J. Peter Clinch

• BA (Hons), MA (Econ), PhD, DipEIAMgmt, HonMRTPI FAcSS
• Chair at University College Dublin

Achieving international climate targets may require more than $8 trillion in annual investments to 2030. We investigate the extent to which third‐party environmental scores for banks reflect lending and underwriting in fossil‐fuel and low‐carbon industries, and how ratings are influenced by outward signals of commitment to climate action. We provid...

We analyse environmental ratings and emissions scores for commercial airlines from several major environmental, social and governance ratings providers. Specifically, we investigate whether emissions scores capture and predict absolute carbon emissions and emissions intensity levels, and whether scores are consistent across providers. This builds o...

Widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is a common and critical component of international strategies to mitigate environmental pollution, climate change and oil dependency. The ability of consumers to assess the total cost of ownership (TCO) of EVs relative to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) remains an important factor for EV u...

Electrification of residential heating and investment in building energy efficiency are central pillars of many national strategies to reduce carbon emissions from the built environment sector. Ireland has a strong dependence on oil use for central heating and a substantial share of homes still using solid fuels. The current national strategy calls...

Road transport electrification will form a substantial part of international strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. Targets for electrification of the road-transport sector are often set as the number of electric vehicles to be operating within the fleet by a certain date. There is recognition that timeframes for these t...

Investments in energy-efficient technologies can save money over time and reduce environmental impacts. Accordingly, governments worldwide provide grants to encourage household investments in clean, energy-efficient technologies at scale. Although many households state intentions to avail of these grants and to invest in energy-efficient technologi...

Home-heating energy-poverty risk presents both challenge and opportunity for policymakers, businesses and communities. Effective measurement and management of this risk requires an evidence base that accounts for characteristics of the householder, building, and heating system. A composite index utilising 10 indicators refined to Small Area level i...

The incorporation of spatial and temporal correlations can significantly improve the accuracy of PM2.5 concentration prediction models. However, the dynamic spatial panel model which explicitly deals with these two correlations remains absent from current approaches to out-of-sample concentration prediction. An issue is that the prediction of daily...

This paper aims to provide policy makers, especially those focused on the longer-term growth potential of their countries, with an initial framework to think about their action priorities in the context of the overall COVID-19 response. Our focus is on the supply-side, microeconomic, and firm-centric response to the virus and its economic repercuss...

Access to safe drinking water and wastewater services is essential for public health, and well-being, but attitudes differ regarding how such services should be funded.

Planning decisions have considerable impacts on both natural and built environments. The impacts of these decisions may remain for many decades and many are irreversible. In order to gain a better understanding of these long-standing impacts, planners require a systematic approach to evaluate the planning policy instruments utilised. The literature...

Transferable Development Rights (TDR) programmes have been introduced as an alternative to traditional regulatory instruments with proponents arguing that the implementation of these alternative programmes leads to similarly effective land-use outcomes with greater efficiency and equity. The evaluation of land-use policies is key to improving polic...

Access to safe drinking water and wastewater services is essential for public health and well-being, but attitudes differ regarding how such services should be funded. In Ireland, the 2014 introduction of a domestic-sector consumption-based charging regime was met with public protests, leading eventually to the suspension of charges in 2016 and a s...

Planners are required to evaluate planning policy instruments to develop a better understanding of how they can improve their policy design and implementation processes. Transferable Development Rights (TDR) programmes are one of the market-based policy instruments that have attracted considerable attention among planners and economists. Given that...

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Local jurisdictions in 36 states have implemented transfer of development rights (TDR) programs to provide a market-based approach to preserving farmlands and open space while redirecting future development to targeted areas. Participation in TDR programs involves transaction costs over and above paying for...

The regular and robust collection of traffic data for the entire road network in a given country will usually require high-cost investment in traffic surveys and automated traffic counters. This paper provides an alternative and low-cost approach for estimating annual average daily traffic values (AADTs) and the associated transport emissions for a...

Whilst policy makers have tended to adopt an ‘information-deficit model’ to bolster levels of flood-risk preparedness primarily though communication strategies promoting awareness, the assumed causal relation between awareness and preparedness is empirically weak. As such, there is a growing interest amongst scholars and policy makers alike to bett...

