Similar to a number of recent studies, we show that low natural gas...

Il bivio è teatro scientifico, un pungolo per una coscienziosità condivisa, una sfida mossa alla società degli iperconsumi. Lo spettacolo vuole informare e divertire, approfondire e nutrire una necessaria cultura del dubbio. Evento promosso da ICCG, in collaborazione con Università Ca'Foscari, Venezia....

The discrete-continuous models, following the formulation of Hanemann (1984), consider the case of perfect substitute goods: the maximization process leads to extreme corner solutions in which only one alternative is selected. According to this formulation, the literature on energy consumption is limited to...

The Think Forward Film Festival was established in Venice in 2011, with the aim to study, discuss, and disseminate climate change as well as the issues related to energy efficiency and renewable energy through both short and feature films. The Think Forward Film...

We propose the use of technological standardization as a novel indicator of technological change. Standardization is an important feature of technological progress in many industries and triggers the adoption of new or drastically improved technologies. Our new indicator allows us to identify technology...

In the fight against climate change, two main strategies are available: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation is represented as a global public good, while adaptation as a private good that accumulates over time. Moreover, mitigation produces benefits only in the long run, while the...

Authors: Michael Ghil (ENS and UCLA), Patrice Dumas (CIRED), Andreas Groth (ENS), and Stéphane Hallegatte (CIRED and World Bank) This paper presents a modeling framework for macroeconomic growth dynamics; it is motivated by recent attempts to formulate and study “integrated models" of the...

L’impatto dei cambiamenti climatici sul patrimonio culturale è stato lungamente ignorato sia a livello della ricerca internazionale che sul piano politico, aspetto questo inaccettabile essendo i beni culturali una risorsa non rinnovabile e da trasmettere alle generazioni future. Il seminario cercherà di...

Since the 1992 Earth Summit and its Action plan Agenda 21, European Union has been constantly looking for opportunities for a greater deployment of price signals and economic incentives or disincentives to reduce the environmental costs of the consumption of energy, materials and...

... il grande personaggio che ha segnato la storia economica e sociale italiana e internazionale e che ha sempre guardato al futuro creando sviluppo e benessere.  In questa occasione FEEM organizza la proiezione dei due documentari  “La voce di Enrico Mattei” e...

In this paper we examine the effect of technology transfer from 24 developed countries on energy intensity of GDP, carbon intensity of energy use and labour productivity of 56 developing countries empirically. We model specific spillovers embodied in trade of capital goods (machinery...

This paper compares environmental and profitability outcomes for a centralized biorefinery for cellulosic ethanol that does all processing versus a biorefinery linked to a decentralized array of local depots that pretreat biomass into concentrated briquettes. The analysis uses a spatial bioeconomic model that...

Incentives for the development of renewable energy have increasingly become an instrument of climate policy, that is, as a means to reduce GHG emissions. This research analyzes the German experience in promoting renewable energy over the past decade to identify the economic cost...

Perché la tutela dell’ambiente è, a parole, la priorità a livello globale e nei fatti assistiamo a un suo costante deterioramento? Perché le maggiori emergenze ambientali (clima, biodiversità, mare), pur avendo portata globale, non riescono a essere gestite globalmente? Qual è il ruolo...

Authors: Luisa Corrado, University of Rome Tor Vergata and University of Cambridge; Roberta Distante, FEEM This paper proposes a novel approach to address identification of social endogenous effects by generalizing the methods commonly used in standard dynamic panel data analysis to the peer...

MEETmeTONIGHT belongs to the initiative “Researchers’ Night” of the European Commission, which will take place on 28 September 2012. The Commission promotes this initiative every year, involving researchers and research institutions in every European country. The Researchers' Night is an event bringing together...

Once again this year FEEM participates at VENETONIGHT, the European Researchers' Night in Veneto promoted by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. On September 28, media events, performances, experiments, conferences, exhibitions will take place in 250...

A CGE model is developed which combines two different versions of the GTAP model, namely GTAP-E (Burniaux and Truong [2002], McDougall and Golub [2007]) and GTAP-MH (Gotor and Tsigas [2011]). The first links together energy-related CO2 emissions and the economy, the second allows...

Authors: Andrea Bastianin - Università di Milano Bicocca and FEEM, Marzio Galeotti - Università di Milano and IEFE-Bocconi, and Matteo Manera - Università di Milano Bicocca and FEEM In recent years the ethanol industry has experienced a dramatic growth that has raised concerns...

Agencies charged with regulating food safety, pharmaceuticals, or industrial processes frequently need to take decisions in settings characterized by ambiguity. What rules should guide those decision? Since the 1990s, the Precautionary Principle (PP) has emerged as the preferred decision rule in policy circles,...

We have been examining the current and historical difference between urban and rural areas in the U.S. with respect to heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD). Urban areas tend to be warmer than rural areas due to the urban heat...

Authors: Johannes Emmerling, FEEM, and David Anthoff, UC Berkeley This paper analyzes the role of equity weighting and discounting providing a method to disentangle both concept in order to allow to separately studying their respective impact for computing the Social Cost of Carbon...

Since the 1970s, advances in telecommunication technologies and transportation systems, along with the deregulation of markets have produced a high intensity of capital mobility and facilitated the formation of a “global” and “informational” (Castells 1996) economy, leading to social and spatial changes in...

Authors: Bahattin Buyuksahin (International Energy Agency), Celso Brunetti (Johns Hopkins University; CFTC) and Jeffrey H. Harris (Syracuse University) We analyze the role of hedge fund, swap dealer and arbitrageur activity in a Markov regime-switching model between high volatility bear markets and low volatility...

