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NEP: New Economics Papers
Agricultural Economics
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Edited by: Angelo Zago
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pza49.html
Universita degli Studi di Verona
Date: 2006-09-11
Papers: 3
This document is in the public domain, feel free to circulate it.
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In this issue we have:
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1. An organic farming perspective on the production of biomass
for energy use
Muller, Adrian
2. The Direction of Technical Change in Capital-Resource
Economies
Corrado Di Maria; Simone Valente
3. A Kuznets Curve for Recycling
Karen Pittel
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1. An organic farming perspective on the production of biomass
for energy use
Muller, Adrian (Department of Economics, School of Business,
Economics and Law, G?teborg University)
Bioenergy is seen as a promising option to curb greenhouse gas
emissions. There is, however, a potential competition for land
due to increased demand for biomass resulting in increased food
prices. This also would exacerbate future global water scarcity
and negatively affect the food security of poor countries
depending on cereal imports. Furtheron, the question of how a
sufficient large amount of biomass for energy production could be
grown sustainably needs to be addressed. Conventional agriculture
often has negative effects on the environment. Organic
agriculture is one sustainable alternative. Burning significant
quantities of organic matter, however, is incompatible with the
principles of organic agriculture. Nevertheless, there is
potential for sustainable implementation of small-scale, on-site
bioenergy projects, in particular in developing countries and
also of some forestry practices to harvest biomass for energy use.
On the other hand, large-scale production of biomass for
transport fuels is likely to be particularly unsustainable. To
assess the sustainability of bioenergy on project level and as a
global strategy, detailed differentiation is necessary. This
paper combines these issues focusing on the potential challenges
related to sustainable bioenergy production and its potential
incompatibility with sustainable agricultural practices. <p>
Keywords: bioenergy; sustainable energy; organic agriculture;
land scarcity; water scarcity
JEL: Q01 Q42
Date: 2006-08-31
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0216&r=agr
2. The Direction of Technical Change in Capital-Resource
Economies
Corrado Di Maria (CentER, Tilburg University)
Simone Valente (Center of Economic Research, Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
We analyze a multi-sector growth model with directed technical
change where man-made capital and exhaustible resources are essen-
tial for production. The relative profitability of factor-
specific inno- vations endogenously determines whether technical
progress will be capital- or resource-augmenting. We show that
convergence to bal- anced growth implies zero capital-augmenting
innovations: in the long run, the economy exhibits purely
resource-augmenting technical change. This result provides sound
microfoundations for the broad class of models of
exogenous/endogenous growth where resource-aug- menting progress
is required to sustain consumption in the long run, contradicting
the view that these models are conceptually biased in favor of
sustainability.
Keywords: Endogenous Growth, Directed Technical Change,
Exhaustible Resources, Sustainability
JEL: O31 O33 O41 Q32
Date: 2006-03
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:06-50&r=agr
3. A Kuznets Curve for Recycling
Karen Pittel (Center of Economic Research, Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
The paper aims at extending the debate on Environmental Kuznets
Curves to the case of non-renewable resources and to discuss the
driving forces that might give rise to EKC's in this case. The
paper at hand deviates from the standard EKC analysis in two ways:
First, mostly EKC's are analyzed for flow variables. In this
paper we argue that EKC's may very well arise for certain stock
variables like minerals or waste. Second, most papers that
provide a theoretical foundation for EKC's focus on assumptions
like technological anomalies (e.g. increasing returns) or
technological switches. We offer an alternative explanation by
showing that EKC's might arise simply due to the combination of
recycling and the rising scarcity of materials. It is shown that
an EKC for non-renewables might emerge during the transition to
the long-run balanced growth path. Whether or not an EKC arises
depends e.g. on initial conditions, but also on preferences and
technology. The assumptions made about the ability of recycling
firms to internalize the in- terrelation between recycling
decisions today and the future availability of recyclable waste
matter with respect to the prerequisites for an EKC and the speed
of conver- gence. Internalization furthermore implies that an
economy can be caught in a poverty trap, i.e. it might not be
able to converge to the long-run growth equilibrium if the
initial endowment with resources and capital is too low.
Keywords: non-renewable resources, recycling, transitional
growth, Environmental Kuznets Curve
JEL: Q32 Q53 O4 O13
Date: 2006-05
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:06-52&r=agr
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