International commitments on greenhouse gases, renewables and air quality warrant consideration of alternative residential heating technologies. The residential sector in Ireland accounts for approximately 25% of primary energy demand with roughly half of primary home heating fuelled by oil and 11% by solid fuels. Displacing oil and solid fuel usag...

Natural hazards, such as major flood events, are occurring with increasing frequency and inflicting increasing levels of financial damages upon affected communities. The experience of such major flood events has brought about a significant change in attitudes to flood-risk management, with a shift away from built engineering solutions alone towards...

Report addresses approaches to the use of adaptive risk management for adaptation in the face of climate change uncertainty, including the role of cost benefit analysis and other methods

In this chapter, we examine the welfare of parents in single parent households in Ireland in the context of social support. Unlike the bulk of research on this topic, we examine their well-being based on answers to subjective questions on life-satisfaction. Consistent with existing studies, we find a large negative effect on life satisfaction of be...

Examines the decision making options availabile to deal with the selection of options on adaptation to climate change along with the respective costs and benefits

Much of rural Europe has witnessed vast changes over the past two decades, including major demographic and economic change. The question of how these changes have affected individual well-being and quality of life remains largely unanswered. This paper aims to shed light on this topic by employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods...

There is a large body of literature that discusses the control of settlement patterns using traditional planning instruments. Whilst there is some theoretical literature discussing the use of development charges to influence settlement patterns by addressing market failure, there is limited literature examining how such charging is implemented in p...

Traditionally, regulatory instruments have been used to achieve planning objectives. However, emerging market-based policy instruments, such as transferable development rights, a quantity-based approach, and development charges, a price-based approach, are now being implemented in some jurisdictions. Despite this, there has been no comparison in th...

This paper utilises revealed-preference parking trend data from parking meters ex ante and ex post of a general 50% price increase in the hourly cost of on-street parking to estimate the on-street parking price elasticity of demand in an area of Dublin, Ireland. Estimates are presented for the aggregate price elasticity of demand level and individu...

Clinch J. P. and O'Neill E. Applying spatial economics to national spatial planning, Regional Studies. Despite the impressive development of the field of spatial economics, some have criticized the lack of policy applications. In addition, the literature has not yet identified the relevance of New Economic Geography, and spatial economics generally...

There has been a recent increase in the application of the Coase Theorem to planning. The principal objective of this article is to explore further the role of such solutions by setting out our interpretation of the conditions necessary for the achievement of 'Pure' and 'Impure' Coasian solutions when legal entitlements and property rights are esta...

In recent years, economists have been using socio-economic and socio-demographic characteristics to explain self-reported individual happiness or satisfaction with life. Using Geographical Information Systems (GIS), we employ data disaggregated at the individual and local level to show that while these variables are important, consideration of amen...

Indices ranking the quality of life in cities based on climatic, environmental and urban conditions have a long tradition in the hedonic literature. In this paper we propose an alternative set of indices based on subjective well-being (SWB) data linked to regional level amenities. SWB indicators provide a direct, self-reported evaluation of life sa...

Mainstream neoclassical economics takes it as given that the consumption of goods and services (output) is positively related to well-being. Work (labour-input) is assumed to be negatively related to well-being at the margin and so is only undertaken in exchange for payment. This view has been challenged for decades in the psychology and sociology...

The study examines objective indicators associated with quality of life in Ireland. As noted above, these include indicators of environmental quality, income, house prices, health, education and crime. The analysis then moves on to compare these objective indicators with subjective indicators as revealed through the use of a public survey and furth...

The potential impact of parking-pricing on trip generation and modal choice is gaining greater acknowledgement within transport demand management research. However, although the aggregate effect of a transport demand management pricing measure is often noted or estimated, the potential varied impact of pricing measures on specific subsets of the ma...

This paper presents a comprehensive theoretical and methodological framework clarifying the relationship between non-market environmental valuation techniques, in particular hedonic and life-satisfaction methods. The paper shows how life-satisfaction scores can be used to test correctly the equilibrium condition in location markets required by the...

