Fuel Taxes and the Poor challenges the conventional wisdom that gasoline taxation, an important and much-debated instrument of climate policy, has a disproportionately detrimental effect on poor people.
A highly selected interdisciplinary group of experts working on water and climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean met in Panama City, Panama from Thursday, September 29th to Saturday, October 1st, 2011.
The project seeks to promote capacity building for research, analysis and evaluation of the impacts of climate change and water, using the tools of environmental economics.
Con el proyecto se busca promover la creación de capacidad de investigación, análisis y la evaluación del impacto del cambio climático y agua, utilizando las herramientas de la economía ambiental
Success in achievement. Congratulations!
Participants from Latin America and the Caribbean completed the Environmental and Resource Economics Training Course on Impact Evaluation by LACEEP at CATIE
The IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) will work to build capacity for and strengthen the use of science in policy making by linking the scientific community and policy makers. The workshop and assessments will take place in Tokyo, Japan from the 25 to 27 of July 2011.
Economists in Latin America are moving beyond the prevailing ‘macro’ orientation of their research focusing more on questions linked to development and the use and management of the environmental resource base in the region.
Through gathering landowners’ experiences and actual practices in situ, researchers at EfD-CA Center work on confirming research findings, contextualize, validate research, and set new hypothesis.
EfD-CA at CATIE takes advantage of research synergies in institutional aspects of climate change, biodiversity, and water.
LACEEP's XI Biannual Short Course.
The work of both organizations will be more effective through this alliance which promotes sharing technical assistance and experiences.
The work of both organizations will be more effective through this alliance which promotes sharing technical assistance and experiences.
The project provides a systematization of cases studies in Central America and Dominican Republic.
See research fellow and EfD-CA cordinator Francisco Alpízar presenting in an invited session of the XV Annual Meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA 2010).
Read Francisco Alpízar's "Letter from regions on the autumn 2010 Newsletter of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economics (EAERE)
An overview on the climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC hosted in in Cancun, Mexico
EfD-CA at CATIE began study sponsored by The Tinker Foundation
Methodology based on environmental economics principles, to be replicated in wildlife protected areas
Metodología del EfD-CA en CATIE basada en principios de economía ambiental por replicarse en áreas silvestres protegidas // Methodology based on environmental economics principles created by EfD-CA at CATIE soon to be replicated in other protected areas.
EfD-CA del CATIE inició estudio de dos años en el tema de pagos por servicios ambientales (PSA) financiado con fondos de la Fundación Tinker
Francisco Alpízar, Coordinador del Centro EfD-América Central, es uno de los candidatos a la junta directiva de la Asociación de Economistas de Recursos Ambientales (AERE). El plazo para votar vence el 1 de diciembre 2010.
The project is being implemented jointly with the University of Idaho and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.
The EfD-Central America presented on March 23th, the seminar "Consequences of Copenhagen: What are the challenges and opportunities?" This was the fist seminar in a series given in Spanish, and hence, titled "SEMINARIO: Consecuencias de Copenhague".
“To do high-quality research, you need to find out what policy makers need and nurture the interaction,” says Maria Angelica Naranjo, EfD researcher in Central America. Her research colleagues Roger Madrigal and Francisco Alpízar are exploring why some Costa Rican communities are successful in drinking water management while others are not. Policy makers and local communities are already using some of the researchers’ recommendations to bring change.
Research Fellow Alvaro Umaña is the Head and Political Coordinator of the Costa Rican Negotiating Team at Copenhagen.
Perhaps current prices of fossil fuels are the reflection of the hurricane's eye passing through the global markets. Before exorbitant oil prices again steal all the attention, it is important to analyze our policies on public and private transport management in general. And in particular fuel tax policies, which is here discussed by Francisco Alpizar, Rebecca Osakwe and Allen Blackman.
EfD-CA's research fellows are estimating a cost base structure for the allocation of service concessions and non-essential activities within the protected wilderness areas.
Read María A. Naranjo' opinion article (Estrategias de adaptación al cambio climático en Costa Rica) in "La Nación" (January 28th), related to the EfD Central America Project "Small Farmers' Determinants of Private Adaptation to Climate Change Strategies" (Spanish only).
