Environmental and Social Justice:
A Look from Latin America

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is honored to host the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro Urrego.

The world today is facing unprecedented economic, social, and environmental dynamics. As the global community continues to navigate these changes and challenges, political leaders seek to articulate fresh visions on how countries may steer a clear course. President Petro will provide a perspective from Latin America on the critical issues of environmental and social justice.

Following the president’s remarks, he will join Professor Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Senior Fellow at FSI and director of the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies, for a discussion on the challenges of climate change, economic growth, and social inclusion that have historically bedeviled development in Latin America.

IMPORTANT: Large bags are not permitted into the building. All bags are subject to be searched. Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come first-served basis. Please plan accordingly.

The event will also be available to livestream below.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, the Center for Latin American Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Society for Latin American Politics.

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MEDIA CONTACT:
Nora Sulots, CDDRL Communications Manager

This event is co-sponsored with the Doerr School of Sustainability.

Attribute-based subsidies are commonly used to promote the diffusion of energy-efficient products in industries with significant market power. But what can they reveal about China's electric car market? In a first-of-its-kind study, Shanjun Li and his team have developed a theoretical framework for optimal policy design that incorporates endogenous product attributes, environmental externalities, and market power in order to estimate an equilibrium model of China's vehicle market using comprehensive data to evaluate the welfare impacts of different subsidy designs. 

Their findings reveal that uniform subsidies are effective in promoting small and environmental-friendly vehicles, but exacerbate the quantity distortion from market power for high-quality products. In contrast, attribute-based subsidies (such as those based on the driving range or battery capacity) generate a larger consumer surplus by mitigating market power and improving product quality. Capacity-based subsidies are the most effective in inducing attributes valued by consumers and mitigating market power, and result in the largest welfare gain at a moderate loss of environmental benefit.

Taken together, Li will discuss how these findings highlight the importance of incorporating endogenous product-attributes and market power considerations in the design of attribute-based environmental regulations.

Download a draft of the paper "Attribute-based Subsidies and Market Power: an Application to Electric Vehicles."

About the Speaker:

Shanjun Li is a Professor of Applied Economics and Policy, and he holds the Kenneth L. Robinson Chair in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. He serves as the Director of the Cornell Institute for China Economic Research (CICER), the Director of Graduate Studies in the Dyson School, an editor for the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and a co-editor for International Journal of Industrial Organization. He also is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a university fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF).

Li's research focuses on pressing sustainability issues in China and their global implications in order to inform evidence-based policymaking. His recent work has centered on understanding the effectiveness and welfare impacts of various policy options to promote transportation electrification, to improve air quality, and to alleviate urban traffic congestion in China. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, and the World Bank among others. He has advised government agencies, NGOs, and corporations, and his research findings have been cited by such media outlets as the Economist, National Public Radio, the Associated Press, Washington Post, Forbes, the Hill, Vox, People’s Daily in China, and Daily Mail in UK.

The carbon emission trading system (ETS) is China's cornerstone climate policy instrument. However, it is still largely unknown how the ETS affects firm competitiveness. Using firm-level data such as tax records, industrial surveys, and financial disclosures, guest speaker Junjie Zhang comprehensively assesses the impacts of China's regional ETS pilots on firm environmental and economic performance. The results show that China's ETS reduces carbon emissions despite low carbon prices and infrequent trading. The findings offer no evidence that the ETS negatively affects firm profitability and productivity, but rather directs firm innovation towards climate-friendly technologies, reducing regulatory compliance costs. However, Zhang also explains unambiguous evidence that China's regionally segmented ETS pilots can cause carbon leakage among firms in the same ownership network.

About the Speaker

Junjie Zhang is an Associate Professor of Environmental Economics at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Investment at Duke Kunshan University. He founded and directed Duke Kunshan's Environmental Research Center and International Master of Environmental Policy Program. Before that, he was an associate professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He was also a Volkswagen Visiting Chair in Sustainability at Tsinghua University's Schwarzman College. His recent research focuses on empirical issues in energy transition, climate change, and green finance. In the past five years, he advised numerous Chinese government agencies at the central and local levels, including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development. His research projects have been supported by NSF, NSFC, NOAA, Energy Foundation, Packard Foundation, ClimateWorks Foundation, US-China Business Council, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank. He holds a B.S. from Renmin University of China, a B.S. and an M.S. from Tsinghua University, and a Ph.D. from Duke University.

Infrastructure development requires democracies to balance multiple, competing governance priorities. The representativeness of the decision-making process must be balanced against the benefits of impartial technical assessments by the civil service, and both must be balanced against the efficiency of infrastructure development and government actions. Using the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as a case study, we will argue that California has become a “vetocracy” in which decisions in favor of collective action have become extremely difficult to arrive at. This presentation is based in part on CDDRL’s recent research on California governance, in collaboration with the California 100 Initiative. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

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Dr. Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), and the Pardee Rand Graduate School. He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and at the Center for Global Development. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and the Volcker Alliance. He is a member of the American Political Science Association and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
 

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Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

The combination of COVID-19 and global uncertainties — from wars, cost-of-living crises, high cross-national public debts, and impending global recession — creates new challenges for affordable access to new medicines around the world. Using insights from his research on price regulation, incentives for innovation, and universal health coverage in global bio-pharmaceutical markets, Chirantan Chatterjee will consider how the future may unravel for affordable access to new medicines in the Global North and South.

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Register: bit.ly/3FTrJhg

Incentives for health behaviors are an increasingly important policy tool in both developed and developing countries, and there is widespread interest in improving their effectiveness. However, different contracts are likely to be more effective for different people. Mechanism design offers two strategies to improve contract effectiveness—tagging on observables (i.e., 3rd-degree price discrimination), and offering a menu of contract choices (i.e., 2nd-degree price discrimination)—but a key concern with both is that participants with private information might self-select into contracts that are favorable to the agent but less effective from the perspective of the principal. We adapt each of these strategies to customize incentive contracts for walking. Using a randomized controlled trial among more than 5,000 adults in urban India, we show that both mechanisms increase physical activity, leading to a 75% increase in steps walked relative to the effect of a one-size-fits-all benchmark. Moreover, we find that the concern that participants will self-select into less effective contracts is not only misplaced, but exactly backwards. Instead, a common force in health behavior settings—commitment motives—leads agents to prefer more effective contracts under both mechanisms. In particular, sophisticated time-inconsistent agents demand contracts that commit their future selves to walk more, bringing their preferences in partial alignment with the principal and improving the effectiveness of customization.

Ariel Zucker is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at UC Santa Cruz. Her research studies policies to improve health and environmental conditions among underserved communities worldwide. Many of her projects focus on countering behavioral biases in personal decision making. Prior to arriving in Santa Cruz, Dr. Zucker did a postdoc at UC Berkeley ARE, and earned her Ph.D. in economics from MIT.