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This paper assesses the effectiveness on climate change mitigation of the environmental-related commitments contained in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The starting question is does any PTA with environmental provisions reduce emissions? Because of a lack of detailed data on PTAs, the academic literature on the role of PTAs with environmental provisions (PTAwEP) in global climate governance remains limited. A novel and detailed database identifying nearly 300 different types of environmental provisions from more than 680 PTAs since 1947 allows us to distinguish the PTAs with climate-related provisions (PTAwCP) from those with provisions related to other environmental issues. Using panel data covering 165 countries over the period 1995 to 2012, controlling for endogeneity issues, our main result shows that PTAwCP statistically reduce the emissions while the effect of PTAs with provisions related to other environmental issues remains a negative but not significant on emissions. Our results suggest that it is rather the specific climaterelated provisions in PTAwEP that positively affect the environmental quality. Thus, to be effective in terms of mitigating climate change, PTAwEP should contain climate-related commitments.

In this article we identified the factors which according to international experts will have substantial ef-fects on the general future developments and commercialization of carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. A two round online Delphi study with 15 international experts in the field of CCU enabled us to explore the main items within five impact categories, being: (1) benefits, (2) risks, (3) future devel-opments, (4) demand and (5) supply constraints. Based on the results of the Delphi study we subsequently constructed four future scenarios which represent how the CCU sector could look like in 10 years using a local scenario development workshop with 9 experts from within Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands. We used a deductive, explorative scenario development method, which resulted in a 2x2 scenario matrix. The results of the Delphi study, all four scenarios and their implications for existing and future industry and governmental organizations are presented. Our insights are valuable and timely for facilitating the pro-cess of scenario planning for CCU development activities. Finally, although we worked with a regionally specific case study, the same method could be implemented in other regions, using the general findings from our Delphi study as a starting point for the scenario development. BOF, INTERRGEG, and FWO

In New Economic Geography, recent models have shown that idiosyncratic preferences of workers for locations act as a dispersion force affecting the number and stability of equilibrium population distributions. Yet those models are based on ad hoc deterministic adjustment procedures that have two shortcomings. Firstly, they remove the aggregate effect of idiosyncratic preferences on the collective spatial dynamics of workers, whose study would require the use of specific notions of equilibrium stability. Secondly, these adjustment dynamics lack an explicit time unit that prevents adjustment trajectories to be expressed as dynamic scenarios. Those two shortcomings strive against the use of New Economic Geography models to support policy recommendations. Starting from a classic core-periphery model of New Economic Geography, this paper proposes a novel approach to adjustment dynamics, based on stochastic migration models, by which the dynamics of the population distribution is a continuous-time Markov chain. Using a diffusion approximation, the dynamic system is reduced to a set of Itô stochastic differential equations, which is an original contribution to New Economic Geography. In those equations, deterministic and stochastic effects are still distinct at the aggregate scale, which enables to numerically compute equilibrium population distributions as well as to evaluate their stability and selection under stochastic perturbations generated by idiosyncratic preferences. Those equations also enable to complete expected adjustment trajectories with an explicit time unit and with confidence intervals, for different scenarios. Hence this paper is a substantial improvement of the capacity of New Economic Geography models to support policy recommendations.

High transport costs to reach markets and obtaining low prices on these markets make it difficult for small-scale farmers in developing countries to market their production. Geographically isolated farmers therefore often have to rely on intermediaries to transport and sell their output on markets. To collect output from farmers, these intermediaries have to make investments while facing uncertainty due to the volatility of agricultural prices on world markets. Using real options, we establish the optimal investment strategy for an intermediary in terms of when to invest and with how many geographically dispersed farmers to contract with. We also establish how, after the initial investment, the intermediary should optimally further expand its collection area. We determine what public authorities could do to encourage the emergence of intermediaries who collect production from isolated farmers. Finally, we apply our framework to analyze investment decisions made by intermediaries in the milk sector in Senegal.

Market size and transport costs are important ingredients of international trade. We propose to look at these issues from a different perspective. Using a Hotelling duopoly model with quadratic transport costs, we analyse the welfare effects of international trade between two countries that differ only in size. Our results indicate that in most cases free trade will lead to a decrease in prices. Furthermore, the firm of the small country will benefit from market expansion. Finally, the model predicts that the small country benefits from a move towards free trade whereas the opening to trade may hurt the large country.

In international trade as well in the "New Economic Geography", country size is represented solely by the size of the country's population. A notable exception is the paper by Shachmurove and Spiegel (1995). Applying the Hotelling model to international trade and using the geographical interpretation of the Hotelling line, the authors propose a model where countries differ not only in population size but also in terms of their geographical extent. However, under certain assumptions on the locations of the firms, a pure strategy Nash equilibrium does not exist. In this paper, an alternative way to circumvent this existence problem and to make the analysis possible is presented. The pure strategy Nash equilibrium is restored by changing the assumption on the pricing policies used by the firms. The analysis indicates that while the small country gains from free trade the overall welfare of the larger country is unaffected by the opening of the border. The analysis is also extended to include a discussion of the long run equilibrium locations of firms in the integrated market. The importance of both the population and the geographical size of the countries are shown to be determining in establishing the effect of free trade.

Market size and transport costs are important ingredients of international trade. We propose to look at these issues from a different perspective. Using a Hotelling duopoly model with quadratic transport costs, we analyze the welfare effects of international trade between two countries which differonly in size. Ourr esults indicate that in most cases free trade will lead to a decrease in prices. Furthermore, the firm of the small country will benefit from market expansion. Finally, the model predicts that the small country benefits from a move towards free trade whereas the large country may be hurt by the opening totrade.

For the first time in the food trade literature, the determinants of intra-industry trade (IIT) in horizontally differentiated products and vertically differentiated products are separately tested using the most recent theoretical models of IIT. For both 1980 and 1990, the econometric results confirm country- and industry- specific determinants proposed by these models for explaining horizontal and vertical IIT in the European processed food sector.

In the global effort to achieve sustainable development, new adaptive approaches of urban planning call for a reliable understanding of Urban Morphodynamics: the evolution of the spatial structure of an urban system from elementary interactions between its components. In this thesis, theoretical and methodological contributions to Urban Morphodynamics are proposed from the integration of the two main strands of literature in quantitative urban geography: Location Theory, which studies the economic determinants of the location of economic activities, and Complex Systems, which describe how cities self-organize from the dynamic interactions of many individuals. After an historical review in the first part, its second part addresses two problems of Urban Morphodynamics, gathering concepts and methods from both Location Theory and Complex Systems. First, using mathematical modelling, it exposes the scaling properties of the equilibrium monocentric city model. Second, coupling analytical developments with agent-based simulations, it explores the dynamic growth of a non-monocentric city model. In a third part, it proposes a hybrid modelling framework that combines the behavioural foundations of Discrete Choice Theory with the nonlinear dynamic models of Synergetics. This framework is then applied to a core-periphery model of New Economic Geography in order to forecast regional development trajectories. In a fourth and last part, in light of the proposed models, this thesis argues that the theoretical foundations of Location Theory and Complex Systems can be reconciled in an operational urban morphodynamic theory. (SC - Sciences) -- UCL, 2018