scholarly journals Modeling Myths: On the Need for Dynamic Realism in DICE and other Equilibrium Models of Global Climate Mitigation

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Grubb ◽  
Claudia Wieners
Keyword(s):  
Path Dependence ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Cost Component ◽  
Abatement Costs ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
Dice Model ◽  
Climate Damages

We analyze and critique how optimizing Integrated Assessment Models, and specifically the widely-used DICE model, represent abatement costs. Many such models assume temporal independence –abatement costs in one period are not affected by prior abatement. We contrast this with three dimensions of dynamic realism in emitting systems: inertia, induced innovation, and path dependence. We extend the DICE model with a stylized representation of such dynamic factors. By adding a transitional cost component, we characterize the resulting system in terms of its capacity to adapt in path-dependent ways, and the transitional costs of accelerating abatement. We formalize a resulting metric of the pliability of the system, and the characteristic timescales of adjustment. With the resulting DICE-PACE model, we show that in a system with high pliability, the optimal strategy involves much higher initial investment in abatement, sustained at roughly constant levels for some decades, which generates an approximately linear abatement path and emissions declining steadily to zero. This contrasts sharply with the traditional formulation. Characteristic transition timescales of 20-40 years result in an optimum path which stabilizes global temperatures around a degree below the traditional DICE behavior; with otherwise modest assumptions, a pliable system can generate optimal scenarios within the goals of the Paris Agreement, with far lower long run combined costs of abatement and climate damages. We conclude that representing dynamic realism in such models is as important as – and far more empirically tractable than – continued debate about the monetization of climate damages and ‘social cost of carbon.’

scholarly journals Agroforestry to Achieve Global Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Targets: Are South Asian Countries Sufficiently Prepared?

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 303
Author(s):  
Shalini Dhyani ◽  
Indu K Murthy ◽  
Rakesh Kadaverugu ◽  
Rajarshi Dasgupta ◽  
Manoj Kumar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Implementation Phase ◽  
Adaptation And Mitigation

Traditional agroforestry systems across South Asia have historically supported millions of smallholding farmers. Since, 2007 agroforestry has received attention in global climate discussions for its carbon sink potential. Agroforestry plays a defining role in offsetting greenhouse gases, providing sustainable livelihoods, localizing Sustainable Development Goals and achieving biodiversity targets. The review explores evidence of agroforestry systems for human well-being along with its climate adaptation and mitigation potential for South Asia. In particular, we explore key enabling and constraining conditions for mainstreaming agroforestry systems to use them to fulfill global climate mitigation targets. Nationally determined contributions submitted by South Asian countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change acknowledge agroforestry systems. In 2016, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’s Resolution on Agroforestry brought consensus on developing national agroforestry policies by all regional countries and became a strong enabling condition to ensure effectiveness of using agroforestry for climate targets. Lack of uniform methodologies for creation of databases to monitor tree and soil carbon stocks was found to be a key limitation for the purpose. Water scarcity, lack of interactive governance, rights of farmers and ownership issues along with insufficient financial support to rural farmers for agroforestry were other constraining conditions that should be appropriately addressed by the regional countries to develop their preparedness for achieving national climate ambitions. Our review indicates the need to shift from planning to the implementation phase following strong examples shared from India and Nepal, including carbon neutrality scenarios, incentives and sustainable local livelihood to enhance preparedness.

Institutional inertia and practice variation

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Aksom
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Theory ◽  
Practice Variation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Institutional Pressures ◽  
Organizational Practices ◽  
Organizational Responses ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Institutional Profile ◽  
Successful Change

PurposeInstitutional theory had been developed for the purpose of explaining widespread diffusion, mimetic adoption and institutionalization of organizational practices. However, further extensions of institutional theory are needed to explain a range of different institutional trajectories and organizational responses since institutionalized standards constitute a minority of all diffusing practices. The study presents a theoretical framework which offers guidelines for explaining and predicting various adoption, variation and post-adoption scenarios.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is primarily conceptual in nature, and the arguments are developed based on previous institutional theory and organizational change literature.FindingsThe notion of institutional inertia is proposed in order to provide a more detailed explanation of when and why organizations ignore, adopt, modify, maintain and abandon practices and the way intra-organizational institutional pressures shape, direct and constrain these processes. It is specified whether institutional inertia will be temporarily eclipsed or whether it will actively manifest itself during adoption, adaptation and maintaining attempts. The study distinguishes between four institutional profiles of organizational practices – institutionalized, institutionally friendly, neutral and contested practices – which can vary along three dimensions: accuracy, extensiveness and meaning. The variation and post-adoption outcomes for each of them can be completely characterized and predicted by only three parameters: the rate of institutional inertia, institutional profile of these practices and whether they are interpretatively flexible. In turn, an extent of intraorganizational institutional resistance to new practices is determined by their institutional profile and flexibility.Practical implicationsIt is expected that proposed theoretical explanations in this paper can offer insights into these empirical puzzles and supply a broader view of organizational and management changes. The study’s theoretical propositions help to understand what happens to organizational practices after they are handled by organizations, thus moving beyond the adoption/rejection dichotomy.Originality/valueThe paper explores and clarifies the nature of institutional inertia and offers an explanation of its manifestation in organizations over time and how it shapes organizational practices in the short and long run. It challenges a popular assumption in organizational literature that fast and revolutionary transition is a prerequisite for successful change. More broadly, the typology offered in this paper helps to explain whether and how organizations can successfully handle and complete their change and how far they can depart from institutional norms.

