As is known, the Kyoto Protocol proposes to reinforce national policies for emission
reduction and, furthermore, to cooperate with other contracting parties. In this
context, it would be necessary to assess these emissions, both in general and
specifically, by pollutants and/or among productive sectors. The object of this
paper is precisely to estimate the polluting emissions of industrial origin in
Catalonia in the year 2001, in a multivariate context which explicitly allows a
distinction to be made between the polluter and/or the productive sector causing
this emission.
Six pollutants considered, four directly related to greenhouse effect. A multi-level
model, with two levels, pollutants and productive sectors, was specified. Both
technological progress and elasticity of capital were introduced as random effects.
Hence, it has been permitted that these coefficients vary according to one or other
level. The most important finding in this paper is that elasticity of capital has been
estimated as very non-elastic, with a range which varies between 0.162 (the paper
industry) and 0.556 (commerce). In fact, and generally speaking, the greater
capital the sector has, the less elasticity of capital has been estimated.
Key words: Kyoto protocol, multilevel model, technological progress |