Are forest plantation subsidies affecting land use change and off-farm income? A farm-level analysis of Chilean small forest landowners

Submitted by César Salazar on
EfD Authors:

Forest plantations have increased rapidly in the last three decades, to a large extent due to direct and indirect financial incentives. At the farm level, forestry incentives can affect the investment decisions of small forest landowners and bring socioeconomic externalities or unintended effects associated with farm management. The purpose of this study is to assess the ex post impacts of a forestry subsidy on land use changes and off-farm income experienced by Chilean small forest landowners.

Agriculture, Climate Change, Conservation, Land, Policy Design

A marked point process model for intraday financial returns: modeling extreme risk

Submitted by César Salazar on
EfD Authors:

Forecasting the risk of extreme losses is an important issue in the management of financial risk and has attracted a great deal of research attention. However, little attention has been paid to extreme losses in a higher frequency intraday setting. This paper proposes a novel marked point process model to capture extreme risk in intraday returns, taking into account a range of trading activity and liquidity measures. A novel approach is proposed for defining the threshold upon which extreme events are identified taking into account the diurnal patterns in intraday trading activity.

Policy Design

Multivariate dynamic intensity peaks‐over‐threshold models

Submitted by César Salazar on
EfD Authors:

We propose a multivariate dynamic intensity peaks‐over‐threshold model to capture extremes in multivariate return processes. The random occurrence of extremes is modeled by a multivariate dynamic intensity model, while temporal clustering of their size is captured by an autoregressive multiplicative error model. Applying the model to daily returns of three major stock indexes yields strong empirical support for a temporal clustering of both the occurrence and the size of extremes.

Policy Design

Fuel choices and fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in urban areas of central-southern Chile: The role of prices, income, and the availability of energy sources and technology

Submitted by César Salazar on

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of fuel choices and intensity of fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in central-southern Chile. By using information from a sample of 2761 households in nine urban areas, we first investigate households’ choices of the main fuel used for heating by means of multinomial models. Then we examine the intensity of fuelwood use through fractional probit models. These models allow analyzing the interdependence of fuel use by households, while taking into account households’ individual heterogeneity.

Air Quality, Energy, Policy Design

Behavioral spillover effects from a social information campaign

Submitted by César Salazar on

We investigate whether a social information campaign aimed at reducing water use causes a spillover effect on the use of electricity. On average, water use decreased by 6 percent for the treatment group. We identify a positive spillover effect on electricity use among households that had efficient use of water before the campaign. The effect is sizeable: almost a 9 percent reduction. We argue that these results are consistent with a model of cognitive dissonance where the efficient households infer information about electricity use from the water use information.

Climate Change, Energy, Policy Design, Water

The impact of collective use rights on share contracts: the case of the Extractive Artisanal Regime (RAE) in Chilean hake fisheries

Submitted by César Salazar on

Share contracts are the dominant remuneration system in artisanal fisheries. Introducing regulations based on collective use rights may affect the way profits are distributed. The literature on the effect of regulatory reform on factor income distribution, however, is scarce. In this paper, we look at differences in the implementation of the Extractive Artisanal Regime in Chilean hake artisanal fisheries to test its effect on share contracts. We estimated a switching regression model using census data to calculate the average treatment effect.

Fisheries, Policy Design

Are local governments more efficient as the same political coalition governs? A study among Chilean municipalities

Submitted by César Salazar on

Lately, questionings have emerged on how public resources are managed. This work calculates the technical efficiency of municipalities in Chile, with special emphasis on the political factors that drive efficiency in the management of local resources. In particular, focus is placed on the relationship between political ideology of the local government and central government. To do this, we use a panel data of Chilean municipalities for the years 2010-2016. The methodology follows two stages. First, we estimate efficiency scores by the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach.

Policy Design

Uncertain penalties and compliance: experimental evidence

Submitted by César Salazar on

We present the results of a series of economic laboratory experiments designed to study the compliance behavior of polluting firms when penalties are stochastic. The experiments consist of a regulatory environment in which university students faced emission standards and an enforcement mechanism composed of audit probabilities and penalties (conditional on detection of a violation).

Experiments, Policy Design

Firewood certification programs: Key attributes and policy implications

Submitted by César Salazar on

Evidence from south-central Chile shows that the concentration limits for PM10 and PM2.5, defined by both the World Health Organization and national standards, are systematically exceeded, affecting approximately 10 million people. Among the sources of this pollution, firewood use accounts for the largest share. This study assesses whether consumers value environmental, social, and legal attributes associated with the firewood certification programs. We used a discrete choice model based on a sample of 500 households.

Air Quality, Climate Change, Energy, Forestry, Policy Design

Exploring the adaptive capacity of the mussel mariculture industry in Chile

Submitted by César Salazar on

Societies have adapted to climate and environmental variability throughout history. However, projected climate change poses multiple risks to mariculture because of the increased frequency of environmental threats that lie outside the realm of present day experience. Adaptive capacity evaluated in this study is a characteristic that would reflect mariculture industries ability to anticipate and respond to these changes, and to minimize, cope with, and recover from the consequences and take advantage of new opportunities arising from change.

Climate Change, Conservation, Fisheries, Policy Design