Path Dependence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Hegmon
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
General Level ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Difficult Decision ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
Historical Sequences ◽  
Lock In

Path dependence concepts, thus far, have seen little application in archaeology, but they have great potential. At a general level, these concepts provide tools for theorizing historical sequences, such as patterns of settlement on a landscape and divergent historical traditions. Potential applications include issues of historical contingency in the late Rio Grande, settlement in the Mesa Verde region, and divergent trajectories in the post-Chaco period. Specific concepts from path dependence theory, including lock-in and critical junctures, are illustrated by an analysis of the growth of Hohokam irrigation, which exhibited a path-dependent trajectory. As archaeological study of path dependence builds awareness of the importance of decision-making on the future, it contributes to difficult decision-making in today’s world.

scholarly journals Path-dependent institutions drive alternative stable states in conservation

2018 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 689-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward W. Tekwa ◽  
Eli P. Fenichel ◽  
Simon A. Levin ◽  
Malin L. Pinsky
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Resources ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Alternative Stable States ◽  
Stable State ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Stable States ◽  
Alternative Stable State ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Path Dependent

Understanding why some renewable resources are overharvested while others are conserved remains an important challenge. Most explanations focus on institutional or ecological differences among resources. Here, we provide theoretical and empirical evidence that conservation and overharvest can be alternative stable states within the same exclusive-resource management system because of path-dependent processes, including slow institutional adaptation. Surprisingly, this theory predicts that the alternative states of strong conservation or overharvest are most likely for resources that were previously thought to be easily conserved under optimal management or even open access. Quantitative analyses of harvest rates from 217 intensely managed fisheries supports the predictions. Fisheries’ harvest rates also showed transient dynamics characteristic of path dependence, as well as convergence to the alternative stable state after unexpected transitions. This statistical evidence for path dependence differs from previous empirical support that was based largely on case studies, experiments, and distributional analyses. Alternative stable states in conservation appear likely outcomes for many cooperatively managed renewable resources, which implies that achieving conservation outcomes hinges on harnessing existing policy tools to navigate transitions.

scholarly journals Re-orienting the paradigm: path dependence in FDI theory and the emerging multinationals

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Knoerich
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Direct Investment ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Multinational Enterprise ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Core ◽  
Emerging Multinationals ◽  
Path Dependent

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how path dependence in the evolution of major theories of foreign direct investment (FDI) locked in a theoretical perspective of the multinational enterprise that focused on asset-exploitation. This perspective is challenged by recent contradicting observations of multinationals from China and other emerging economies. A decisive re-orientation of FDI theory is proposed as a way forward to resolve this tension. Design/methodology/approach Placing FDI theories into the context of FDI patterns prevailing at the time they were developed, Thomas Kuhn’s framework on the evolution of scientific knowledge is employed to track how the mainstream FDI theory emerged, went through a period of normal science and then approached a crisis of science in this field. Findings The evolution of FDI theory is strongly path-dependent, which made it difficult for theory to effectively incorporate new conceptual discoveries and empirical findings about the nature of FDI activity. Originality/value FDI theory would benefit from a full re-orientation to a demand-oriented perspective which places the pursuit of advantages, assets, resources, etc., at the core of the theory. Such a change is implicit in many recent theoretical advances and would assure theory is generalizable to all types of FDI.

scholarly journals The Spillover Effects on Strategic Interdependence Neighboring Countries: A Game Theory Approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oyundelger Sharkhuu ◽  
Pu Yongjian ◽  
Batdelger Tsogt-Ochir ◽  
Tugs Sanjdorj
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Vector Error Correction ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Inbound Tourism ◽  
Short Run

The main aim of sustainable development is to ensure an intelligible and long-lasting balance between the economy, society, and the environment. Sustainable tourism could only be successful if the inter-relationships between all three dimensions are accepted. In the limited number of research analyses, the focus of the research is on competition between tourist countries and destinations. This study has used Game theory to analyze the competition applies time-series data in selected neighboring countries measure of a VAR-based spillover index, developed by [1] to investigate the time-varying relationship between tourism and Gross Domestic Product. Each country analyzed Vector Error Correction (VEC) and Granger analysis to explore the causal short and long-term tourism and use a sample that spans from 1997 to 2019. From the main results of Cholesky, the total spillover index is 59.0% between Russia and Mongolia which suggests a moderate interdependence among the four variables. Findings indicate that neither China nor Mongolia have a short-run influence on tourism development. China's inbound tourism is affected in the long run by Mongolia's inbound tourism but not vice versa can be explained by the fact that the number of tourists visiting Mongolia would include China in their travels.

Delineating Three Dimensions of E-Government Success

2015 ◽  
pp. 135-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandru V. Roman
Keyword(s):  
Technology Adoption ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Information Communication Technologies ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Complex Process

This chapter draws upon the historical evolution of e-government and at the extant body of knowledge in order to delineate the dimensions that are critical for the success of the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for purposes of governance. Evaluating the impacts of technology adoption in the public sector is an intrinsically complex process. However, given that currently governmental spending on ICT projects rivals and at times even surpasses allocations for capital developments, the need for an evaluative framework becomes rather obvious. Based on multiple scholarly accounts and practical examples, this chapter suggests that the success of e-government should be examined along three chief dimensions: security, functionality, and transformation. All three vectors are highly interdependent, and it can be argued that the success of e-government in the long run is not possible if significant shortcomings are observed along any one of the three aspects.

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