This paper assesses energy efficiency in Swedish industry. Using unique firm-level panel data covering the years 2001-2008, the efficiency estimates are obtained for firms in 14 industrial sectors by using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The analysis accounts for multi-output technologies where...

This paper studies the interaction between economic and environmental performance. Applying the directional output distance function approach, the purpose is to compare estimates of Luenberger total factor productivity indicators, including and excluding bad outputs. Specifically, based on...

As widely recognized, human mankind stands before the most challenging problem of preventing anthropogenic climate change. As a response to this, the European Union advocates an ambitious climate policy mix. However, there is no consensus concerning the impact of stringent environmental policy...

How to significantly decrease carbon dioxide emissions has become one of the largest challenges faced by modern society. The standard recipe prescribed by most economists is to put a price on carbon, either through a tax or through emissions trading. Such measures can reduce emissions...

The production of desirable (good) outputs is frequently accompanied by unintended production of undesirable (bad) outputs. If two or more of these undesirable outputs are produced as byproducts, one may ask: ‘Which bad is worst?’ By worst we mean which bad inhibits the production of...

technology. Pollutants, or bads, are explicitly modeled by imposing technology properties of disposability and null-jointness. With data on firms from Swedish manufacturing, we investigate the potential to reduce emissions, and we take a closer look at the pulp and paper sector. Dividing the...

The overall objective of the paper is to analyze convergence of CO2 emission intensity across manufacturing sectors in Sweden. Our approach differs from previous work on carbon convergence in that it employs a theoretical framework to construct a CO2 performance index, which explicitly takes...

In this paper, we study environmental efficiency (EE) within a pollution-generating technology. Good output and bad output (pollution) are explicitly modeled by imposing technology properties of disposability and null-jointness. With data on firms from Swedish manufacturing, we investigate the...

Biofuels are increasingly regarded as energy sources with the potential to solve diverse problems related to serious concerns, including climate change, environmental degradation, energy supply, and energy security. Here we examine biofuels, primarily biofuels used for transportation (e.g.,...

Using a growth model that accounts for environmental and climate externalities, we take a closer look at the welfare effects of promoting biomass growth and the use of bioenergy, and especially the role of carbon neutrality. As an illustration, a hypothetical intensive forest cultivation project...