scholarly journals Aligning Economic and Ecological Priorities: Conflicts, Complementarities, and Regulatory Frictions

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-205
Author(s):  
Guillermo E. Herrera ◽  
Keith S. Evans ◽  
Lynne Y. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Socioecological Systems ◽  
Second Best ◽  
Key Policy

Four key policy challenges, framed here as dichotomies, are commonly associated with attempts to improve the use of natural resources in the socioecological commons. These dichotomies present tradeoffs when addressing market failures and in general seem to suggest the need to settle for second-best outcomes rather than first-best outcomes identified in stylized models. Citing examples, we argue that these models, while illustrating these dichotomies, also suggest means for circumventing them, and perhaps provide a degree of optimism about prospective outcomes in socioecological systems.

The Choice Between Market Failures and Corruption

2000 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 194-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu ◽  
Thierry Verdier
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Government Intervention ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Second Best ◽  
Optimal Degree

Because government intervention transfers resources from one party to another, it creates room for corruption. As corruption often undermines the purpose of the intervention, governments will try to prevent it. They may create rents for bureaucrats, induce a misallocation of resources, and increase the size of the bureaucracy. Since preventing all corruption is excessively costly, second-best intervention may involve a certain fraction of bureaucrats accepting bribes. When corruption is harder to prevent, there may be both more bureaucrats and higher public-sector wages. Also, the optimal degree of government intervention may be nonmonotonic in the level of income. (JEL D23, H40)

scholarly journals A Second-Best Analysis of Alternative Instruments for the Preservation of Natural Resources

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1562
Author(s):  
Maria Llop
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Economics ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Consumption Tax ◽  
Welfare Impacts ◽  
Second Best ◽  
Environmental Goods ◽  
New Public ◽  
Mere Existence ◽  
Distortionary Taxes

The literature on second-best environmental taxation provides us with a broad understanding of the welfare impacts of pollution regulation. However, most of the research undertaken to date has focused on environmental pollution, while other topics in environmental economics, such as the preservation of natural resources, have not warranted much attention in the optimal taxation literature. This paper uses a simple general-equilibrium model to analyze the welfare effects of taxes on final goods, taxes on natural resources, and extraction permits with a second-best approach based on the existence of initial distortionary taxes. This analysis not only takes into account the non-use utility of the mere existence of natural resources, but also captures the consequences of enjoying environmental goods on labor supply decisions, through the use-value attributed to natural resources. The comparison of the welfare impacts of a tax on final consumption and a tax on the use of natural resources is not conclusive. A consumption tax leads to a higher primary welfare effect than a resources tax, while taxing natural goods generates more revenue-recycling income than taxing consumption goods. In addition, as extraction permits do not generate new public revenues to reduce pre-existing distortionary taxes, this intervention entails the highest welfare costs.

Business Ethics and Equality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham A. Singer
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Fundamental Theorem ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Second Best ◽  
Corporate Executives ◽  
Market Failures Approach

This chapter shows why concerns for equality must affect business ethics. In the last chapter, we saw that the market failures approach takes the theory of second best seriously when it comes to the first fundamental theorem; however, it does not seem to apply it to its own reliance on the second fundamental theorem. Just as we ask corporate executives to constrain and restrain themselves according to the spirit of efficiency-promoting laws in order to achieve second-best efficiency, market actors ought to shoulder some of the burden of justice in order to achieve second-best social justice. To this end this chapter introduces the concept of “justice failure” as a concept parallel to “market failure” and sketches out what a justice failures approach to business ethics would look like. The chapter concludes by responding to potential objections.

Productive Development Policies in the Mining Value Chain: Policy Opportunity and Alignment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guendalina Anzolin
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Industrial Policy ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
High Technology ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Productive Development

Natural resources are an important source for development, and Latin America is one of the regions with the highest endowment. This calls for a reconsideration of resource-based development. Ambitious countries are moving toward high-value activities and more diversified economies to continue moving up the development ladder. In this sense, the resurgence of industrial policy can correct market failures and lead to the implementation of mission-oriented policies. This document analyzes opportunities to design and implement integrated policies through a revised taxonomy of mining-related policies, applying it to Australia, South Africa, and Chile. The mining sector has been a fertile field, characterized by high technology niches, growth, and innovation. Demand and supply policies can shape the path for development within the sector and across the economy due to the potential of vertical and horizontal linkages.

scholarly journals Libertarianism, Left and Right

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Mazor ◽  
Peter Vallentyne
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
The Self ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
The Right

This chapter explores the libertarian account of distributive justice. It explains the self-ownership thesis and then considers criticisms relating to indeterminacy, small incursions, and enforceable duties of assistance. It then turns to questions relating to natural resources, including whether they are initially owned, the conditions under which they may be appropriated, and the right vs left libertarian debate over whether or not they should ultimately be owned in an egalitarian manner. The chapter then lays out the libertarian account of just economic activity and considers criticisms based on the role of luck, the moral limits of markets, discrimination, paternalism, unjust prices, alternative notions of freedom, the plight of the desperately poor, and market failures. The chapter then concludes by raising important topics for future research, including the moral status of minors, future people, global justice, property rights in non-divisible natural resources, and rectificatory justice.

Community Interests in International Taxation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsilly Dagan
Keyword(s):  
Tax Competition ◽  
Tax Policy ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
International Taxation ◽  
Collective Good ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Double Taxation ◽  
Second Best ◽  
International Tax ◽  
International Tax Policy

This chapter describes the multilateral efforts regarding four key concerns of the international community: Prevention of double taxation, fighting “harmful tax competition,” sharing of information, and the “gaps and frictions” between the tax systems of various countries noted by the recent BEPS report. It then asks what, in fact, constitutes the community’s interest in the international tax area, arguing that where tax policy is concerned, there is no clear “textbook answer” regarding the best way to tax internationally. The chapter criticizes two proxies which are often implicitly endorsed in order to evaluate international tax policy: Cooperation among states, and the prevention of market failures. It argues that cooperation, contrary to conventional wisdom, is neither a goal in itself nor is it a good enough proxy for the collective good, and that the elimination of market failures, although indisputably beneficial, may raise a second-best problem.

Conservation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Perrings ◽  
Ann Kinzig
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Agricultural Soils ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Waste Products ◽  
The Public ◽  
Good Nature

This book explores the process by which people decide to conserve or convert natural resources. Building on a seminal study by Harold Hotelling that connects conservation to expected changes in the value of resources, the authors develop the general principles involved in conservation science. The focus of the book is the resources of the natural environment. This includes both directly exploited resources such as agricultural soils, minerals, forests, and fish stocks, and biodiversity—the wild species and natural ecosystems put at risk when people choose to convert natural habitat, or to discharge waste products to water, land, or air. The theory of conservation shows how much or how little to extract from the environment, and how much to leave intact. It also shows how conservation decisions are influenced by the existence of market failures—the external impacts of market decisions on ecosystems, and the public good nature of many ecosystem services. It shows how conservation connects to expected changes in the relative importance or value of natural resources, and what is needed to uncover that value. It shows how context matters. Decisions about the conservation of natural resources are influenced by property rights—whether land is private property or in the public domain; by environmental policies, laws, and regulations within countries; and by environmental agreements between countries. Finally, this book shows how conservation differs within and beyond protected areas, how it connects to the system of environmental governance, and how governance structures have evolved over time.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document