Authors: Carolyn Fischer, Richard Newell, and Louis Preonas Over the last decade, concerns about global warming, local air quality, and energy security have led to a plethora of actual and proposed initiatives at the federal and state levels, particularly in the power sector....

Authors: Pablo Andrés Domenech, Guiomar Martín-Herrán, and Georges Zaccour We model the role of the world's forests as a major carbon sink and consider the impact that forest depletion has on the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Two types of agents are...

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a recurrent climatic event that causes severe weather shocks. This paper employs ENSO-related floods at the end of the agricultural season to identify medium-term effects of negative conditions in early child development. The analysis shows that, four...

Since 1994, the water supply and sanitation sector in Italy underwent a substantial reform process that set out for a modern, more efficient and harmonised water service. Among others, the reform introduced a water tariff system, based on price cap regulation and (partial)...

The complexity of integrated assessment models (IAMs) prevents the direct appreciation of the impact of uncertainty on the model predictions. However, understanding direction of change, interaction effects and identifying key uncertainty drivers are crucial tasks both for modelers and decision-makers. We show that...

Authors: Angela Falconer, Pat Hogan, Valerio Micale, Alex Vasa, Yuqing Yu, Xuehua Zhang, Xiaolu Zhao, and Julia Zuckerman As nations take on increasingly ambitious climate mitigation goals, they face a heightened need to track their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and actions to mitigate...

Authors: Valeria Costantini, University of Roma Tre - Italy Alessio D’Amato, University of Rome “Tor Vergata” – Italy Chiara Martini, University of Roma Tre - Italy Maria Cristina Tommasino, ENEA - Italy Edilio Valentini, University “G. D’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara - Italy Mariangela Zoli,...

Il successo della politica climatica internazionale dipende in modo critico dalla disponibilità di risorse finanziarie stanziate a favore delle azioni di riduzione delle emissioni di carbonio e per la promozione di un modello di sviluppo resiliente ai cambiamenti climatici. Cruciale è, inoltre, la...

Energy scenarios often envision an early and large expansion of nuclear power on a global scale, especially if stringent climate targets are to be met. It is not uncommon that nuclear power captures 30-40% of the world electricity market in the second half...

Urban areas have particular sensitivities to climate change, and therefore adaptation to a warming planet represents a challenging new issue for urban policy makers in both the developed and developing world. Further to climate mitigation strategies implemented in various cities over the past...

Authors: J. Chateau, R. Dellink, E. Lanzi and B. Magne, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development Future projections of the impact of international climate change (and other) policies are usually presented against a “business as usual” baseline or a reference scenario. But a...

Coral reef ecosystem is adversely affected by anthropogenic and natural stressors, though the former linked to human activities requires proactive action in protecting these delicate biomes. Consequently, understanding the effect of climate change by global increase in temperatures requires a mapping exercise at...

This paper analyzes the difficulties of comparing the respective effectiveness of two among the most important liability regimes in tort law: rule of negligence and strict liability. Starting from the standard Shavellian unilateral accident scheme, I show that matching up liability regime on...

International cooperation on clean energy technologies is often viewed as a complementary solution to key global problems as climate change and energy policy. This form of cooperation is generally considered as less challenging than cooperation on global environmental externalities, hence more likely to...

Authors: Aart de Zeeuw and Amos Zemel We develop a simple model of managing a system subject to pollution damage, such as climate change, under the risk of an abrupt and random jump in the damage function. The model allows the full dynamic...

Authors: Valentina Bosetti, Cristina Cattaneo and Elena Verdolini The contribution of foreigners to the creation of knowledge has been under-researched in the empirical ground. First, the existing literature quite exclusively focused on US while other important places of innovation production have hardly been...

Seminario ICCG: "Eventi estremi: il costo dei cambiamenti climatici" Il nuovo rapporto dell’IPCC sulla Gestione dei Rischi legati agli Eventi estremi e i Disastri per la Promozione dell'Adattamento ai Cambiamenti Climatici In un discorso estremamente commovente, tenuto l’anno scorso in seguito ad una...

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has aimed to encourage the development of low-carbon technologies by putting a price on carbon emissions. Using a newly constructed data set that links 8.5 million European companies with their patenting history and their regulatory...

What do we know about the relationship between innovation and productivity among firms? The workhorse model of this relationship is presented and the implications of an analysis using this model and the usually available data on product and process innovation are derived. Recent...

The existing game theory of international environmental agreements (IEAs) overwhelmingly assumes that governments engage as unitary agents. Each government chooses how much of an international public good to provide, based on benefits and costs that are simple national aggregates, and similarly on a...

Authors: Francesco Vona (OFCE Sciences-Po), Francesco Nicolli (University of Ferrara) and Lionel Nesta (OFCE Sciences-Po) This paper carries out a comprehensive analysis of renewable energy innovations considering four mechanisms suggested by innovation models: 1. policy-inducement; 2. market structure; 3. demand and social cohesion-...

This paper studies the impact of demographic shifts, energy prices and climate factors on Italian households’ energy budget. The pattern of energy expenditure of Italian households is studied using the Italian Household Budget Survey. The expenditure for heating, private transport and electricity are...

Saper comunicare in modo efficace i temi scientifici e ambientali è di particolare importanza in questi anni, specialmente il fenomeno dei cambiamenti climatici. Massimiano Bucchi, professore presso la Facoltà di Sociologia dell'Università di Trento, illustrerà, partendo da dati forniti nell’ambito di recenti indagini...

