Person:
Strand, Jon

Development Research Group, World Bank

Fields of Specialization

environmental economics; energy economics; economics of climate change

Departments

Development Research Group, World Bank

Last updated January 31, 2023

Biography

Jon Strand, a Norwegian national, is Extended Term Consultant in the Development Research Group in the World Bank, where he covers environmental and energy economics, focusing on climate-related issues. He also holds a chair as professor of economics, University of Oslo. Main recent topics for research have been non-market valuation; natural resource and energy issues for developing countries; and environmental policy including environmental taxation and climate policy. He has consulted the OECD, the Inter-American Development Bank, and Norwegian government agencies on environmental policy matters. During 2005-2008, he served as the IMF’s environmental economist.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 42

Energy Intensive Infrastructure Investments with Retrofits in Continuous Time : Effects of Uncertainty on Energy Use and Carbon Emissions

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04) Framstad, Nils Christian ; Strand, Jon

Energy-intensive infrastructure may tie up fossil energy use and carbon emissions for a long time after investments, making the structure of such investments crucial for society. Much or most of the resulting carbon emissions can often be eliminated later, through a costly retrofit. This paper studies the simultaneous decision to invest in such infrastructure, and retrofit it later, in a model where future climate damages are uncertain and follow a geometric Brownian motion process with positive drift. It shows that greater uncertainty about climate cost (for given unconditional expected costs) then delays the retrofit decision by increasing the option value of waiting to invest. Higher energy intensity is also chosen for the initial infrastructure when uncertainty is greater. These decisions are efficient given that energy and carbon prices facing the decision maker are (globally) correct, but inefficient when they are lower, which is more typical. Greater uncertainty about future climate costs will then further increase lifetime carbon emissions from the infrastructure, related both to initial investments, and to too infrequent retrofits when this emissions level is already too high. An initially excessive climate gas emissions level is then likely to be worsened when volatility increases.
Political Determinants of Fossil Fuel Pricing

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05) van Beers, Cees ; Strand, Jon

This paper provides an empirical analysis of economic and political determinants of gasoline and diesel prices for about 200 countries over the period 1991-2010. A range of both political and economic variables are found to systematically influence fuel prices, and in ways that differ systematically with countries per-capita income levels. For democracies, the analysis finds that fuel prices correlate positively with both duration of democracy and tenure of democratic leaders. In non-democratic societies there is more often no such relationship or it is the opposite of that for democracies. Regime switches -- transitions from non-democratic to democratic government, or vice versa -- reduce fuel prices. Fuel prices are also lower for more corrupt, or more centralized, governments. Higher levels of gross domestic product per capita lead to higher fuel prices, while export income from selling fossil fuels reduces these prices dramatically. Higher motor fuel consumption also appears to reduce fuel prices, most for gasoline. Absolute "pass-through" of crude oil price changes to fuel prices is found to be high on average.
Water Hauling and Girls' School Attendance : Some New Evidence from Ghana

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05) Nauges, Celine ; Strand, Jon

In large parts of the world, a lack of home tap water burdens households as the water must be brought to the house from outside, at great expense in terms of effort and time. This paper studies how such costs affect girls' schooling in Ghana, with an analysis based on four rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys. Using Global Positioning System coordinates, it builds an artificial panel of clusters, identifying the closest neighbors within each round. The results indicate a significant negative relation between girls' school attendance and water hauling activity, as a halving of water fetching time increases girls' school attendance by 2.4 percentage points on average, with stronger impacts in rural communities. The results seem to be the first definitive documentation of such a relationship in Africa. They document some of the multiple and wide population benefits of increased tap water access, in Africa and elsewhere.
Calculating the Carbon Footprint from Different Classes of Air Travel

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05) Bofinger, Heinrich ; Strand, Jon

This paper develops a new methodology for calculating the "carbon footprint" of air travel whereby emissions from travel in premium (business and first) classes depend heavily on the average class-specific occupied floor space. Unlike methods currently used for the purpose, the approach properly accounts for the fact that the relative number of passenger seats in economy and premium classes is endogenous in the longer term, so adding one additional premium trip crowds out more than one economy trip on any particular flight. It also shows how these differences in carbon attributable to different classes of travel in a carbon footprint calculation correspond to how carbon surcharges on different classes of travel would differ if carbon emissions from international aviation were taxed given a competitive aviation sector globally. The paper shows how this approach affects carbon footprint calculations by applying it to World Bank staff travel for calendar year 2009.
Emissions Trading with Offset Markets and Free Quota Allocations

(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2012-11) Rosendahl, Knut Einar ; Strand, Jon

This paper studies interactions between a "policy bloc's" emissions quota market and an offset market where emissions offsets can be purchased from a non-policy "fringe" of countries (such as for the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol). Policy-bloc firms enjoy free quota allocations, updated according to either past emissions or past outputs. Both overall abatement and the allocation of given abatement between the policy bloc and the fringe are then inefficient. When the policy-bloc quota and offset markets are fully integrated, firms buying offsets from the fringe, and all quotas and offsets, must be traded at a single price; the policy bloc will either not constrain the offset market whatsoever, or ban offsets completely. These cases occur when free allocation of quotas is less (very) generous, and the offset market delivers large (small) quota amounts. Governments of policy countries would instead prefer to buy offsets directly from the fringe at a price below the policy-bloc quota price. The offset price is then below the marginal damage cost of emissions and the quota price in the policy bloc is above the marginal damage cost. This is also inefficient as the policy bloc, acting as a monopsonist, purchases too few offsets from the fringe.
How Much is the Amazon Worth? The State of Knowledge Concerning the Value of Preserving Amazon Rainforests