This paper introduces the special issue on the Policies for Ecological Tax Reform: Assessment of Social Responses (PETRAS) project about responses to ecological tax reform (ETR) in Europe. Although ETR is widely accepted to be a policy with desirable effects, its implementation has been limited by problems of political acceptability. The project ai...

The most common notion of environmental tax reform (ETR) is the use of the revenue from environmental taxes to reduce distortionary labour taxes. The PETRAS project1 has shown that there are a number of social and political impediments to implementing such reform. This paper firstly outlines some of the environmental and economic implications of en...

Environmental tax reform (ETR) is widely accepted to be a policy with desirable environmental, and other economic effects. The question arises then as to why its implementation has been so patchy. There is a broad literature on the economic impact of ETR, however, there have been very few research efforts devoted to understanding the roles and impe...

In the last decade, the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy grew at a record rate for a developed country.Nevertheless, there has been much concern regarding the implications of the pace of economic growth for localised environmental quality and life satisfaction generally. It has long been recognised by economists, psychologists and others that traditional mac...

Criteria have been developed in general terms for evaluating voluntary approaches. Nevertheless, there still remains limited assessment regarding the performance of environmental voluntary approaches as there is a general dearth of empirical information. In relation to innovation and voluntary approaches there are two main schools of thought, namel...

There is a rich terminology associated with environmental voluntary approaches. The richness in terminology is matched by the pervasive nature of the implementation of voluntary approaches into the fabric of European environmental policy and regulation. The lack of a universal definition of what an environmental voluntary approach is has made the i...

Fuel poverty has generally been calculated by quantifying the number of households spending in excess of 10% of income on home heating. This definition has a number of significant practical and scientific limitations. This paper employs self-reported data to calculate the severity of fuel poverty in Ireland to identify chronic fuel-poor households...

There are a number of stimuli behind energy efficiency, not least the Kyoto Protocol. The domestic sector has been highlighted as a key potential area. Improving energy efficiency in this sector also assists alleviating fuel poverty, for research is now demonstrating the strong relationship between poor domestic thermal efficiency, high fuel povert...

Despite the fact that environmental taxes and Environmental Tax Reform (ETR) are accepted to be policies with desirable environmental and other economic effects, their implementation has been patchy. The most common definition of Environmental Tax Reform (ETR) is the use of the revenue from environmental taxes to reduce distortionary labour taxes....

Fuel poverty is perhaps the strongest adverse social impact resulting from the inefficient consumption of energy in the domestic sector. Despite considerable research examining the plight of those affected, there has been very little empirical work examining the relationship between fuel poverty and thermal comfort and the extent of indoor cold str...

In the final years of the twentieth century Ireland was the economic wonder of the western world. The economy is now in transition and things have changed dramatically, especially in the light of September 11th. This book explains why Ireland has made such startling progress and identifies the policies which will help in our changing circumstances...

A common criticism by economists of the command-and-control approach to environmental policymaking is that costs of compliance may be considerably higher than under flexible mechanisms. Unless all polluters face the same control costs, uniform emissions standards will not minimize the costs of reducing pollution. Integrated pollution control (IPC)...

Townsend stressed the importance of housing conditions as potential, causative factors in poor health. Since then, the UK government has recognised fuel poverty as a bona fide social problem, however there is still a large debate regarding the relative importance of fuel poverty and poor housing conditions on human health. This paper contributes to...

There are a number of driving forces behind energy efficiency. In recent times, the Kyoto Protocol has been the most prominent in bringing energy efficiency to the fore. In some countries, the domestic sector has been highlighted as an area that has a significant potential for improvement. This paper describes the development of a computer model to...

Contingent valuation is now the most widely used method for valuing non-marketed goods in cost-benefit analysis. Yet, despite the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others, most studies restrict willingness to pay to being non-negative. This can result in significant errors in policymaking. This paper...

Two key components of people's quality of life are the quality of the environment in which they live and the quality of the environment in which they work. Without intervention by policymakers, the market economy will fail to provide an adequate level of health and safety and environmental quality. However, policy with regard to each area tends to...