We present a computable general equilibrium model properly modified to analyse the potential role of the European forestry sector within climate mitigation. Improvements on database and modelling frameworks allow accounting for land heterogeneity across and within regions and for land transfers between agriculture,...

Il cambiamento climatico non è che una delle tante pressioni ambientali a cui è sottoposto il pianeta ma è divenuto il simbolo di un processo transgenerazionale e irreversibile alla scala dei tempi umani che richiede impegni formidabili quanto a mitigazione e adattamento. La...

Co-author: Friederike Mengel, University of Nottingham Social Interactions frequently display two pervasive phenomena: agents tend to interact with similar others (homophily), and tend to treat others more favorably if they are perceived to share their same identity (in-group bias). While both phenomena involve...

In 2009, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilizing USD 100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries with respect to their climate change mitigation and adaptation needs. By compiling data from a wide range of...

Authors: Simona Baldi (University of Genoa), Luciano Canova (Eni Corporate University) and Gianluca Lentini (University of Milan) This paper analyses whether individuals are influenced by the weather when reporting subjective well-being. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to use meteorological variables...

This paper updates the existing meta-analysis in coral reef recreation taking into account the previous work of Brander et al. (2007). The present meta-analysis uses twice the number of observations as the previous one and sheds more light in understanding the influence of...

Authors: Stergios Athanassoglou, Valentina Bosetti Optimal R\&D investment is defined by deep uncertainty that can only partially be addressed through historical data. Thus, expert judgments expressed as subjective probability distributions are seen as an alternative way of assessing the potential of new technologies....

L’uomo da tempo è consapevole che la corretta alimentazione è una condizione essenziale per la salute. Lo sviluppo e la modernizzazione hanno reso disponibili a un numero sempre più ampio di persone cibo vario e in quantità. Senza una cultura adeguata o delle...

Using data from four different case studies in both revealed (RP) and stated preference (SP), we compare the Random Regret Minimization (RRM) and the Random Utility  Maximization (RUM) models in terms of parameter estimates, goodness of fit, elasticities and consequential policy implications. The...

Authors: Stefano Balbi, Sabindra Bhandari, Animesh Gain, Carlo Giupponi Climate change impacts on the Venice Lagoon Watershed (VLW), an area of 2.038 km2 in the north-eastern part of Italy, are expected to be particularly relevant for agriculture (Salon et al. 2008), given that...

Mike Young is one of Australia’s leading water economists and has played a key role in the development of the water entitlement and allocation systems used in this country. In Australia’s Murray Darling Basin both water entitlements and allocations are tradeable and trading...

Increasing the contribution of electricity generated from renewable energy sources is a declared EU policy goal. A substantial part of this electricity will be generated by wind or solar power, i.e. by non-dispatchable technologies. In this talk, the challenges of integrating both intermittent...

Authors: Frederic Ghersi, Valentina Bosetti In this paper we develop the standard utility function of a Ramsey-type optimal growth model to account for a ‘market-time’ vs. ‘free-time’ trade-off. To do so, we introduce a free-time preference coefficient that measures the utility derived from...

A 20 anni di distanza dal Vertice della Terra di Rio de Janeiro, la Conferenza Internazionale sullo Sviluppo Sostenibile (denominata anche Rio+20) costituirà un’occasione cruciale per rinnovare l’impegno per lo sviluppo sostenibile a livello globale, a partire dal tema dei cambiamenti climatici. Il...

Several phases of the research carried out during the research project BRAHMATWINN (FP6) are described here. In a first step two parallel processes have been designed and implemented: (1) the identification of the potential supply of scientific knowledge through the development of a...

We aim at disentangling the impact of effort on envy. To do so we observe the impact of effort on individual well-being and behaviour. In our experiment subjects are paired and receive endowments whether according to their performance in a real-effort task or...

Using a laboratory experiment, we elicit consumers’ risk perceptions of the probability that given levels of pesticide residues will be present in apples via an innovative risk elicitation technique known as the Exchangeability Method (EM). We also investigate the validity of stated risks...

The way that the gas is priced has a significant influence on the level of prices and, therefore, on the level of demand, supply and trade. Traditionally, natural gas trade has been limited geographically within three main regional gas markets, namely North American,...

This paper contributes to the literature in market power for emissions permits. I consider a two-stage static complete information game where the market power arises endogenously from players' parameters. In the first stage players bid in an auction for the initial distribution of...

We examine the extent to which economic development reduces both a country’s disaster risk and its social vulnerability to climate-related disasters. Using data from the EM-DAT database representing country-level observations over the period 1980-2007, we find that economic development significantly reduces a country’s...

Resource land conservation provides a wide range of environmental benefits. The benefits can vary based on the spatial pattern or contiguity of conservation activities. Land conservation programs sponsored by government agencies, quasi-governmental agencies, and private conservation organizations may interact with each other and...

Achieving the EU’s dual objectives of combating climate change by 2020 and beyond and implementing its ambitious Europe 2020 economic growth agenda will require the development, demonstration and in particular the deployment of new low-carbon technologies at a faster rate than is currently...

Until 1960s, hydropower was the chief source of electricity produced in Italy. Nowadays with a share of about 18% of the total production, hydropower is second only to thermal electricity generation. Among the renewables, hydroelectricity accounts for some 67% of the national production,...

Co-Author: Akira HIBIKI, National Institute for Environmental Studies Future climate change is likely to bring increased frequency of natural disaster including flooding events. Thus, much attention has been paid to adaptation policy against flooding. From the cost benefit analysis on adaptation policy, effective...

