Publications by PSE researchers

This paper examines an endogenous growth model that allows us to consider the dynamics and sustainability of debt, pollution, and growth. Debt evolves according to the financing adaptation and mitigation efforts and to the damages caused by pollution. Three types of features are important for our analysis: the technology through the negative effect of pollution on TFP; the fiscal policy; the initial level of pollution and debt with respect to capital. Indeed, if the initial level of pollution is too high, the economy is relegated to an endogenous tipping zone where pollution perpetually increases relatively to capital. If the effect of pollution on TFP is too strong, the economy cannot converge to a stable and sustainable long-run balanced growth path. If the income tax rates are high enough, we can converge to a stable balanced growth path with low pollution and high debt relative to capital. This sustainable equilibrium can even be characterized by higher growth and welfare. This last result underlines the role that tax policy can play in reconciling debt and environmental sustainability.

Modéliser la demande et les capacités de production d’énergie et de ressources minérales

We analyze the effects of a debt relief, that is, a decrease in public debt of a low-income country financed by a high-income country, on environmental quality. Under perfect mobility of assets, the debt relief increases the overall capital stock, and environmental quality when public abatements are sufficiently efficient. Welfare in both countries can also improve. Under a weak mobility of assets, capital does no more increase in the richest country, but environmental quality can improve. This comes from a crowding-out effect of debt in the high-income country, which does no more take place when the mobility of assets is significant.

This paper examines the determinants of residential CO 2 emissions, which are not covered by the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), in 19 European countries between 2000-2017. Using both static and dynamic panel models, we found strong relationships between CO 2 emissions per capita, GDP per capita, energy prices and heating needs. We then assessed the impact of European carbon taxation and show that a e20/tonne CO 2 tax lowers emissions by 1% on average. We found that this tax affects countries differently in terms of tax revenue-to-GDP ratio. Poland and the Czech Republic would have to pay the highest contribution, and Portugal and Denmark the lowest. Finally, we propose a scenario that equalizes countries' tax burdens. We show that, were Europe to redistribute all tax revenues, the main beneficiaries would be Poland and Belgium, while Denmark and Luxembourg would have to pay a surtax.

This article examines the relationship between environmental policy and budgetary and fiscal policy. An undeniable obstacle to the implementation of environmental policies is their financing. First, the effectiveness of standard environmental instruments is assessed according to public economics criteria, notably distortions, externalities, welfare and macroeconomic aggregates. Limitations regarding acceptability and inequalities are also considered. Compared to quotas and standards, taxation offers significant advantages in incentivising more virtuous behaviour, but also in raising revenue for the State. If the objective of the tax is limited to pollution control, the recycling of revenues is a powerful tool for the correction of its undesirable effects. However, in the case of excessive debt, the revenue from the tax can also be used for the repayment of public debt. The interaction between environmental taxes and public debt is then examined. Repaying the debt using the revenue from the environmental tax restores budgetary room for manoeuvre. Symmetrically, if the debt level is acceptable, financing pollution policies through debt without increasing the tax burden is an interesting option. Debt should, however, be used sparingly and only in cases where the technology used to reduce pollution is highly effective. Finally, the environmental vulnerability of transition and climate-change related countries leads to a risk premium on their sovereign debt, thus increasing the cost of public debt and making the poorest countries even more vulnerable. By reconciling budgetary and environmental objectives, debt relief for developing countries could be an aid to these countries in their fight against pollution.

We study whether fiscal policies, especially public debt, can help to curb the macroeconomic and health consequences of epidemics. Our approach is based on three main features: we introduce the dynamics of epidemics in an overlapping generations model to take into account that old people are more vulnerable; people are more easily infected when pollution is high; public spending in health care and public debt can be used to tackle the effects of epidemics. We show that fiscal policies can promote convergence to a stable disease-free steady state. When public policies are not able to permanently eradicate the epidemic, public debt, and income transfers could reduce the number of infected people and increase capital and GDP per capita. As a prerequisite, pollution intensity should not be too high. Finally, we define a household subsidy policy that eliminates income and welfare inequalities between healthy and infected individuals.

En près de dix ans d’existence, l’Association française des économistes de l’environnement et des ressources naturelles (Faere) a su fédérer une large population de chercheurs, tant français qu’étrangers, autour de problématiques qui sont plus que jamais au cœur des grands débats de nos sociétés. La conférence annuelle de l’association est l’occasion de discuter des développements les plus récents de ces recherches. Ce numéro de la Revue française d’économie propose un aperçu des travaux présentés lors de la conférence de 2021, organisée par l’université Grenoble Alpes et le GAEL.

We study whether fiscal policies, especially public debt, can help to curb the macroeconomic and health consequences of epidemics. Our approach is based on three main features: we introduce the dynamics of epidemics in an overlapping generations model to take into account that old people are more vulnerable; people are more easily infected when pollution is high; public spending and public debt can be used to tackle the effects of epidemics. We show that fiscal policies can promote the convergence to a stable steady state with no epidemics. When public policies are not able to permanently eradicate the epidemic, public debt and income transfers could reduce the number of infected people and increase capital and GDP per capita. As a prerequisite, pollution intensity should not be too high. Finally, we define a household subsidy policy which eliminates income and welfare inequalities between healthy and infected individuals.

We study whether fiscal policies, especially public debt, can help to curb the macroeconomic and health consequences of epidemics. Our approach is based on three main features: we introduce the dynamics of epidemics in an overlapping generations model to take into account that old people are more vulnerable; people are more easily infected when pollution is high; public spending and public debt can be used to tackle the effects of epidemics. We show that fiscal policies can promote the convergence to a stable steady state with no epidemics. When public policies are not able to permanently eradicate the epidemic, public debt and income transfers could reduce the number of infected people and increase capital and GDP per capita. As a prerequisite, pollution intensity should not be too high. Finally, we define a household subsidy policy which eliminates income and welfare inequalities between healthy and infected individuals.

Among the ten countries with the highest carbon intensity, six are natural resource-rich countries. This suggests the existence of a carbon curse: resource-rich countries would tend to follow more carbon-intensive development paths than resource-poor countries. We investigate this assumption empirically using a panel data method covering 29 countries (OECD and BRIC) and seven sectors over the 1995-2009 period. First, at the macroeconomic level, we find that the relationship between national CO 2 emissions per unit of GDP and abundance in natural resources is U-shaped. The carbon curse appears only after the turning point. Second, we measure the impact of resource abundance on sectoral emissions for two groups of countries based on their resource endowments. We show that a country rich in natural resources pollutes relatively more in resource-related sectors as well as all other sectors. Our results suggest that the debate on climate change mitigation should rather focus on a comparison of resource-rich countries versus resource-poor countries than the developed-country versus developing-country debate.

The production of energy from renewable sources is much more intensive in minerals than that from fossil resources. The scarcity of certain minerals limits the potential for substituting renewable energy for scarce fossil resources. However, minerals can be recycled,while fossil resources cannot. We develop an intertemporal model to study the dynamics of the optimal energy mix in the presence of mineral intensive renewable energy and fossil energy. We analyze energy production when both mineral and fossil resources are scarce,but minerals are recyclable. We show that the greater the recycling rate of minerals, the more the energy mix should rely on renewable energy, and the sooner should investment in renewable capacity take place. We confirm these results even in the presence of other better known factors that affect the optimal schedule of resource use: expected productivity growth in the renewable sector, imperfect substitution between the two sources of energy, convex extraction costs for mineral resources and pollution from the use of fossil resources.