عنوان

Oil Prices and Environmental Quality

Number

TLpq2299815963

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Oil Prices and Environmental Quality

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Albahar, Shamlan Waleed

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Costello, Christopher

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of California, Santa Barbara

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2019

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

146

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of California, Santa Barbara

Text preceding or following the note

2019

Text of Note

This thesis investigates the relationship between oil prices and environmental quality. While Chapters 1 and 2 empirically study the prices of a petroleum product, gasoline, Chapter 3 theoretically analyzes crude oil prices. Overall, the environmental effects of these prices are investigated throughout the chapters of this thesis. The first two chapters examine the effect of increasing the price of gasoline by up to 83% in the energy-subsidized economy in Kuwait. While the first chapter estimates the environmental quality improvements resulting from the price reform, the second chapter examines how consumers responded and the measures they took to adapt to the gasoline subsidy-reform policy. Finally, the third chapter develops a nonrenewable resource model to examine whether low oil prices lead to better or worse environmental quality. Chapter 1 estimates the improvements in environmental quality, proxied by carbon dioxide concentrations, in Kuwait as a result of the country's reform of gasoline prices. In a command and control economy in which the public authority controls energy prices, such as Kuwait, understanding the environmental and behavioral implications of a change in energy pricing policy is crucial. In 2016, the Kuwaiti government increased gasoline prices by 42- 83%; the nominal prices of gasoline had been fixed for approximately two decades. Using high-frequency data on the concentrations of the primary greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted through transport and human activities, carbon dioxide, and meteorological data, I find no statistical evidence for an improvement in environmental quality after the price increase. While Kuwait considered the reform to be a green policy that would help it to shift to a low- carbon economy and mitigate GHG emissions for its intended nationally determined contribution in terms of the Paris Agreement, statistical evidence shows that this environmental goal has failed. Chapter 2 examines how consumers responded to the gasoline subsidy-reform policy in Kuwait. Drivers appeared to have used fuel-switching as a behavioral adjustment to minimize any cuts in driving and smooth their gasoline expenditure. This evidence helps to explain the lack of carbon dioxide concentration reductions in Kuwait, as shown in the first chapter of this thesis. Chapter 3 asks whether low oil prices lead to better or worse environmental quality. It develops a nonrenewable resource model in a world with two energy resources: conventional oil and unconventional oil sands. Two examples of possible drivers of low oil prices are introduced in the model: the exogenous shock of a new discovery of one of these oil resources and a decrease in oil demand. By considering different scenarios for these low- price drivers, analytical expressions of the net environmental damage incurred in these scenarios are derived, and the environmental impact of these low oil-price scenarios is evaluated. This chapter shows that debating whether low oil prices make the environment better- or worse-off is misleading; rather, the discussion should pay particular attention to the mechanisms driving these prices. Moreover, this chapter recommends a greater focus on the oil-supply side of the oil price-environmental quality relationship rather than solely looking at the oil-demand side.

Economics

Environmental economics

Natural resource management

Albahar, Shamlan Waleed

Costello, Christopher

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y