The paper investigates the determinants of real oil prices since the 1980s by means of a large-scale macroeconometric model, allowing for an accurate modeling of oil demand and supply interactions and the macro-finance interface. Results show that macro-finance (fundamental) factors are the key...

The presentation will review what the EU ETS has accomplished to date and discuss whether it represents the path to a future global climate regime envisioned in the Kyoto Protocol or a dead end in the absence of US action and within the...

Authors: Valentina Bosetti and Elena Verdolini Notwithstanding the central role attributed to technology transfer (TT) and the effort to promote it through the creation of permanent international bodies such as the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice of the UNFCCC, very little...

In this paper we consider the finite-sample properties of Realized Range estimators of integrated variance. We show that the combination of irregular sampling and missing observations induces a bias in the Realized Range measures. We propose a simple correction in order to reduce...

The Think Tank Map is a new observatory, developed by the International Center for Climate Governance - ICCG, that provides an overview on the think tanks active in the field of climate change governance. Through an interactive world map, this tool will make...

We investigate how changes in incentives to publish implemented at the country level relate to the number of submissions, publications and acceptance rates to the journal Science for 30 OECD-monitored countries for the period 2000-2009. Country is determined by that of the first...

One of the aims of the  CIRCE FP6 project (http://www.circeproject.eu/) is to assess the socio-economic impacts of climate change on the Mediterranean region. The A1B IPCC SRES scenario is chosen as reference for all the research teams participating to CIRCE. Consistently with that...

The article analyses the scope for enhanced coordination in achieving the objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in the forest sector. The two conventions encourage forest conservation and sustainable management from different...

Authors: Victoria Alexeeva-Talebi, Andreas Löschel and Sebastian Voigt This paper explores macroeconomic impacts of sectoral approaches as a set of options to engage emerging economies such as China, Mexico and Brazil in setting policies for a lower emission path and to address potentially...

Authors: Matteo Manera, Marcella Nicolini and Ilaria Vignati (FEEM) We discuss two different papers which investigate if and how financial speculation affects commodities futures prices over the period 1986-2010. First, we find weak evidence of speculation affecting commodities returns. Second, this evidence is...

FEEM is one of the organizers of VENETONIGHT, The European Researchers' Night in Veneto promoted by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. On September 23, media events, performances, experiments, conferences, exhibitions will take place in 250...

This project investigates the importance of implementing adequate locational signals and their possible effects on generation technologies and the performance and regulation of the electricity system, with particular reference to renewable energy in the British electricity market. The economic theory for calculating optimal...

The outcome of cost-benefit analyses of environmental and climate, transport and health policies often depend heavily on the number used for the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL). However, VSL numbers vary greatly across countries, and even between sectors in the same country. ...

We consider the optimality of the weighting scheme used to construct the Human Development Index (HDI) using an approach that relies on consistent tests for stochastic dominance efficiency. We consider consistent tests for stochastic dominance efficiency of a given hybrid composite index with...

Divulgare la scienza significa letteralmente parlare di scienza alle persone. Gente e scienza: può sembrare un matrimonio verbale davvero poco probabile. La scienza infatti è spesso oggetto di pregiudizi e diffidenze da parte del pubblico più vasto, al quale può apparire lontana e...

Since governments influence the demand for a new abatement technology through their environmental policy, they may be able to expropriate innovations in new abatement technology ex post. Recent contributions in the environmental R&D literature seem to confirm this conjecture, and suggest that incentives...

Current estimates of the benefits from malaria reduction (including educational attainment) come from studies that look at eradication in the United States, Latin America, and South Asia. However, the effects from reducing the incidence of malaria are likely to be quite different from...

* OIL PRICE, MACROECONOMIC DYNAMICS AND FINANCIAL SPECULATION Claudio Morana, Università del Piemonte Orientale and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei The paper investigates the determinants of real oil prices since the 1980s by means of a large-scale macroeconometric model, allowing for an accurate modelling...

This presentation describes the Corporate Ecosystem Valuation (CEV), a valuation process to make better-informed business decisions by explicitly estimating the effects of the business activity on ecosystem services (ES). Valuation can make decision making around ecosystems more compelling and practical, thereby enhancing sustainable...

CCS Technology aspects will be first reviewed taking particular attention to those issues that could impact introduction of CCS on the market. Then, a general overview of the worldwide projects will be given and a few hints will be spent about the future...

The residential sector is the largest final energy consumer in Hungary. It is responsible for 30% of total national carbon dioxide emissions. The general poor condition of the building stock is increasingly being regarded as the source of social and environmental tensions, including...

Generation capacity expansion models can be interpreted in terms of equilibrium in a competitive environment.  The property remains valid in a risky world assuming that all agents in the economy are risk-neutral. The dual variables of the model play a crucial role as...

The issue of increased competition and conflict over access to oil, gas and minerals has risen up the political agendas prices have risen, emerging countries such as China and India have become major new players in international energy and mineral markets, and multiple...

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*** This seminar has been jointly organized by FEEM and IEFE, Bocconi University....

Environmental policy imposes social costs, but with the intent of yielding social returns, often over a long period of time. Like other private or public investments, that return is uncertain. But unlike most investments, the uncertainty is complex and is often the objective...

Recent Eurobarometer data report that climate change is seen as the second most serious problem that the world is facing today; yet the percentage of people that mentions climate change among the first 4 major global problems has decreased, from the 62% reported...

In the late 1970’s, events at Love Canal and the Valley of Drums raised public concern over the health and environmental risks associated with contaminated waste sites. In response to these incidents, the US Congress established the Superfund program to clean up hazardous...

