Panel Paper: Metropolitan Governance Cooperation and Transport Sector CO2 Emission: A Three-Level Hierarchical Linear Model Analysis

Friday, July 14, 2017 : 2:15 PM
Innovation (Crowne Plaza Brussels - Le Palace)

*Names in bold indicate Presenter

Victor Osei Kwadwo, UNU-MERIT
Governance efforts to reduce metropolitan CO2 emissions pose a collective action problem. In that regard, stakeholder’s inclination towards cooperation though indispensable, does not materialize voluntarily. Independent metropolitan governments also cannot be forced into cooperative arrangements. They therefore weigh various incentives before a cooperative arrangement is reached. Such incentives in metropolitan governance can be seen in efficiency in economic and environmental outcomes. Using cost outcomes, evidence abounds in the aspect of economic efficiency as a basis for local governments to decide whether or not to engage in a cooperative agreement. The same cannot be said for environmental outcomes. Evidence establishing the relationship between cooperation and environmental outcomes remain a gap in the literature. This paper adopts a three-level mixed-effects linear model to establish the impact of inter-local government’s cooperation in transportation, on CO2 transport emissions in 229 metropolitan areas within 16 OECD countries. The findings indicate that where there is inter-local government cooperation in a metropolitan area, lower CO2 transport emissions are realized.