Semester of Graduation

Summer, 2023

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Deapartment of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

As a part of a global concern, the United States is targeting to reach carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction goals along with other countries. However, to better understand optimal strategies of reducing CO2 emissions, given the diversity of the resource and economic base of regions in the United States, an understanding is needed of how the components that make up total final demand including households, industries and trade contribute to the overall well-being for these regions, specifically at the state level. Moreover, there are strategies that assist in meeting CO2 reduction policy targets. In this thesis, I have addressed these issues first by analyzing how a hypothetical policy of a CO2 reduction target can be achieved by strategies such as either by adopting a CO2 intensity reduction strategy from the highest CO2 emitting industry and comparing it against the economic tradeoff of meeting the reduction through a supply constraint. Louisiana is an appropriate region to discuss such a policy related strategies as this state has a trend of producing high CO2 and this state is one of the poorest among all states in the U.S., for which the consequences on their household and trade would be beneficial for further research. A partial extraction method is combined with a structural decomposition analysis method to understand the trade-off after implementing the supply constraint strategy to meet the CO2 reduction goal in Louisiana. In Louisiana, the Utilities industry has the highest total CO2 emissions and the highest CO2 emissions per dollar output produced by the industry and was evaluated for the reduction policy. The results showed that for every one percent total CO2 reduction in Louisiana, a 1.88% reduction in CO2 intensity must occur for the industry. The trade-off after reducing the supply of the Utilities sector is a 0.53% reduction in value-added and 0.17% reduction in employment in Louisiana.

Date

7-10-2023

Committee Chair

Fannin, J. Matthew

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