Read Francisco Alpizar’and Róger Madrigal’ opinion article (Algo más que construir acueductos rurales) in “La Nacion” (January 18th) associated with the EfD Central America Project: Decentralization in water resource management: exploring the determinants of success (Spanish only).
The Costa Rican Regulatory Authority (ARESEP) seeks a new methodology to set the prices of electric power generation that uses renewable and alternative sources of energy.
Read Francisco Alpizar’ opinion article (Política integral para el sector transporte) about an Integral Transport Policy for Costa Rica published at “La Nacion” (January 8th). (Spanish only)
Research Fellows Milagro Saborío and Róger Madrigal depart from Costa Rica to realize their Ph.D studies abroad.
Research Fellows Juan Robalino and Roger Madrigal made an important contribution for the Inter-American Development Bank’s project called Quality of Life in Urban Neighborhoods in Costa Rica.
Francisco Alpízar y Milagro Saborío wrote an article (Más preguntas que respuestas) for “La Nación” (1 June 2008) the most important newspaper in Costa Rica on the topic of biofuels. (Spanish only)
A promising EfD project aims to investigate the determinants of these contributions, understanding the motivations behind donations and how external factors influence them.
In Central America there are approximately 24,000 organizations responsible for providing water for domestic consumption (CBDWO). These organizations are key agents in the generation of human well-being and reduction of poverty in the region.
CASCADE project promotes adaptation to climate change in vulnerable communities of smallholder farmers in Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala, through Ecosystem-based Adaptation strategies (EbA).
High school students are at risk: high temperatures decrease academic performance and daily school attendance. Can we mitigate these negative effects through better policies? This project proposes to answer this question by collecting and analyzing comparative data from Latin American countries and exploring the mechanisms under which existing public policies can mitigate the adverse effects of weather on schooling outcomes.
The main goal of this project is to test whether protected areas (PAs) reduce the likelihood of climate related disasters such as floods, landslides and storms, in Costa Rica and Honduras. This evaluation study is expected to provide empirical evidence on the role of PAs in providing hydrological services to avoid the occurrence and damages of floods and landslides as a consequence of extreme weather events.
While developed countries are increasing their reliance on renewable energy sources, low and middle-income countries maintain their energy matrix on conventional fuels and natural resources, increasing their energy dependency and unsustainable use of natural resources to respond to a growing population and emerging economy.
This study analyzes residential water demand by modeling both the effects of water prices and appliance portfolios selection on households’ water demands and welfare in the cities of San Jose and Addis Ababa. The results will be relevant inputs for the design of demand side water management policies.
The project will provide a multi-country comparative analysis of Community-based Water Organiszation (CWOs) and their determinants of adaptive capacity and performance based on rich empirical data (i.e. 3 developing countries, 160 CWO and 7,000 households).
The goal of this project is to determine how parks and other conservation policies might affect local welfare. We are interested in wages, employment of agricultural and non-agricultural activities, infrastructure and poverty rates.
This project develops a bio-economic model of sea turtle populations and egg/turtle harvest decisions as a basis for comparing across these various settings and approaches to sea turtle conservation and their impact on rural livelihoods.
Our goal is to learn about the Costa Rican experience from the inside, working closely with FONAFIFO staff to understand how they have sought to improve efficiency and to explore options for setting payment levels and targeting to increase efficiency, without missing the myriad of norms, rules, and other obstacles that program managers might face in the implementation of, for example, procurement auctions.
The present study aims to fill these gaps by estimating the economic benefits to tourists associated with the PBAE award on Costa Rican beaches.
Our hypothesis base on previous studies’ findings (see literature review section) suggest that so far PES are being assigned to big and relatively wealthy landowners, and that most landowners use the payment for investments within the property.
The projects objective is to identify local capabilities, assets, and activities that characterizes the livelihoods of small scale fishers in Costa Rica. A special attention will be given on how different regulations (external and internal) defining who, where, when, what, and how to fish might affect these livelihoods and the natural resource base.