Il seminario ha l'obiettivo di illustrare le caratteristiche del programma FP7 PEOPLE, includendo gli obiettivi, la struttura e le regole di partecipazione ai diversi schemi di finanziamento. Verrà offerta una panoramica sulle varie azioni Marie Curie e sulle Call del 2011 dedicate...

The enlargement of the European Union in 2004 caused a large migration wave from Central Europe to Ireland and the UK. This paper addresses the question whether such an emigration wave changes the wage distribution in the source country. In a theoretical model...

The seminar is not intended for game theorists – unless they are interested in learning how their theories, and the theory of environmental games developed in a forthcoming  book, are being used for studying the actual problem of climate change. Similarly for economists...

Developing countries have struggled with low electrification rates in the rural areas. This study investigates one major issue impeding the rural electrification programmes high connection payments. The paper uses estimates obtained from a stated preference study in rural Kenya, namely a contingent valuation...

SECURE (Security of Energy Considering its Uncertainty, Risk and Economic implications) is a research project funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme with the aim of building a comprehensive framework that covers the issues related to security of supply inside...

We investigate the determinants of state aid to the car sector in the European Union over the period 1992-2007. We find that industry's characteristics such as the presence of a "national champion" matter. Additionally, the EU address for "less aid, better aid" seems...

We examine the issue of whether two monopolists which produce substitutable goods should be regulated by one (centralization) or two regulatory authorities, when the regulator(s) can be partially captured by industry. Under full information, two decentralized agencies - each regulating a single market...

We examine the reaction of non-signatory countries to partial cooperation on climate change. Although free- riding incentives lead countries that do not participate in an international environmental agreement to increase their emissions, under some conditions technology advancements within the coalition spill over to...

"Market Coupling" is currently seen as the most advanced market design in the restructuring of the European electricity market. It also inspires current discussions on the Gas Target Model demanded by ERGEG. Market coupling, by construction, introduces what is generally referred to as...

To explain the dynamics of technological transitions, we develop a model where agents enjoy positive network externalities from using the same technology, while some agents, called entrepreneurs, ignore these externalities and introduce new technologies. We assume that technologies form a graph which is...

*** This seminar has been jointly organized by FEEM and IEFE, Bocconi University....

After an introduction which summarises the key global energy issues, a brief overview is provided with respect to the past 3 main periods which have characterised the development of nuclear energy from the first commercial plant in 1954 up to the present days....

This paper aims at evaluating the changes in the policy costs and in the electricity mix when the Super-Grid is added to the portfolio of available technological options to reduce the carbon footprint of the electricity sector. We extend the WITCH model so...

The seminar will be a summary of several papers, including "A dynamic analysis of human welfare in a warming planet”, by Humberto Llavador (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), John E. Roemer (Yale University), and Joaquim Silvestre (University of California, Davis), which abstract is below. Climate...

This paper provides a survey of the policies and measures that are associated to low carbon societies in the recent literature, both peer-reviewed and “grey”. A first section focuses on carbon pricing, the most common policy measure represented. It starts by analysing the...

The precautionary principle (PP) applied to environmental policy stipulates that, in the presence of physical uncertainty, society must take take robust preventive action to guard against worst-case outcomes.  It follows that the higher the degree of uncertainty, the more aggressive this preventive action...

In occasione della chiusura dei negoziati sul clima a Cancùn, in Messico - dove dal 29 novembre al 10 dicembre si tiene la sedicesima Conferenza delle Parti della Convenzione Quadro delle Nazioni Unite sui Cambiamenti Climatici (COP16, UNFCCC) -la FEEM organizza una...

Recent literature on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) has raised questions about the strength of the empirical results, the appropriate model specification, and the validity of the underlying theoretical model. Data limitations and measurement error have also been issues; many empirical studies of...

A dynamic-recursive general equilibrium model ICES of FEEM was employed to evaluate the alternative post-Kyoto targets and instruments of GHGs reduction for Annex I and Annex II countries. A special focus was made on assessment of potential benefits from emission trading between the...

This research  addresses the optimisation of building envelopes in order to minimise the amount of carbon dioxide emitted due to the energy employed for heating, cooling and lighting the internal environment. The objective is achieved by exploiting a global optimisation method called Particle...

The persistent uncertainty about mid-century CO2 emissions targets is likely to affect not only the technological choices that energy-producing firms will make in the future but also their current investment decisions. We illustrate this effect on CO2 price and global energy transition within...

In this paper stochastic dynamic programming is used to investigate habitat conservation by a multitude of landholders under uncertainty about the value of environmental services and irreversible development. We study land conversion under competition on the market for agricultural products when voluntary and...

Using an improved database on the stock of immigrants and emigrants in OECD countries for the years 1990 and 2000  we construct data on net immigration and emigration from and to these countries. Using these flows and data on the labor force of...

Il seminario è teso a fornire gli strumenti per preparare una proposta di ricerca all'interno del programma FP7 IDEAS - ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grants. Il bando è rivolto ai giovani ricercatori con un CV di eccellenza scientifica che vogliono sviluppare un'idea di...

Public transfers from central governments are widely used policy tools aimed at promoting economic development. We argue that large amounts of public transfers can have the opposite effect to the one desired. By providing politicians and entrepreneurs with higher incentives to engage in...

We explore one dimension of global value chains: the complexity of organization of international production within multinational business groups as represented by the worldwide control chains. Exploiting a unique dataset that matches affiliates with parent companies, we first propose a measure of entropy...

