Title: Transboundary pollution in Asia: What we know and what can we do about it?

Speaker: Professor Euston Quah, Head, Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University

Date: May 12 (Monday), 16.00-18.00

Venue: Tonan tei (Room No. 201), Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, Kyoto University

Abstract:
As economies of Asia continue to grow and outperform the rest of the
world, increasing occurrence of perennial transboundary pollution as a
result of economic growth have severe economic ramifications in both
victim and perpetrator countries. With benefits accrued by one country
and cost borne by another, it is thus important for the issue of
transboundary pollution to be handled properly to avoid conflicts that
compromises the growth and stability in Asia.

The issue of transboundary pollution is simply a special case of
externalities that involves conflict between countries. The Talk
discusses special cases and externalities related to transboundary
pollution. Taking into consideration that common solution proposed to
deal with externalities within national boundary is not feasible when
pollution crosses sovereignty states, the lecture presents a model with
side payments to incentivize cooperation between polluter and pollutee
or victim-countries. Some cases of transboundary pollution will be
presented and this includes the Southeast Asian haze , acid-rain from
China to Japan , dust and sand storms from Mongolia to China and South
Korea ; air pollution in the Pearl River Delta ; and water pollution in
the Mekong river . A special focus on the smoke haze covering much of
Singapore, Malaysia, and Southern Thailand emanating from the Indonesian
forest fires will be discussed . The Talk will close with a suggestion
on the role of using third party countries in bringing about a win-win
solution.

About the speaker:
Professor Euston Quah is Head, Division of Economics ; Vice- Chair ,
Sustainable Earth Office and Chairman of the Senate Committee on
University Policy Matters at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU),
Singapore. He was formerly Chair, School of Humanities and Social
Sciences at NTU . Prior to joining NTU , Professor Quah was at the
National University of Singapore (NUS) where he was Vice-Dean , Faculty
of Arts and Social Sciences ; Deputy Director of the Public Policy
Program(now called the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy) ; and
headed the economics department there . A prolific writer , Professor
Quah had published over 100 articles including journals such as World
Development; Environment and Planning; Applied Economics; Journal of
Economics ; Journal of Public Economic Theory ; Journal of Environmental
Management ; Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal ; American Journal
of Economics and Sociology; Bulletin of Economic Research ; Education
Economics ; European Journal of Law and Economics ; and International
Review of Law and Economics , among others . His most recent work is a
paper in an international publication on cost-benefit analysis by Oxford
University Press, 2013 . Two books on Cost-Benefit Analysis was
published by Routledge , UK in 2007(with E.J. Mishan) and 2012 . He was
also co-author of an Asian Edition of the best- selling Principles of
Economics Text with Harvard Professor Gregory Mankiw (former Chairman,
US Presidential Council of Economic Advisors) published by Cengage
(formerly Thomson , USA) , now a second edition in 2013. He has books
published by McGraw-Hill , Edward Elgar (UK), and Longmans. Professor
Quah advises the Singapore Government in various Ministries and was a
Member of the recent Prime Minister’s Economic Strategies Sub-Committee
on Energy and Environment , and served on the Committee of the Fare
Review Mechanism of the Ministry of Transport. He presently sits on the
Boards of Energy Market Authority ; the Energy Studies Institute at NUS
; and the Complaints Committee of the Singapore Medical Council in
addition to the NTU-National Health Group Aging Research Evaluations
Committee. He is also a Review Panel Member for the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation project hosted by the Overseas Development Institute ,
London ; and a Technical Reviewer for the National Research Foundation
(Singapore) , Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council (Canada) ,
and the Australian Research Council . He has been a referee for many
economics and interdisciplinary journals including the Journal of
Political Economy, Environment and Planning (Series C and A), Journal of
Environmental Economics and Management, among others. Professor Quah is
Editor of the ISI (SSCI) journal , The Singapore Economic Review(since
2002) , and the President of the Economic Society of Singapore (since
2010) . He has been invited by Stanford University , Princeton
University , the USA Inter-Pacific Bar Association , WWF for Asia ,
UNESCAP , Earth Institute of Columbia University (Asian Meetings) , ADBI
and ADB to speak at their functions and conferences . Among the many
Universities in Japan where he was invited to speak include , Kyoto ,
Keio, Hiroshima , Kobe, Chuo, Nagoya, Soka, and Waseda . He was awarded
the First Komai Fellowship by the Hitachi Scholarship Foundation in 1989
.In 2014, Professor Quah was invited to give the World Economy Annual
Asia Lecture at the international conference invited by the University
of Nottingham, and sponsored by Wiley-Blackwell. Professor Quah has
advised for PricewaterhouseCoopers ; Economica (Canada) ; Gentings
International ; Singapore Government; IDRC Canada ; World Bank and Asian
Development Bank . He is one of the most highly cited and influential
university economists in Singapore.

Discussant: Fumiharu Mieno (CSEAS)
Moderator: Caroline Hau (CSEAS)