Modeling environmental hazard and mitigation policy

The first chapter, A Dynamic Analysis of the Efficiency of Marketable Permits Beyond Kyoto: Implications for the Economic Growth of Asian Countries, evaluates the potential gains for Asian countries to participate in the Kyoto Protocol under alternative permit trading scenarios by using an integrated climate-economic dynamic optimization model. This study indicates that the impacts of different global-trading scenarios on the economic growth of Asian countries are similar because the sizes of the permit trading market are about the same. Among Asian countries, China, India, and Southeast Asia obtain relatively higher improvements of their economic growth because they are more vulnerable to global warming and thereby receive higher environmental benefits from slowing global warming than other countries. In addition to the environmental benefits received in the Kyoto Protocol, China, India, and Southeast Asia could further improve their economic growth by selling permits. However, the magnitude of this positive effect, which ranges from 0.05% to 0.28% of annual economic growth rate, is modest. Japan would be able to reduce the negative impacts of emission mitigations on its economic growth effectively through permit trading. On the other hand, the economic growth of Asian Tigers seems to be rather robust to different trading scenarios.; The second chapter, Modeling Regional Economic Resiliency to Earthquakes: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis of Water Service Disruptions, presents a case study of evaluating direct and indirect output losses caused by earthquake-induced water service disruptions in Portland, Oregon. Based on the framework of CGE models, two important methodological refinements are made in this paper: (1) in addition to the typical non-statistical and non-survey estimates of parameters, we demonstrate how primary data estimates on sectoral direct output losses can be used to recalibrate parameters in production functions by applying a sophisticated computational algorithm, and (2) primary data estimates on sectoral direct output losses are used to distinguish direct and indirect output losses in a CGE context. Our application to a disruption of water services of the Portland Metro economy shows that indirect economic losses can vary substantially according to the overall level and sectoral mix of water shortages, as well as the type of coping measure implemented.; The third chapter, Assessing the Impacts of Carbon Emission Reduction Policies on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Economy: A Computable General Equilibrium Model, evaluates the economic impacts of reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion on the Mid-Atlantic Region (MAR) under two emission reduction policies: (1) carbon taxes only, and (2) carbon tax plus carbon sequestration through forestation. In both cases, simulation results show that real gross regional product is projected to decrease by less than 1.0% relative to business-as-usual benchmark in compliance with the MAR Kyoto target in the year 2010. A carbon tax of {dollar}73.63 per ton of carbon is projected to achieve the MAR Kyoto target when the carbon tax is the only reduction instrument. When carbon sequestration is considered as an additional reduction option, it lowers the carbon tax by 43% to {dollar}41.40 per ton of carbon and reduces the real GRP loss by 88% from 0.60% in Case 1 to 0.32% in Case 2. This indicates that the economic impacts of meeting the MAR Kyoto target might be mild, but its magnitude increases nonlinearly with respect to the increase in carbon tax rates.