David González Hernández’s research while affiliated with Autonomous University of Madrid and other places

After more than ten years of operation of EU-ETS trading, it is time to analyse the results and draw lessons from the experience. Economic research typically considers emission price as the main explanatory variables when measuring the effects of Emission Trading Systems. The novelty of this work is to analyse whether or not trade alone, as an institutional change, is effective in reducing greenhouse gases emissions. The objective of this paper is to analyse to what extent the EU-ETS as a “regulatory” instrument of the supply of allowances is responsible for the effectiveness of the carbon market as a basic tool in the reduction of emissions. The analysis also includes other overlapping policies aimed at fighting climate change, for example, the promotion of renewables. For the empirical analysis, an econometric model is estimated using panel data for the 28 European Union countries between 1990 and 2014. The econometric model include three dummy variables to measure the effectiveness of the three phases of the EU-ETS commerce in reducing emissions. Furthermore, we analyse how effective the phases are when renewables energies are included in the analysis. The results show that the EU-ETS is effective to reduce emissions and each phase has a greater impact on the reduction. Nevertheless, the system should be more flexible to adapt to the fluctuations in the demand for rights.

Este trabajo ofrece un análisis por provincias de la situación y tendencia de los Planes Nacionales de Asignación de Derechos de Emisión (PNA) y de las emisiones de CO2 entre 2005 y 2011 en Castilla y León. Se estima la externalidad generada por las emisiones contaminantes utilizando el precio que alcanzó el derecho de emisión en el mercado de emisiones. El trabajo profundiza en el desafío que, para la actividad económica, supone el comercio de emisiones identificando posibles cambios de conducta ante las obligaciones medioambientales. En este sentido, se presta especial interés por evidenciar un posible cambio de modelo productivo, para lo que, partiendo de las emisiones verificadas, se analiza la intensidad emisora, la intensidad energética y el índice de carbonización.

In recent years the economic literature has paid special attention to the relationship between emissions and economic activity. The analysis of this relationship takes into account three basic effects: scale, structure and technical effects. The interest of this work focuses on a new effect, the regulatory effect that considers the relationship between certain measures of environmental policy and CO, emissions. In particular, we study whether the National Allocation Plans (NAPs) have failed to be effective in reducing the aforementioned emissions. For this purpose, different econometric estimates are made with data from six countries of the European Union (EU) and considering the NAPs as qualitative variables.

En los últimos años la literatura económica ha prestado especial atención a la relación entre emisiones contaminantes y actividad económica. El análisis de esta relación tiene en cuenta tres efectos básicos: escala, estructura y técnico. El interés de este trabajo se centra en un nuevo efecto, el efecto regulador que considera la relación entre determinadas medidas de política económica ambiental y las emisiones de CO2. En concreto, se estudia si los Planes Nacionales de Asignación (PNA) han logrado ser efectivos a la hora de reducir las citadas emisiones. Para ello, se realizan diferentes estimaciones econométricas con datos de seis países de la Unión Europea (UE) y considerando los PNA como variables cualitativas. In recent years the economic literature has paid special attention to the relationship between emissions and economic activity. The analysis of this relationship takes into account three basic effects: scale, structure and technical effects. The interest of this work focuses on a new effect, the regulatory effect that considers the relationship between certain measures of environmental policy and CO2 emissions. In particular, we study whether the National Allocation Plans (NAPs) have failed to be effective in reducing the aforementioned emissions. For this purpose, different econometric estimates are made with data from six countries of the European Union (EU) and considering the NAPs as qualitative variables.

The economic literature has recently been paying special attention to the relationship between pollutant emissions, energy consumption, and economic activity. This work aims to look deeper into that relationship, in particular to the possible effect that National Allocation Plans (NAPs) have had on the pollutant and energy behaviour of the countries analysed, especially as regards reducing the key variables; CO2 emissions and energy consumption, even although the economic activity has declined due to the recent crisis. The countries studied for this work were: Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The study period was from 2000 to 2010, and all the data have been published by the European Union, as regards emissions, rights allowances, energy consumption, and production level of the countries analysed.