| 1. |
- Ambec, S., et al.
(author)
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The informational value of environmental taxes
- 2021
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In: Journal of Public Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0047-2727. ; 199
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We propose informational spillovers as a new rationale for the use of multiple policy instruments to mitigate a single externality. We investigate the design of a pollution standard when the firms' abatement costs are unknown and emissions are taxed. A firm might abate pollution beyond what is required by the standard by equalizing its marginal abatement costs to the tax rate, thereby revealing information about its abatement cost. We analyze how a regulator can take advantage of this information to design the standard. In a dynamic setting, the regulator relaxes the initial standard in order to induce more information revelation, which would allow her to set a standard closer to the first best in the future. Updating standards, though, generates a ratchet effect since a low-cost firm might strategically hide its cost by abating no more than required by the standard. We characterize the optimal standard and its update across time depending on the firm's abatement strategy. We illustrate our theoretical results with the case of NOx regulation in Sweden. We find evidence that the firms that pay the NOx tax experience more frequent standard updates and more stringent revisions than those who are exempted. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Coria, Jessica, 1979, et al.
(author)
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Economic interests cloud hazard reductions in the European regulation of substances of very high concern
- 2022
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In: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723 .- 2041-1723. ; 13:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Here we investigate how the conflicts between hazard reduction and economic interests have shaped the regulation of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) under the Authorization program of the European chemical regulation Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). Since regulation starts with listing SVHCs on the Candidate List, we analyze the relative importance of toxicological properties, economic motivations, and available scientific knowledge on the probability of inclusion on the Candidate List. We find that the most important factor in whether a substance is listed is whether it is being produced in, or imported into, the European Economic Area (EEA), with the regulators less likely to place a substance on the list if it is currently being produced or imported in the EEA. This evidence suggests that regulators have listed chemicals of secondary importance leading to lesser than anticipated hazard reductions, either because production and imports had already ceased before the listing, or because the compound has never been produced or imported in the EEA at all.
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| 3. |
- Coria, Jessica, 1979, et al.
(author)
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Interjurisdictional externalities, overlapping policies and NOx pollution control in Sweden
- 2021
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In: Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0095-0696 .- 1096-0449. ; 107
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, we analyze the effects of the interaction between national and local policies designed to reduce an environmental externality that causes environmental damages both nationally and locally.We formulate a theoretical model to develop hypotheses regarding the combined effects of such policies on the stringency of the local policies and on firms’ emissions reductions. To test our hypotheses, we use actual data for Sweden, where emissions of nitrogen oxides from combustion boilers are subject to a heavy national tax and most are also subject to individual emissions standards set by county authorities. Our analytical findings suggest that the national tax has brought along stricter emission standards. This is confirmed in our data, where emission standards are significantly more stringent when combined with the national tax.
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| 4. |
- Coria, Jessica, 1979, et al.
(author)
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Ownership structure and prices: A case study of the Swedish tradable green certificate market
- 2023
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In: Energy Policy. - : Elsevier. - 0301-4215 .- 1873-6777. ; 183
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper studies the ownership structure among participants in the Swedish tradable green certificate (TGC) system and its implications for TGC prices. First, we investigate cross-ownership - a situation when a firm is active on both the demand and supply sides of the TGC market - by linking suppliers and obliged parties to their parent firms. Next, we calculate indexes of market concentration that account for cross-ownership. Finally, we use detailed TGC transaction-level data to analyze differences in the prices of the TGCs traded by cross-ownership versus non-cross-ownership firms. Our results show considerable cross-ownership, with many firms active on both TGC supply and demand sides. However, even after accounting for cross-ownership, the market concen-tration of the entire TGC market is low and has decreased over time. Despite the absence of market concen-tration, our analysis of TGC prices indicates that cross-ownership firms have the ability to differentiate TGC prices from non-cross-ownership firms. Such behavior is consistent with the behavioral assumption that the ultimate owner's objective is to maximize the total profit of the portfolio of shares, and that, therefore, the pricing behavior would differ from that of a perfectly competitive firm without ownership links to other firms in the industry.
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| 5. |
- Coria, Jessica, 1979, et al.
