We use mine-level data from the international copper industry to quantify environmental misallocation. We define this concept as the ratio between the observed carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the industry and the level reached by a social planner that allocates the current aggregate output across mines so as to minimize emissions, conditional on some well-defined extraction rules. We find that CO2 emissions from the world copper industry are reduced by 47% under the planner's allocation. We also provide evidence suggesting that a cleaner environment is not necessarily tied to lower levels of productive efficiency.

中文翻译：

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铜行业的环境错配

我们使用来自国际铜业的矿山数据来量化环境错配。我们将这一概念定义为行业中观察到的二氧化碳（CO2）排放量与社会计划者达到的水平之间的比率，该计划者根据一些明确定义的开采规则在矿山之间分配当前的总产出，以最大程度地减少排放量。我们发现，在计划者的分配下，世界铜行业的二氧化碳排放量减少了47％。我们还提供证据表明，更清洁的环境不一定与较低的生产效率挂钩。