An integrated assessment model (ENVISAGE), including a CGE-based economic module and a climate module, is used to assess the effects of a variety of economic impacts induced by climate change. These impacts include: sea level rise, variations in crop yields, water availability, human...

A key component of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is continued global biodiversity loss and the implications of this for human well being. Biodiversity is a complex resource that demands a multi-disciplinary ecological and economic approach. Solutions to biodiversity loss will come both from...

Il seminario sui nuovi bandi del 7° Programma Quadro della Commissione Europea  ha l’obiettivo di presentare le opportunità di finanziamento offerte dalle nuove Call dei programmi Cooperation (Environment, Social Science and Humanities e Energy) e Ideas (ERC Starting Grant). Particolare attenzione verrà posta...

On September 24, 2010 a consortium composed of FEEM, the two Venetian universities Ca’ Foscari and IUAV, Unioncamere Veneto and the Municipality of Venice will organise VENIGHT - the European Researchers’ Night in Venice, showing how researchers’ life and work are closely related...

Climate change and international migration flows are phenomena which attract a great deal of attention from policymakers, researchers and the general public around the globe. Are these two phenomena related? Is migration an adaptation strategy to sudden or gradual changes in climate? The...

Catastrophe models are used by the insurance industry to underwrite low frequency / large consequences risks. The underlying structure of loss correlation of natural catastrophes makes traditional actuarial methods for pricing and capital allocation ineffective. Catastrophe models are built around a hazard module...

Computable general equilibrium models simulate the reaction of industries on carbon taxes. Their results differ strongly on the assumption of the underlying technologies. This paper compares two models and emphasizes the differences between their approaches to technology. The  first model is the CITE...

We examine 802 investments by 33 Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in publicly traded companies between May 1985 and November 2009, and find that SWFs tend to invest in large, levered, profitable growth firms, usually headquartered in an OECD country. Announcements of SWF investments...

International climate financing has emerged as a major topic in the negotiations of a global climate agreement between developed and developing countries.  The Copenhagen Accord includes both a shorter term Fast Start fund of $30 billion for the period to 2012 and sets...

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between growth opportunity, technology shocks and asset prices in China. Although there have been a large number of studies on developed economies, the relationship between stock market movements and firm characteristics in China is still unclear. Following...

This paper reviews the constraints of trade within a non-point source water permit market. Having developed a theoretical model of the agricultural firm’s decision between their primary production activity (growing crops) and selling permits, an agent based model is employed to review the...

We investigate the reasons that induce policymakers to assign banking supervision to central banks rather than involving authorities outside the banking sector. On one hand, empirical results provide evidence that policymakers prefer that, conditional on several known features affecting supervisory task assignment, the...

China’s negotiating strategy at Copenhagen led to two different schools of thoughts: one considers the world’s biggest emitter as the principal obstacle to progress at the talks and the second sees China as a developing country, which has done far more than its...

As a mental process, economic choice entails assigning values to the available options; a decision is then made by comparing these values. Thus a central question in the emerging field of Neuroeconomics is how values are computed and compared in the brain. Clinical...

We study the effect of countries’ energy abundance - relative to labour - on trade and sector activity, conditional on sector’s energy intensity, using an unbalanced panel with 12 high-income countries from Europe, America and Asia, 10 broad sectors, and years 1970-1997. We...

The seminar will be based on the following two papers by Robert S. Pindyck: “Modeling the Impact of Warming in Climate Change Economics” Any economic analysis of climate change policy requires some model that describes the impact of warming on future GDP and...

This paper investigates how the ownership and the procedure for the selection of firms operating in the local public transport sector affect their productivity. In order to compare different institutional regimes, we carry out a comparative analysis of companies operating in large European...

The potential impact of unilateral environmental policy on national firms’ competitiveness is a major political issue both in the EU and the US. Some fear that domestic firms in carbon-intensive sectors will shift  production to countries not taking comparable actions, leading to considerable...

Refined copper production is energy intensive and involves significant international trade flows in refined and pre-refined commodities. Since these are homogeneous products, production location is sensitive to regional differences in production costs. This paper quantifies the efficiency and distributional consequences of subglobal carbon...

This paper aims at critically examining the emergence of an Islamic way to capitalism through the analysis of the recent developments of Islamic finance and business. The alleged resilience of Islamic finance against the financial crisis will be assessed, in order to critically...

In estimating the costs and effectiveness of policies to reduce GHG emissions, energy-economy modelers must address various uncertainties. These include (1) the real and perceived micro-economic cost differences between technological options (issues with abatement cost curves), (2) the likely evolution of technologies as...

This paper analyses the effects of board composition on the behaviour and performance of a sample of 114 Italian local public utilities, for which information about 1630 directors during 1994-2004 has been collected. This period is particularly interesting because of the legal changes...

This paper introduces endogenous and directed technical change in a growth model with environmental constraints and limited resources. A unique final good is produced by combining inputs from two sectors. One of these sectors uses "dirty" machines and thus creates environmental degradation. Research...

Using unique survey data of 10,000 households from 10 OECD countries, we identify the driving factors of household adoption of water-efficient equipment by estimating Probit models of a household's probability to invest in such equipment. The results indicate that the adoption of water-efficient...

Exploiting the strong relation between income and emissions, we estimate the global distribution of household CO2 emissions and project it forward to 2030. This consumption based analysis of individual emissions is used to track the national responsibility towards climate mitigation over time and...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the main determinants of the participation decision of females in the labour force in Turkey. Turkey is a particularly important case as, unlike in many other countries, female labour force participation has shown a decreasing...

