Mathys, Nicole

2016, Kowald, Matthias, Barbara, Kieser, Mathys, Nicole, Justen, Andreas

The future development in mobility resource ownership is of great interest as the individual mobility behavior has critical impacts on transport infrastructure, land use, energy consumption, and environmental issues, such as greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollutants. Analysis and forecasts of mobility resource ownership as needed for example in transport modelling or forecast studies, however, usually employ data of the latest national travel surveys available. Therefore, changes in mobility resource ownership over time are often ignored. Estimating logit-based decision models on the large scale Swiss national travel survey data for 2000 and 2010, the study identifies determinants of mobility resource ownership for the main mobility resources (driving licenses, car availability, general abonnement travel tickets, and half fare travel tickets), identifying also significant changes over time. The predictor variables comprise socio-economic and socio-demographic variables, spatial structure features, and mobility resource specific characteristics. Our results show that age, sex, income, the size of the community, and geographical region influence mobility resource ownership in both years, 2000 and 2010. Furthermore, car-based and public transport-based mobility resources are substitutes for each other. Between 2000 and 2010 a behavioral change is observed for selected sub-populations: In 2010 women and persons above 40 years old are more likely to own a driving license and have a car available than in 2000. In addition, the positive effect of income on driving license and car ownership becomes smaller over time. Finally the previously neglected variables, such as household structure, employment status and level of education are found to be significant in the explanation of mobility resource ownership.

2008, Grether, Jean Marie, Mathys, Nicole, de Melo, Jaime

A growth-decomposition (scale, technique and composition effect) covering 62 countries and 7 manufacturing sectors over the 1990-2000 period shows that trade, through reallocations of activities across countries, has contributed to a 2-3 percent decrease in world SO2 emissions. However, when compared to a constructed counterfactual no-trade benchmark, depending on the base year, trade would have contributed to a 3-10 percent increase in emissions. Finally adding emissions coming from trade-related transport activities, global emissions are increased through trade by 16 percent in 1990 and 13 percent in 2000, the decline being largely attributable to a shift of dirty activities towards cleaner countries.

2010, de Melo, Jaime, Mathys, Nicole

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCC showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility with no meaningful binding agreement in sight as the global climate regime and the global trade policy regime represented by the WTO appear to be on a collision course. Following a review of the alternative architectures for the next Climate Change Agreement, the paper outlines four areas in which trade will play a role: as a purveyor of technological transfer; as a mechanism to separate where abatement takes place from who bears the cots of abatement; as a participation mechanism; and as a way to address the pressures for border adjustments. Political-economy considerations are invoked to predict that a target system with a carbon credit system will be preferable to a carbon tax or to a portfolio system of treaties. A review of evidence on the extent of pollution haven effects suggests that these should be small under climate mitigation policies, especially if efforts are undertaken to raise the price of energy. A discussion of border measures to complement mitigation policies suggests that they are unlikely to be found compatible with the environmental exceptions allowed under article XX of the GATT. The review concludes that an umbrella agreement with leeway where much initial mitigation would first take place unilaterally as under the early days of the GATT might be the most promising way ahead while preserving an open World Trading System and environmental integrity.

2007, Brülhart, Marius, Mathys, Nicole

We estimate agglomeration economies, defined as the effect of density on labour productivity in European regions. The analysis of Ciccone (2002) is extended in two main ways. First, we use dynamic panel estimation techniques (system GMM), thus offering an alternative methodological treatment of the inherent endogeneity problem. Second, the sector dimension in the data allows for disaggregated estimation. Our results confirm the presence of significant agglomeration effects at the aggregate level, with an estimated long-run elasticity of 13 percent. Repeated cross-section regressions suggest that the strength of agglomeration effects has increased over time. At the sector level, the dominant pattern is of cross-sector "urbanisation" economies and own-sector congestion diseconomies. A notable exception is financial services, for which we find strong positive productivity effects from own-sector density.

2008-12-17, Brülhart, Marius, Mathys, Nicole

We estimate agglomeration economies, defined as the effect of density on labour productivity in European regions. The analysis of Ciccone [Ciccone, A., 2002, Agglomeration effects in Europe, European Economic Review, 46 (2), 213-227.] is extended in two main ways. First, we use dynamic panel estimation techniques (system GMM), thus offering an alternative methodological treatment of the inherent endogeneity problem. Second, the sector dimension in the data allows for disaggregated estimation. Our results confirm the presence of significant agglomeration effects at the aggregate level, with an estimated long-run elasticity of 13%. Repeated cross-section regressions suggest that the strength of agglomeration effects has increased over time. At the sector level, the dominant pattern is of cross-sector "urbanisation" economies and own-sector congestion diseconomies. A notable exception is financial services, for which we find strong positive productivity effects from own-sector density.