(author)
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Towards safer use of pesticides in Chile
- 2022
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In: Environmental Science and Pollution Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0944-1344 .- 1614-7499. ; 29:16, s. 22785-22797
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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| 6. |
- Coria, Jessica, 1979, et al.
(author)
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What drives the substitution of hazardous flame retardants in electronic appliances in Sweden?
- 2023
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In: Cleaner Waste Systems. - 2772-9125. ; 6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Chemical substitution can mitigate risks from chemical substances for individuals and the environment. This study investigates the preferences of companies regarding the adoption of safer alternatives to hazardous flame retardants in electronic appliances in Sweden. Through a choice experiment, we assess the relative importance of four key factors determining firms’ preferences for chemical substitution: health and environmental hazards, the likelihood of chemical regulations, product pricing, and the presence of a label indicating the use of safer alternatives. Our findings indicate that the avoidance of health and environmental hazards is the primary motivator for firms to pursue chemical substitution. Our study also shows that companies are hesitant to accept tax policies that may result in price increases for their products. However, we propose that this reluctance could be mitigated through the implementation of a label that informs consumers about the utilization of less hazardous chemicals in the products. Such a label would not only serve as a means of product differentiation but also discourage consumers from opting for cheaper alternatives offered by competitors.
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| 7. |
- Gustavsson, Mikael, et al.
(author)
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Transformers enable accurate prediction of acute and chronic chemical toxicity in aquatic organisms
- 2024
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In: Sciences Advances. ; 10:10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Environmental hazard assessments are reliant on toxicity data that cover multiple organism groups. Generating experimental toxicity data is, however, resource-intensive and time-consuming. Computational methods are fast and cost-efficient alternatives, but the low accuracy and narrow applicability domains have made their adaptation slow. Here, we present a AI-based model for predicting chemical toxicity. The model uses transformers to capture toxicity-specific features directly from the chemical structures and deep neural networks to predict effect concentrations. The model showed high predictive performance for all tested organism groups—algae, aquatic invertebrates and fish—and has, in comparison to commonly used QSAR methods, a larger applicability domain and a considerably lower error. When the model was trained on data with multiple effect concentrations (EC50/EC10), the performance was further improved. We conclude that deep learning and transformers have the potential to markedly advance computational prediction of chemical toxicity.
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| 8. |
- Kristiansson, Erik, 1978, et al.
(author)
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Does the scientific knowledge reflect the chemical diversity of environmental pollution? – A twenty-year perspective
- 2021
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In: Environmental Science and Policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-6416 .- 1462-9011. ; 126, s. 90-98
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Environmental policymaking relies heavily on the knowledge of the toxicological properties of chemical pollutants. The ecotoxicological research community is an important contributor to this knowledge, which together with data from standardized tests supports policy-makers in taking the decisions required to reach an appropriate level of protection of the environment. The chemosphere is, however, massive and contains thousands of chemicals that can constitute a risk if present in the environment at sufficiently high concentrations. The scientific ecotoxicological knowledge is growing but it is not clear to what extent the research community manages to cover the large chemical diversity of environmental pollution. In this study, we aimed to provide an overview of the scientific knowledge generated within the field of ecotoxicology during the last twenty years. By using text mining of over 130,000 scientific papers we established time-trends describing the yearly publication frequency of over 3500 chemicals. Our results show that ecotoxicological research is highly focused and that as few as 65 chemicals corresponded to half of all occurrences in the scientific literature. We, furthermore, demonstrate that the last decades have seen substantial changes in research direction, where the interest in pharmaceuticals has grown while the interest in biocides has declined. Several individual chemicals showed an especially rapid increase (e.g. ciprofloxacin, diclofenac) or decrease (e.g. lindane and atrazine) in occurrence in the literature. We also show that university- and corporate-based research exhibit distinct publication patterns and that for some chemicals the scientific knowledge is dominated by publications associated with the industry. This study paints a unique picture and provides quantitative estimates of the scientific knowledge of environmental chemical pollution generated during the last two decades. We conclude that there is a large number of chemicals with little, or no, scientific knowledge and that a continued expansion of the field of ecotoxicology will be necessary to catch up with the constantly increasing diversity of chemicals used within the society.
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