Using unique data on a low-cost airline posted prices and seat availability, this study sheds some light on whether the airline's actual practice of yield management techniques conforms with some predictions from economic models of peak-load pricing under demand uncertainty. On the one...

Determining whether to introduce competition into regulated industries is a key issue in industrial organization. While competition assures lower expected rates, regulation delivers higher ex ante expected profits which foster in turn cost reducing investments. Thus, deregulation is more likely where the rents...

We develop a model of Schumpeterian growth where political connections with long-term politicians can be exploited by low-quality producers to defend their monopoly position and prevent innovation and entry of high-quality competitors. Through personal relationship developed with the incumbent politicians, connected firms are...

The research supports the thesis that a significant improvement in the management of uncertainty characterising the assessment of climate change policies can come from the implementation of a Bayesian network (BN) approach, that allows the user to characterise, incorporate and communicate the uncertainty....

The world of scientific research has undergone dramatic changes in the last decades. Increased specialization, collaborations are becoming more and more diffused in the community of social scientists, while the practice of evaluating scientific research and personnel through bibliometric indicators is increasingly used...

This seminar has been jointly organized by FEEM and IEFE, Bocconi University....

We suggest the use of an Internet job-search indicator (the Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample forecasting comparison analyzing many models that adopt both our preferred leading indicator (GI), the...

We use the hybrid integrated model WITCH to quantify and analyze the financial investments needed to achieve low Greenhouse Gas concentration targets. Contrary to what commonly perceived, overall financial requirements in the electricity sector are not expected to increase. This result is driven...

Modellers have examined a wide array of ideal-world scenarios for regulation of greenhouse gases.  In this ideal world, all countries limit emissions from all economic sectors; regulations are implemented by intelligent, well-informed forward-looking agents; all abatement options, such as new energy technologies and...

At the beginning of the 21th century societies face the challenge of securing an efficient and environmentally supply of energy for present and future generations. As focused on the Agenda 21 document, approved during the Rio Conference in 1992, local administrations can play...

By presenting a Choice Experiment (CE) methodology to assess the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for protecting biodiversity services in agricultural areas, the seminar discusses the why and how to place a monetary value on biodiversity. The CE survey took place in the Province of Milan,...

La pianificazione delle attività di disseminazione dei progetti di ricerca è di cruciale importanza per dare visibilità ai risultati e per avere un impatto sulla policy. La Commissione Europea, nell’ambito del FP7, ritiene che una strategia di comunicazione efficace sia uno dei requisiti...

In this paper TVECMs are applied to examine the integration of European Electricity Markets. The relationships among EEX, Powernext and Omel spot and forward prices are assessed allowing for the possibility that the convergence in prices may not always be operational. Indeed, interdependences...

We introduce endogenous investments for building-up extraction capacity of conventional and non-conventional oil in the integrated assessment model WITCH. The international price of oil emerges as the Nash equilibrium of a non-cooperative game. When carbon emissions are not constrained, oil is used throughout...

Using a dataset on international pharmaceutical companies, we use a Bayesian dynamic panel probit to analyze the presence of regularities in companies decisions to entry. We differentiate our analysis for greeneld (GF) and any entry (AE), to see whether company size regressors, demand,...

The increased interconnection among local and global players induced by globalization, as well as the need for a complete application of the “subsidiary principle”, calls for a re-thinking of the “corporate social responsibility” concept. This new concept broadens the perspective of the single...

A unique Japanese practice of adopting adults, even if one has biological children, makes Japanese family firms unusually economically competitive. Using a large panel that very nearly comprises the population of postwar listed nonfinancial firms; we find inherited family firms more important in...

In the last few years we have observed deregulation in electricity markets and an increasing interest of price dynamics has been developed especially to consider all stylized facts shown by spot prices. Only few papers, to the authors’ knowledge, have considered the Italian...

A large literature has documented a significant increase in the difference between the wage of college graduates and high school graduates over the past 30 years. I show that from 1980 to 2000, college graduates have experienced relatively larger increases in cost of...

The core allocations in the economy with environmental externalities are necessary for forming voluntary environmental coalitions. Identifying the scope or ‘size’ of the core allocations are of vital importance to policy guidance in supporting such coalition. In this paper, a cooperative game of...

Il seminario sui nuovi bandi del 7° Programma Quandro della Commissione Europea ha l’obiettivo di presentare le opportunità di finanziamento offerte dalle nuove FP7 Calls, tra cui i bandi Environment, Social Science and Humanities, Energy e ERC Starting Grant. Un'attenzione particolare verrà posta...

One of the main barriers to the deployment of Demand Response (DR) and Distributed Generation (DG) is the ex-ante assessment of their benefits. The aim of this study is to develop a general framework to evaluate this potential using day-ahead historical market data....

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This paper extends the analysis of supply and demand determinants of innovation in energy-efficient technologies, accounting for international knowledge flows and spillovers. Using data on patents, we first show that geographical and technological distances are associated with a lower knowledge flow. We then...

Economic assessment of natural hazard-induced losses, particularly those of droughts, is a difficult and under researched topic, fraught with uncertainty, intrinsic complexity, methodological challenges and different conceptualisations of losses. The available literature on macroeconomic effects of natural disasters focuses on rapid-onset, typically geophysical...

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Regulatory and media concern has focused heavily on the potentially manipulative distortion of market prices associated with naked short selling. However, naked shorting can also have beneficial effects for liquidity and pricing efficiency. We empirically investigate the impact of naked short-selling on market...

In our study, we present a conceptual model of Social Responsibility for the banking sector, which aims at providing an ideal framework to represent the overall aspects that a bank should consider, when really committed toward society and the environment. The effectiveness of...

