Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos

Alejandro José Caparrós Gass

Email: alejandro.caparros [at] cchs.csic.es
Phone: (+34) 916022536
Office: 3E4
Investigador Científico de OPIS
Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos
Departamento de Economía y Política
Group: Grupo de Economía Ambiental (GEA)
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Biography

Alejandro Caparrós, PhD in Economics, is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Public Goods and Policies (IPP) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and lecturer at the University Carlos III in Madrid. He was previously Director of IPP, post-doc at the CNRS in Paris and lecturer at the University Paris Est. He has been visiting scholar at the Universities of Berkeley, Columbia, Paris II, Paris Est, Bordeaux, Göttingen, Exeter, Bath and Innsbruck. He has participated in a large number of research projects funded by the European Commission and national agencies, and has worked as consultant for the World Bank and local entities. He currently serves as Lead Author of the chapter on International Cooperation for the WGIII Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Research:

Alejandro Caparros’s research focuses on the micro-economic analysis of environmental public goods. His current research deals with two topics:

Incentives for cooperation and international negotiations on climate change

The goal is to analyze incentives for cooperation for different types of public goods, and to determine the negotiation procedures that are more likely to be successful. Alejandro Caparros’s research has analyzed this issue from a purely theoretical point of view and from an applied perspective, by analyzing international negotiations on climate change mitigation. Analyzing actual negotiations allows extending theoretical models to issues not covered by standard models, while it also allows identifying key features of the environmental problem that might explain the difficulties observed in reaching ambitious agreements. The main tool used in these papers is game theory and, in particular, multilateral bargaining theory.

Selected publications:

  • Caparrós, A. and Finus, M., 2020. Public Good Agreements under the Weakest-link Technology. Journal of Public Economic Theory 1-28.
  • Caparrós, A. and Péreau, J.C., 2017. Multilateral versus sequential negotiations over climate change. Oxford Economic Papers 69(2): 365–387.
  • Caparrós, A., 2016. Bargaining and International Environmental Agreements. Environmental and Resource Economics 65(1): 5–31.
  • Finus, M. and Caparrós, A., 2015 (eds.). Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation: Essential Readings. The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics, Edward Elgar.
  • Caparrós, A., Pereau, J.-C. and Tazdaït, T., 2004. North-South Climate Change Negotiations: a Sequential Game with Asymmetric Information. Public choice 121 (3-4): 455-480.

For the full list of publications, see the “bibliography” tab.

 

Ecosystem accounting and the aggregation of stated contributions to public goods

This research line focuses on the aggregation of stated contributions to public goods and, in particular, on its use in spatial ecosystem accounting. The goal is to value environmental public goods in a manner consistent with the values recorded in national accounts for commercial goods and services. The procedure proposed is the Simulated Exchange Value method, which simulates the entire market: demand obtained from stated preference methods, cost estimates and market structure. The values obtained are then recorded in an integrated ecosystem accounting system, which has been developed together with other researchers at IPP-CSIC.  The methods proposed have been applied at different scales focusing on terrestrial ecosystems.

Selected publications:

  • Hein, L., Bagstad, K.J., Obst, C., Edens, B., Schenau, S., Castillo, G., Soulard, F., Brown, C., Driver, A., Bordt, M., Steurer, A. and Caparrós, A., 2020. Progress in natural capital accounting for ecosystems. Science 367(6477): 514-515.
  • Campos, P., Caparros, A., Oviedo, J.L. et al. , 2019. Bridging the Gap Between National and Ecosystem Accounting Application in Andalusian Forests, Spain. Ecological Economics 157: 218–236.
  • Caparrós, A., Oviedo, J.L., Álvarez, A. and Campos, P., 2017. Simulated Exchange Values and Ecosystem Accounting: Theory and Application to Free Access Recreation. Ecological Economics 139: 140–149.
  • Ovando P., Caparros, A., Diaz-Balteiro, L., Pasalodos, M., Beguería, S., Oviedo, JL., Montero, G., and Campos, P., 2017. Spatial Valuation of Forests' Environmental Assets: An Application to Andalusian Silvopastoral Farms. Land Economics 93 (1): 87–108.
  • Caparrós A., Campos, P. and Montero, G., 2003. An Operative Framework for Total Hicksian Income Measurement: Application to a Multiple Use Forest. Environmental and Resource Economics 26: 173-198.

For the full list of publications, see the “bibliography” tab.

 

Other topics

Over the years, Alejandro Caparrós has also contributed to other issues, such as pollution control, environmental valuation or the analysis of potential conflicts between carbon sequestration by forests and biodiversity conservation. Although they do not fit within the two topics presented above, they are closely related:

Selected publications:

  • Soliño, M., Oviedo, J.L. and Caparrós, A., 2018. Are forest landowners ready for woody crops? Preferences for afforestation programs in Southern Spain. Energy Economics 73: 239-247.
  • Caparrós, A., Just, R. and Zilberman, 2015. Dynamic relative standards versus emission taxes in a putty-clay model. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 2(2): 277-308.
  • Caparrós, A, Cerdá, E., Ovando, P. and Campos, P , 2010. Carbon Sequestration with reforestations and biodiversity-scenic values. Environmental and Resource Economics 45: 49-72.
  • Caparrós A., Oviedo, J.L and Campos, P., 2008. Would you choose your preferred option? Comparing choice and recoded ranking experiments. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 90(3): 843-855.
  • Caparrós, A. and Jacquemont, F., 2003. Conflicts between biodiversity and carbon offset programs: economic and legal implications. Ecological Economics 46: 143-157.

For the full list of publications, see the “bibliography” tab.

Curriculum Vitae: 
PDF icon cv_alejandro_caparros_ene_2020_web.pdf
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