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The purpose of this paper is to asses the welfare and macroeconomic implications of three distinct degrowth strategies designed to reduce carbon emissions: penalizing fossil fuel demand, substituting aggregate consumption with leisure and disincentivizing total factor productivity (TFP) growth.

Using an environmental dynamic general equilibrium (eDGE) model that incorporates both green renewable technologies and fossil fuels in the production process, this study sets an emissions reduction target aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement by 2050.

The results reveal that the conventional degrowth strategy, wherein a reduction in the consumption of goods and services is compensated with an increase in leisure, may entail significant economic consequences, leading to a notable decline in welfare. In particular, a degrowth scenario resulting from a decline in TFP yields the most pronounced reduction in welfare. Conversely, inducing a reduction in fossil fuel demand by fiscally inflating the price of the imported commodity, despite potential social backlash, exhibits noticeably less detrimental welfare effects compared to other degrowth policies. Furthermore, under this degrowth strategy, the findings suggest that a globally coordinated strategy could result in long-term welfare gain.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first contribution that uses an eDGE model to evaluate the welfare implications of an additional degrowth strategy amidst the ongoing inertial reduction of carbon emissions.

This paper aims to study the value of informal care (IC) time from the perspective of caregivers using two alternative contingent valuation tools – willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) – and to identify the variables that affect the stated values.

The authors used data from a multi-centre study of 610 adult caregivers conducted in two Spanish regions in 2013. The existence of “protest zeros” and “economic zeros” because of the severe budgetary constraints of the households was also considered. Two-part multivariate models were used to analyse the main factors that explained the declared values of WTA and WTP.

The average WTP and WTA were €3.12 and €5.98 per hour of care, respectively (€3.2 and €6.3 when estimated values for “protest zeros” and “economic zeros” were considered). Some explanatory variables of WTA and WTP are coincident (place of residence and intensity of care time), whereas other variables only help to explain WTP values (household and negative coping with caregiving) or WTA values (age and burden of care). Some nuances are also identified when comparing the results obtained without protest and economic zeros with the estimated values of these special zeros.

Studies analysing the determinants of WTP and WTA in IC settings are very scarce. This paper seeks to provide information to fill this gap. The results indicate that the variables that explain the value of IC from one perspective may differ from the variables that explain it from an alternative perspective. Given the relevance of contextual factors, studies on the topic should be expanded, and care should be taken with the extrapolation of results across countries and settings.