“Challenges for the development of Latin America in the Anthropocene: current research in environmental economics”

 Submission Deadline: 31 March 2024

 Guest Editors: Marcelo Caffera (Universidad de Montevideo); Alejandro López-Feldman (University of Gothenburg and Universidad Iberoamericana)

Environment and Development Economics seeks to publish a special issue on challenges for the development of Latin America in the Anthropocene: current research in environmental economics. The aim of this special issue is to help identify research opportunities and the knowledge gaps that need to be filled to contribute to the design and implementation of policies in Latin America that are both environmentally and economically sound. The issue will be guest edited by Marcelo Caffera and Alejandro López-Feldman.

Home to the Amazon rainforest and over 40 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity (UNEP-WCMC, 2016), Latin America faces several environmental challenges. To mention two examples, the IPCC has consistently identified Latin America as a region that is particularly vulnerable to climate change, and the region is home to 4 of the 10 most congested cities in the world.[1] Overcoming these challenges requires the implementation of sound environmental policies. Nevertheless, the political opportunities for these policies to be implemented continue to be very limited in Latin America. Moreover, driven by health systems with limited capacity and unequal access, the recent COVID-19 pandemic hit the region very hard. Whereas Latin America’s total population represents only 8.4 per cent of the global population, the total number of deaths from COVID-19 was equivalent to almost 30 percent of the fatalities worldwide (Bonilla et al., 2023). The prevailing social discontent (ECLAC, 2020; OECD, 2020) and the legitimate demands for short-term employment recovery could further sideline environmental policies (López-Feldman et al., 2020). In this context, the use of economic tools that can help evaluate the relative effectiveness of different policies, as well as economic instruments that can help regulators design cost-effective environmental policies, are of the utmost importance.

At the beginning of the century, after having a predominantly ‘macro’ orientation, economic research in Latin America started to pay more attention to the environment (Alpízar and Montero, 2011). Alongside, thanks in part to a series of capacity building efforts, in particular those lead by the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Economics Program (LACEEP), the region saw an increase in the number of environmental economists working in the academia. A special issue of Environment and Development Economics edited by Francisco Alpízar and Juan Pablo Montero in 2011 showed a small sample of the research that was done at the time by researchers based in academic institutions in Latin America. Since then, the number of environmental economists working in the region or studying topics related to it continued to increase. The recently created Latin American Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (LAERE) has approximately 400 members; 73 of which live in the US, 30 in the EU, and 16 in the UK. Several programs continue to support the regions’ capacity in environmental economics. Environment for Development, for example, has three centres in Latin America (Colombia, Costa Rica, and Chile). As a result, the number of studies that use economic tools to analyse environmental issues increased significantly. The number of people and the quality of the works presented at the fourth RIDGE´s Environmental Economics Workshop is another expression of the development of the environmental economics profession in the region. For these reasons, we are convinced that this is a good time to follow up on the work by Alpízar and Montero (2011) and issue a special issue of EDE that highlights current research in environmental and development economics in Latin America.

We are interested in both applied and theoretical papers that provide answers to key environmental and resource management issues in one or more Latin American countries. The call will consider, but will not be limited to, studies that analyze the impacts of climate change; biodiversity loss; the future impact of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on trade in the region; the political economy of carbon taxes or tradable permits in Latin America; experiences with different economic instruments; impact evaluation studies of environmental policies; and the relationship between health and the environment in the region.

[1] See https://inrix.com/scorecard/

Submission Guidelines: Papers should be submitted by 31 March 2024 at the latest. Early submissions are encouraged and will be processed immediately. Papers will undergo the normal refereeing process. The quality of the paper and the extent to which it fits the focus of the special issue are the criteria for acceptance.

Submissions should be made online at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ede. During the first step of the submission process, in the “Special Issue” field, authors should select “Latin America”. Authors should also indicate in their cover letter that the manuscript is for the “Challenges for the development of Latin America in the Anthropocene: current research in environmental economics” Special Issue.

Instructions for contributors can be found here.

For further information, authors should contact the Guest Editors at the emails below.

References

Alpízar F and Montero JP (2011) Environmental and development issues in Latin America: moving forward. Environment and Development Economics 16: 243–245. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X11000118           

Bonilla J, Lopez-Feldman A, Pereda P, Rivera N and Ruiz-Tagle J (2023) Association between long-term air pollution exposure and COVID-19 mortality in Latin America. PLoS ONE. 18(1): e0280355. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280355

ECLAC (2020) Report on the economic impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Latin America and the Caribbean. ECLAC. Santiago

López-Feldman A, Chávez C, Vélez MA, Bejarano H, Chimeli AB, Féres J, Robalino J, Salcedo R and Viteri C (2020) Environmental Impacts and Policy Responses to COVID-19: A View from Latin America Environmental and Resource Economics 76, 471–476 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-020-00493-2           

OECD (2020) COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: An overview of government responses to the crisis. Tackling coronavirus (COVID-19) Contributing to a global effort. OECD.

UNEP-WCMC (2016) The State of Biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean: A mid-term review of progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

Marcelo Caffera is Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program in Economics at the Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economía, University of Montevideo. He is also the Director of the RIDGE Workshop in Environmental Economics. He has a Master (2000) and PhD (2004) in Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Marcelo’s research has been published in the Journal of Environmental Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Environmental Health Perspectives, the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, Mathematical Social Sciences, Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, among others. He has served as consultant for multilateral development banks and several governmental offices in Uruguay. During 2021-2022 he served as senior advisor for the Minister of Economy and Finance of Uruguay.

Alejandro López-Feldman is Senior Researcher at Environment for Development (EfD), University of Gothenburg. Before joining EfD he worked at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Economicas (CIDE) in Mexico City, where he remains as an affiliate professor. He has a Master (2003) and a PhD (2006) in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Davis. Alejandro’s research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, World Development, Ecological Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Agricultural Economics, Environmental Science and Policy, and Environmental and Resource Economics, among others. He has served as consultant to CEPAL, IADB, UNDP, World Bank, WWF, and various Ministries and offices of the Mexican Federal Government. He is Associate Editor of Environment and Development Economics.