Mouez Fodha

Optimal Carbon Capture and Storage Policies

The IPCC recommends the use of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies in order to achieve the Kyoto environmental goals. This paper sheds light on this issue by assessing the optimal strategy regarding the long-term use of CCS technologies. The aim is to analyze the optimal CCS policy when the sequestration rate is endogenous, being therefore one specific tool of the environmental policy. We develop a simple growth model to identify the main driving forces that should determine the optimal CCS policy. We show that, under some conditions on the cost of extractions, CCS may be a long-term solution to curb carbon emissions. We also show that over time the social planner will choose to decrease the rate of capture and sequestration. We then derive the decentralized equilibrium outcome by considering the programs of the fossil resource-holder and of the representative consumer. Finally, we determine the optimal environmental policy, i.e. the carbon tax scheme, as well as the dynamics of the fossil fuel price needed to implement it.

A Note On Environmental Policy And Public Debt Stabilization

This article analyzes the consequences of environmental tax policy under public debt stabilization constraint. A public sector of pollution abatement is financed by a tax on pollutant emissions and/or by public debt. At the same time, households can also invest in private pollution abatement activities. We show that the economy may be characterized by an environmental-poverty trap if debt is too large or public abatement is not sufficiently efficient with respect to the private one. However, there exists a level of public abatement and debt at which a stable steady state is optimal.

Environmental Tax and the Distribution of Income among Heterogeneous Workers

This paper analyzes the environmental tax policy issues when labor is heterogeneous. The objective is to assess whether an environmental tax policy could be Pareto improving, when the revenue of the pollution tax is recycled by a change in the labor tax properties. We show that, depending on the heterogeneity characteristics of labor and on the initial structure of the tax system, a policy mix could be designed in order to leave each class of workers unharmed. It consists of an increase in progressivity together with a decrease in the flat rate component of the wage tax.

LIFE CYCLE OF PRODUCTS AND CYCLES

The aim of this paper is to examine whether the development of waste recycling activities can be a source of economic fluctuation. We assume that the recycling sector has four fundamental characteristics. (i) The production factors are restricted by the production of the last period. (ii) These production factors are waste for which the price determination is non-competitive. (iii) It produces a recycled good, which is a perfect substitute to th primary good. (iv) It reduces waste stream. We consider the simplest economy with an infinitely lived agent and a life cycle hypothesis for the goods. We show that the equilibrium is unique and is always determinate. In spite of the lack of indeterminacy, however, our system can display cyclical behavior, depending on some usual conditions on parameters. Namely, the steady-state may undergo a Flip and a Hopf bifurcation.

Decomposition Analysis of Aggregate Energy Intensity Changes in Tunisia over the Period 1980–2007

The aim of this paper is to investigate the main factors that have contributed to the decline in aggregate energy intensity of the Tunisian economy, during the period 1980–2007. Using the Logarithmic Mean Division Index (LMDI) decomposition method, we decompose the total changes in energy intensity into inter-fuel substitution effects, technological effects, and structural effects. The decomposition analysis is carried out at two levels of sectoral disaggregation (3 sectors and 13 sub-sectors) and uses three energy sources: petroleum, natural gas, and electricity. Our results show that the main contributor to the decline in energy intensity of the Tunisian economy throughout the period studied is the technological effect. This result was confirmed when we decomposed the energy intensity changes in the industrial and service sectors. On the other hand, the inter-fuel substitution effect contributed to increasing energy intensity, but without affecting its general downward trend. Finally, for the structural effects, we observed a significant mutual effect of cancellation at sector and sub-sector levels.