The moral economy of Islam, which is based on the laws and values of Islamic tradition, critically analyses Western economic theories, proposing innovative solutions to the socio-economic challenges of the contemporary world. It aims to renovate and enrich market economy, thanks to its...

The impact of the current economic crisis is as deep as diversified. The first part of the seminar will describe the peculiar way the worldwide economic downturn seems to be affecting the Chinese market. While on the one hand, as an export driven...

REF is developing a model for the natural gas sector. The adequacy is evaluated by deterministic models, while the security is evaluated by a stochastic model. This model is based on the construction of probability distributions for the demand and supply conditions, given...

The purpose of this paper is to undertake a game-theoretic analysis of the following three issues: i) the incentives for main GHG emitting countries to participate in an international climate policy agreement, i.e. in a “climate coalition”; ii) the stability of such climate...

Today Ukraine faces numerous environmental problems that affect its economic performance and human health. The energy-intensive and resource oriented economy operates the outdated industrial infrastructure. Besides that there is a large share of low quality coal in the energy balance. All these factors...

Human society depends on vital goods and services provided by ecosystems. But human actions threaten to erode the ability of ecosystems to provide these ecosystem services and sustain biodiversity. In market economies, firms are rewarded for producing commodities but not for protecting environmental...

Traditionally, the annual report was the main method of communication used to transmit information regarding a company’s activities. In the early ‘80s a widespread sensitiveness towards the preservation of the environment started to develop, and companies began drawing up environmental reports. During the...

We study the effect of ownership structure and regulatory independence on the interaction between capital structure, regulated prices, and firm value, using a comprehensive panel data of publicly traded European utilities. We find that firms in our sample tend to have a higher...

The definition of good practices to govern the transition to competitive market conditions is a problem of great political relevance that all governments and regulators have to face when liberalizing utilities markets. This paper explores the idea that regulations designed to implement Universal...

This paper conceptualise Islamic movements as producers of knowledge and meanings. This approach relies on the theoretical framework provided by the social movement theory and on its empirical applications in the understanding of the processes, dynamics and strategies of Islamic activism. Islamic groups...

The economic theory underlying climate control argues that the price of carbon should be set equal to the present value of the damages that a ton causes. There has been a substantial amount of economic research over the last decade measuring those climate...

This paper investigates volume and price patterns around the lockup expiration in the recent split share structure reform in China. We find that, even though the events are totally anticipated, there is a drop in the stock price, and an increase in volume,...

This seminar is aimed at presenting the results of two closely linked studies on innovation in energy-efficient technologies. Both studies are the result of a selection of patents relative to energy-efficient technologies based on the EPO/OECD PATSTAT Database.  The Determinants of Energy Efficiency...

Risk management is used by firms to translate the risks associated to their business activities into competitive advantages. One of the most widely used risk measures is Value-at-Risk (VaR), defined as the maximum loss of a portfolio within a given time horizon and...

The work presented in this seminar has been developd within the SECURE - Security of Energy Considering its Uncertainty, Risk and Economic implications project, funded by the European Commission, DG Research, FP7, Specific Programme Cooperation (Energy). The project develops tools for evaluating the...

Strong climate policies ask for a dramatic contraction of fossil fuels use. In particular, oil demand is expected to slow down at an unprecedented rate. We study the consequences of climate policy induced oil-sector crunch for the macroeconomy of oil-exporting countries. In particular,...

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Carlo Carraro, Emanuele Massetti and Lea Nicita. The present work analyses the effect of a stabilization policy of GHG in the atmosphere on the advancements of the technological frontier of both energy and non-energy...

The research investigates the synergies arising from the integration of tools belonging to different fields of knowledge into a single methodological framework, to characterise, incorporate and communicate the uncertainty in the assessment of adaptation strategies to the impacts of sea level rise (SLR),...

This paper investigates the influence of the size of legislative assemblies on spending and taxation behavior of governments. Using data from local government budgets from 1998 to 2006, I exploit a natural experiment given by a population-based rule that prescribes the size of...

The introduction of severe emission constraints -- aiming at the "less than 2°C temperature increase" European target -- will trigger drastic changes both in the relative cost-effectiveness and in the dynamics of energy technologies. The POLES model of the world energy system provides...

This seminar is based on a paper co-authored by Carlo Carraro ed Enrica De Cian. Today it is commonly accepted that a successful climate strategy should compound mitigation and  adaptation, but this recognition is quite recent. Presently, quantitative information is still largely insufficient to...

The fourth generation of Chinese Leaders inherited the fastest growing economy in the world. As well as the consequences that more than two decades of uneven development had on the country’s social and economic structure. Regional disparities, rural/urban divide, lack of a welfare...

Several studies show that the choice to establish an FDI may be affected by the institutional environment of the receiving country. Property rights theory suggests that contract enforcement matters differentially across sectors. The novelty of this study is to test whether institutions matter...

The UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights (SRSG), John Ruggie, in conjunction with the International Financial Corporation (IFC), undertook a study  to examine whether stabilization clauses, a widely used risk-management device in investment contracts, may affect a state’s action...

The work to be presented includes three folds. Firstly, we present an original study on the economic valuation of climate change impacts on forest ecosystem and human welfare at the European scale, part of the EIBURS-CLIBIO project. In the study, we show how...

The present paper analyses the consumption behaviour of Albanian families. The objective is to cast some light upon the relationship between education expenditure and the volume of remittances, sent internally and from abroad by household members. To assess the existence of an education...