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-10) May, Peter H. ; Silveira Soares-Filho, Soares-Filho ; Strand, Jon

This paper surveys the current state of knowledge concerning the value of the Amazon rainforest, including a survey of work to date to quantify changes in economic values when the rainforest cover changes. The focus is on local and regional impacts of forest loss or protection, including both gross values of forest protection and opportunity costs of converting the forest to other uses including agriculture. Important gross value items surveyed are timber and non-timber product extraction from a sustainably maintained rainforest; local values of eco-tourism; biological resources including bio-prospecting; a range of hydrological impacts including watershed protection, hydropower production, and changes in rainfall patterns; and impacts of forest fires and their control. Mapping such values in geographical space is of high value for implementing efficient and effective (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation ) programs for protecting the remaining forest. The current data basis for such mapping is found to be quite weak and in need of improvement for all value elements.
Dynamic Climate Policy with Both Strategic and Non-Strategic Agents : Taxes Versus Quantities

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-10) Karp, Larry ; Siddiqui, Sauleh ; Strand, Jon

This paper studies a dynamic game where each of two large blocs, of fossil fuel importers and exporters respectively, sets either taxes or quotas to exercise power in fossil-fuel markets. The main novel feature is the inclusion of a "fringe" of non- strategic (emerging and developing) countries which both consume and produce fossil fuels. Cumulated emissions over time from global fossil fuel consumption create climate damages which are considered by both the strategic importer and the non-strategic countries. Markov perfect equilibria are examined under the four combinations of trade policies and compared with the corresponding static games where climate damages are given (not stock-related). The main results are that taxes always dominate quota policies for both the strategic importer and exporter and that "fringe"countries bene?t from a tax policy as compared with a quota policy for the strategic importer, as the import fuel price then is lower, and the strategic importer's fuel consumption is also lower, thus causing fewer climate damages.
Valuing Global Public Goods : A European Delphi Stated Preference Survey of Population Willingness to Pay for Amazon Rainforest Preservation

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-10) Navrud, Ståle ; Strand, Jon

The Amazon Rainforest is a global public good. As such, and given that 15 percent of the original Amazon forest area has already been lost, households worldwide might be willing to pay to reduce or avoid additional losses. A full elicitation of global preferences for valuing preservation of the current forest, using stated-preference population surveys, would be costly and time consuming. Alternatively, this paper uses a Delphi stated-preference technique in which 48 European environmental valuation experts were asked to provide "best guesses" on the possible outcomes of population surveys in their own countries and Europe as a whole. The expert judgments indicate willingness to pay in Europe for preserving the current Amazon Rainforest of about 28 Euro per household per year on average; a slightly lower value is inferred for a plan that allows a 10 percent future reduction from the current rainforest area. The income elasticity of experts' stated willingness to pay with respect to per-capita income in their own countries is in the range 0.5-0.8. These findings indicate that Delphi studies might be used more widely as a tool for global benefit transfer.
Taxes and Caps as Climate Policy Instruments with Domestic and Imported Fuels

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-01) Strand, Jon

This paper develops a global model of climate policy, focusing on the choice between tax and cap-and-trade solutions. The analysis assumes that the world can be split into two regions, with two fuels that both lead to carbon emissions. Region A consumes all fuels, and is responsible for defining and implementing climate policy. Region B produces all of fuel 1 (oil), while fuel 2 (interpreted as coal, natural gas, or renewables) is both produced and consumed in region A. The paper studies three model variants. All involve full policy coordination in each country block, but no coordination across blocks; and all involve an optimal producer tax on fuel 1 by region B. In model 1, region A sets two fuel consumption taxes, one for each fuel. The optimal region A tax on fuel 1 then exceeds the Pigou level as defined by the region; the tax set on fuel 2 is Pigouvian. The presence of a second fuel in region A reduces region B s optimal tax on fuel 1. In model 2, region A sets a common carbon tax, which is lower (higher) for fuel 1 (2) than in model 1. In model 3, region A sets a carbon emissions cap. This enhances region B s strategic position via the trade-off between fuels 1 and 2 in region A, following from the cap. In realistic cases, this leaves region A strategically weaker under a cap policy than under a tax policy, more so the less carbon-intensive the local fuel (2) is. In conclusion, a fuel-consuming and importing region that determines a climate policy will typically prefer to set a carbon tax, instead of setting a carbon emissions cap. The main reason is that a tax is more efficient than a cap at extracting rent from fuel (oil) exporters.
Climate Cost Uncertainty, Retrofit Cost Uncertainty, and Infrastructure Closedown : A Framework for Analysis

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-02) Strand, Jon ; Miller, Sebastian

Large and energy-intensive infrastructure investments with long life times have substantial implications for climate policy. This study focuses on options to scale down energy consumption and carbon emissions now and in the future, and on the costs of doing so. Two ways carbon emissions can be reduced post-investment include retrofitting the infrastructure, or closing it down. Generally, the presence of bulky infrastructure investments makes it more costly to reduce emissions later. Moreover, when expected energy and environmental costs are continually rising, inherent biases in the selection processes for infrastructure investments lead to excessive energy intensity in such investments. Thus great care must be taken when choosing the energy intensity of the infrastructure at the time of investment. Simulations indicate that optimally exercising the retrofit option, when it is available, reduces ex ante expected energy consumption relative to the no-option case. Total energy plus retrofit costs can also be substantially reduced, the more so the larger is ex ante cost uncertainty. However, the availability of the retrofit option also leads to a more energy intensive initial infrastructure choice; this offsets some, but usually not all, of the gains from options for subsequent retrofitting.