Environmental & Resource Economics
Wednesday Feb 3, 13:00-14:00
Speaker: Steve Chaplin (Natural England)
Title: "Exploring information asymmetry in Agri-environment schemes (AES)".
Venue: Rm 3.008, Arthur Lewis
Abstract
AES are voluntary agreements that provide annual payments to farmers and land managers to manage their land in an environmentally sensitive way that goes beyond the minimum required of them by regulation. Natural England delivers AES in England on behalf of Defra. Currently there are nearly 60,000 AES agreements in England. Farms in AES account for 66% of the agricultural land in the country. Payments under the schemes exceed £400m per annum. Payments to participants in AES are governed by the provisions of the European Rural Development Regulation (and World Trade rules). This dictates that payments must be no more than the income forgone plus the additional costs incurred from undertaking environmental management (beyond the legislative minimum), such as the income lost by converting arable land back to grassland, or through production from lower input systems, or the cost of providing access routes for the public across farm land. Currently scheme payments are calculated using national average figures which inevitably means that, at the individual agreement level, the individual scheme option payments may over or under compensate agreement holders. This paper presents the results of an analysis to compare existing national scheme option payment rates with an alternative approach based on regionally calculated scheme payment rates (which, in theory, should reduce the level of asymmetry). Actual patterns of regional uptake (~30,000 agreements, 30 different management options) based on national payment rates are correlated with theoretical over and under-compensation at the regional level to explore if under and overcompensation is reflected in actual scheme option uptake at the regional level.
Bio
Currently national evidence lead for agriculture in Natural England. BSc (Hons) Agriculture (Wye); PhD - Farm-based recreation in England and Wales (Cov). Since 1998 range of delivery, specialist and management roles in European Rural Development Programme delivery.
Wednesday March 3, 13:00-14:00
Speaker: Seda Erdem (PhD student Economics, Manchester)
Title: Using Best Worst Scaling to Investigate Perceptions of Relative Responsibility for Food Safety
Venue: Rm 3.008, Arthur Lewis
Abstract
We report results of an analysis of the attribution of relative responsibility across the stages of the food chain for ensuring food safety. Specifically, we identify perceptions of the share of the overall responsibility that each stage in the food chain has to ensure that the meat people cook and eat at home does not cause food poisoning. Results are reported for two groups of stakeholders: consumers and farmers, and for two types of meat: chicken and beef. The stakeholders? opinions regarding the relative degrees of responsibility of the sequential food chain stages (feed producer, farmer, livestock transportation, abattoir,? consumer) are elicited via surveys using the Best Worst Scaling (Maximum Difference technique). The data are analyzed using mixed logit models estimated via Bayesian techniques. We find that consumers and farmers both tend to allocate a relatively low share of responsibility to their own food safety role. So, consumes tend to think farmers are more responsible for ensuring meat safety than farmers do. While farmers tend to think consumers have a greater degree of responsibility than consumers themselves believe. Thus there is a consistent pattern of downplaying the extent of one?s own responsibility. Further, consumers tend to allocate the highest shares of responsibility to the middle stages of the meat food chain. This contrasts with farmers who tend to allocate the highest shares of responsibility to the latter stages of the chain towards consumers, believing that the earlier stages of the chain have a relatively low share of responsibility. The analysis is currently being extended to a third group of food chain actors: abattoir workers.
Wednesday March 17, 13:00-14:00
Speaker: Frank Figge (Queens Univ, Belfast)
Title: "Measuring sustainability performance - a value-based perspective".
Venue: Rm 3.008, Arthur Lewis
Abstract
The measurement of sustainability performance is frequently discussed in both practise and research. A multitude of different approaches is proposed in this context. What the overwhelming majority of these approaches have in common is that they assess the use of environmental and/or social resources based on the burden that is created. Conversions of greenhouse house gases into GHG-equivalents are a good and popular example in this context. This presentation will introduce the Sustainable Value approach, which takes a value-oriented perspective. Rather than assessing the use of environmental resources based on the burden or cost it creates this approach assesses resource use based on the value that is created. Interestingly, this is also the perspective taken in financial economics with regard to the use of economic capital. This presentation will also show some applications of the Sustainable Value approach and highlight some differences between the value-oriented Sustainable Value approach and burden-based approach.
Bio
Frank Figge is Professor of Management and Sustainability at Queen's University Management School (Belfast/Northern Ireland). Before joining Queen's University he held the chair of Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of St Andrews (Scotland) and he was a Reader at Leeds University (England). Previously Frank worked for asset managers in the field of Socially Responsible Investment.
Wednesday April 28, 13:00-14:00
Speaker: Elbert Dijkgraaf (Erasmus Univ, Rotterdam)
Title: "Effectiveness energy covenants: International evidence"
Venue: Rm 3.008, Arthur Lewis
Bio
Elbert Dijkgraaf is professor at the Erasmus School of Economics where he holds the chair "Empirical economics of the public sector".
He is also deputy director of SEOR and fellow of the Tinbergen Institute. The focus of his research is in network sectors (the waste market, the water market, the energy market and the care market), education, labour markets and environmental issues. He worked for the European Commission, Dutch ministries (Education, Environment, Economic Affairs, Care, Finance), provincial and local governments, private companies (waste, energy, water) and sector organisations (water, waste, notaries, environment).
Wednesday May 5, 13:00-14:00
Speaker: Mika Kortelainen (Manchester)
Title: "Hedonic Price and Demand of Carbon-Labelled Products: Empirical Evidence from Scanner Data"
Venue: G33, Bridgeford St
Wednesday May 12, 13:00-14:00
Speaker: Béatrice Roussillon (Manchester)
Title: "Efficient Emissions Reductions"
Venue: Rm 3.008, Arthur Lewis
For further information about the Environmental & Resource Economic workshops please contact the workshop coordinator: ada.wossink@manchester.ac.uk