We analyze the impact of agricultural productivity growth on tropical deforestation. Our dynamic model of forest-to-farmland, addressing the Jevons’ paradox and Borlaug hypothesis, predicts that rising agricultural productivity, reflected by declining fertilizer price growth, has an ambiguous effect on deforestation. Using tropical forest loss data (2000-2022) and fertilizer price variations, we find a negative...
The economic agent was previously assumed to be distinct from its environment and that nothing was forcing him to act on it. With the ecological crisis, every agent appears to be inserted into an environment, which he modifies in an irreversible way without even having decided to do so. This changes in depth the...
Since the early 2000s, the public debate has gradually filled with normative proposals aimed at tackling the two-way climate finance challenge (how finance impacts climate stability and how finance can be impacted by climate change) – the “climate finance agenda”. Yet, although parts of this agenda are already discussed by the literature, scholars still...
Juan-Pablo Montero, Felipe Sepúlveda, Leonardo J. Basso
In September 2020, the city of Bogotá introduced a major market-based reform to its odd-even driving restriction. The big winners of the reform are middle-income individuals who now use their cars more often, whereas the big losers are high-income individuals who now spend more time in traffic.
Mathieu Couttenier, Jeremy Laurent-Lucchetti
and Lore Vandewalle
We show that inequality triggers social unrest in rural India. We develop a theoretical framework where social unrest is rationally used by civilians to oppose (unfair) surplus sharing by the elite.
Our analysis of the Climate Risks and Opportunities Index (CRORI) and the CDP climate score reveal a parallel improvement of these indices with different sectoral disparities over the 2015–2019 period. While our results are encouraging, they need to be put into perspective because these firms are still far from being carbon neutral.
We examine in this paper sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) whose issuance now totals more than USD 200 bn. There is a structural design flaw in the SLB mechanism: setting a significant coupon step-up does not suit the issuer’s nor the investors’ interests, considering conditionality. This creates a no win situation for the issuer and investors alike and explains the “benign”...
The paper examines the relevant cost benefit framework for state agencies investigating the potential of local projects to mitigate climate change. We propose a new metric that incorporates into the analytical framework the dynamic interactions between the project and its continuation.
Ivar Ekeland, Wolfram Schlenker, Peter Tankov, Brian Wright
We address the long-standing challenge of adding optimal exploration to the classic Hotelling model of a non-renewable resource. We prove that a frontier of critical levels of proven reserves exists, above which exploration ceases, and below which it proceeds at infinite speed.
Le réseau SDSN Bénin, en partenariat avec SDSN France, organise l’édition 2026 du Senior Policy sur le développement durable.
Ouvert aux chercheurs, enseignants-chercheurs, praticiens, experts et décideurs, cet appel à communication porte sur le thème « Innovations financières et développement durable : bâtir une architecture de financement soutenable »
Les contributions sont à soumettre avant...
