Calendrier du 19 avril 2023
Development Economics Seminar
Du 19/04/2023 de 16:30 à 18:00
Salle R2.01, Campus Jourdan
SUDARSHAN ANAT (University of Warwick)
Can Pollution Markets Work In Developing Countries? Experimental Evidence from India
Market-based environmental regulations are seldom used in developing countries, where pollution is the highest but state capacity is often low. We experimentally evaluate a new particulate matter emissions market, the first in the world, covering industrial plants in a large Indian city. There are three main findings. First, the market functioned well: permit trade was active and plants obtained permits to meet their compliance obligations almost perfectly. Second, treatment plants, randomly assigned to the emissions market, reduced pollution emissions by 20% to 30%, relative to control plants. Third, the market, holding emissions constant, reduces abatement costs by 11% to 14%. These cost estimates are based on a model that estimates heterogeneous plant marginal abatement costs from plant bids for emissions permits. More broadly, we find that emissions can be reduced at small increases in abatement costs. The pollution market therefore has health benefits that exceed costs by at least twenty-five times
Economic History Seminar
Du 19/04/2023 de 12:00 à 13:30
Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan
RIDOLFI Leonardo (University of Siena)
The effect of mechanisation on wages and employment: Evidence from the historical diffusion of steam-power
écrit avec Leonardo Ridolfi (University of Siena), Carla Salvo (Sapienza University of Rome), and Jacob Weisdorf (Sapienza University of Rome and CEPR) Abstract
Is mechanisation labour-displacing? We use the industrial censuses from 19th-century France to examine the effect on wages and employment of one of the greatest waves of mechanisation in history: the diffusion of steam-power. We find that the rates of growth of employment and wages were considerably higher in steam-adopting industries than in non-steam-adopting ones, both in the shorter and longer run. This finding disputes the widespread belief that industrial modernisation entailed technical unemployment and falling labour-compensation. As old and new technologies often coexist even in the same production unit, our analysis also exploits the interface between the traditional (i.e. wind, water and animal) motive-powers and the new (steam-powered) ones. Our observed effect of steam-power on wages and employment varied extensively depending on how steam-technology conjoined the traditional motive-powers