Contingent valuation is now the most widely used method for valuing non-marketed goods in cost-benefit analysis. Yet, despite the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others, most studies restrict willingness to pay to being non-negative. This can result in significant errors in policymaking. This paper...

There are a number of driving forces behind energy efficiency. In recent times, the Kyoto Protocol has been the most prominent in bringing energy efficiency to the fore. In some countries, the domestic sector has been highlighted as an area which has a signi"cant potential for improvement. However, prior to the implementation of large-scale energy-...

The winter peak in mortality has been shown to be related to cold stress in a number of countries.1 There are 30 000–60 000 excess winter deaths in the United Kingdom annually. In Ireland, the equivalent figure is 1500–2000 deaths. This winter surplus accounts for a rate of seasonal variation in mortality of 15%, among the highest in Europe.2 Parad...

The ‘cohesion’ countries of the European Union face intimidating challenges in meeting the greenhouse gas emissions targets set by the Luxembourg Agreement. It requires breaking the link between increasing gross domestic product per capita and rising energy consumption at an early stage in the economic development cycle. Since the 1990 base year, I...

The driving force behind regulatory reform in the context of European Union environmental policy is the increased prominence of sustainable development and environmental protection in EU legislation and the shift in emphasis from regulatory environmental policy instruments to what are known as Economic Instruments. This paper examines the developme...

If the benefits of domestic energy efficiency are so great, why are they not reaped in actuality and what can be done about it? This paper deals with these crucial questions. It is based on the findings of a recent comprehensive study evaluating the costs (labour and materials) and benefits (energy cost savings, environmental benefits, including re...

This paper attempts to contribute to the forestry valuation literature by providing a template for executing ex ante cost–benefit analyses of large-scale temperate plantation forestry programmes, taking the Irish Government's Forestry Plan as an example. An ex ante assessment of the social efficiency of the Plan is undertaken and, in doing so, a ra...

The Irish Government proposes to double the Irish forest estate from its current level of 9% of the land area by the year 2030. This paper reports the results of surveys which show strongly contrasting preferences, perceptions and attitudes between two case study populations, one of which is discovered to be very positively disposed towards forestr...

Greening the Budget regards the fundamental cause of environmental degradation as government and market failure and proposes the use of budgets as an instrument of environmental policy to rectify this problem. The book focuses on the elements of the public budget which currently affect the environment and explores the scope for greening both revenu...

There are a number of driving forces behind energy efficiency. In recent times, the Kyoto Protocol has been the most prominent in bringing energy efficiency to the fore. In some countries, the domestic sector has been highlighted as an area which has a significant potential for improvement. However, prior to the implementation of large-scale energy...

Environment can be defined as that part of our existence which we somehow share in common. However, that which belongs to all, in a sense, belongs to no one. It is this common property characteristic of environmental assets which results in their destruction. In the absence of property rights, that which Garrett Hardin so brilliantly, if somewhat o...

In the Economics of Irish Forestry, Peter Clinch provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic value of forestry with a particular focus on plantation forestry and the economic analysis of its interaction with the environment. The study considers the value of wood and non-wood benefits including carbon sequestration, water impacts, recreation a...

This publication presents the economic, technical and architectural case for a major upgrade of the Irish housing stock, examining health, comfort and environmental benefits along side the benefits in terms of the reduction in energy use. The authors propose a strategy, which even by the narrowest criteria, makes good economic sense.

Owing to their relative underdevelopment, the ''cohesion'' countries of the European Union have been allowed to increase emissions above the 1990 base within the EU ''envelope''. However, they face daunting challenges in meeting the agreed targets, because it requires breaking the link between rising gross domestic product and rising energy consump...

Ireland is recognized as having among the least energy efficient housing standards in northern Europe, yet Irish GDP is now at the EU average. The country is also characterized by one of the highest levels of fuel poverty. This paper demonstrates that the least affluent tend to live in the worst of these houses, spending three times more than the a...

This has demonstrated the rationale for allowing for winners and losers contingent valuation. In addition, it has shown how appropriate measures of welfare gains as well as loses can be elicited in dichotomous choice contingent valuation.

Thesis (M.A.)--University College Dublin, 1994.