Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy

A theoretical, representative‐agent economy with a depletable resource stock, polluting emissions and productive capital is used to contrast environmental policy, which internalises externalised environmental values, with sustainability policy, which achieves some form of intergenerational equity. The obvious environmental policy comprises an emissions tax and a resource stock subsidy, each equal to the respective external cost or benefit. Sustainability policy comprises an incentive affecting the choice between consumption and investment, and can be a consumption tax, capital subsidy or investment subsidy, or a combination thereof. Environmental policy can reduce the strength of the sustainability policy needed. More specialised results are derived in a small open economy with no environmental effects on utility.     

Environmental Externalities in the Presence of Network Effects: Adoption of Low Emission Technologies in the Automobile Market*

The paper considers a market currently dominated by a dirty technology that imposes significant environmental costs. A clean technology, with zero environmental costs, is introduced after the maturity of the dirty technology’s network. Adoption of the clean technology is not possible due to the network benefits in favour of the dirty technology. The paper considers two types of policy intervention to correct for the environmental externality. First, we find that the tax necessary to induce adoption of the clean technology is very high implying that a tax equal to the marginal environmental damage would not resolve the externality problem in many cases. Second, if tax revenues are earmarked towards subsidizing the clean technology, the tax is lower than in the previous case and can be set equal to the marginal external damage. *The authors are indebted to two anonymous referees for their insightful comments. We would also like to thank Robert Androkovich, Jim Seldon, Gordon Tarzwell, Christos Constantatos, participants of the EAERE 2002 conference, and the Sevilla Workshop on Public Economics and the Environment 2004 for their suggestions. Financial support by the Scholarly Activity Committee of the University College of the Cariboo is acknowledged by both authors. Eftichios Sartzetakis acknowledges also financial support by the Pythagoras I research grant of the Greek government.     

策略性环境政策:环境税和减排补贴的比较分析

文章把战略性贸易政策模型扩展到环境领域,策略性环境政策认为政府有动机通过降低环境标准补贴出口企业,以达到利润转移的目的.文章分析了策略性环境政策中比较受忽视的一部分--环境技术补贴,本国政府结合使用环境税和减排补贴,我们验证了政府使用策略性环境政策的动机,得到了最优的污染排放税率,认为虽然环境政策仍旧不能消除生产带来的环境损害,但是环境技术补贴提高了本国的环境标准,企业会更少地遇到绿色壁垒报复.     

Environmental taxes and strategic delegation

This paper analyzes a managerial delegation model in which the government chooses an environmental tax to control environmental damage. By giving the managers of firms an incentive scheme based on a linear combination of profit and sales revenue, we show that firm owners have to pay a higher environmental tax and both environmental damage and social welfare increase compared to the profit-maximization case. Financial support from UPV (Subvención a grupos, 2001), UPV (HB-8238/2000) and MEC (BEC 2000-0301) is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank A. Saracho and two referees for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Domestic and international strategic interactions in environment policy formation

Summary. In this paper, we establish the most possilbe general formulation of the technology governing carbon-gas emission, giving rise to global external diseconomies, and ty to explore into the strategic interactions,both domestic and international, when an individual country decides on the environmental policies. Through the comparison among emission taxes, quotas, and standard in the perfectly competitive private economies, we find that the first two policies are equivalent but they are different in effects by virtue of what we may call the tax-exemption effect of emission standards. Such a difference in the policy effect further affects the other country's welfare through the global externalities, amplified through whether the government can precommit to either the emission tax or the emission standard. Received: January 16, 2001; revised version: April 16, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The authors thank the valuable comments by an anonymous referee. Ministry of Education and Science for its financial support is also greatly acknowledged. Correspondence to:K. Kiyono     

Stores

Summary There is scope and incentive for stores to endogenously arise in an exchange economy when agents possess different levels of bargaining power and coalition formation is costly. In the absence of stores, agents face a trading lottery where the expected outcome for an individual agent depends upon his relative bargaining strength. By setting appropriate, preannounced prices, a store can profitably offer relatively weak bargainers trading opportunities which they prefer to the trading lottery. While relatively weak bargainers are attracted to the store, relatively strong bargainers prefer the trading lottery to the store. Thus, the simultaneous existence of barter and mediated trade is explained.The work reported here was conceived while both authors were visiting the University of Southern California. We thank Martine Quinzii and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

The effectiveness of anti-leakage policies in the European Union: results for Austria

With the third trading period of the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) starting in 2013, the system of allocating emission allowances will significantly change: In contrast to the previous two trading periods, auctioning of the allowances should now be the rule rather than the exception. Accompanying this policy change, concerns over competitiveness of energy intensive, trade exposed sectors as well as over limited environmental effectiveness via the channel of carbon leakage, have regained prominence. In this paper, we thus explore the impacts of potential EU policies to counter losses in international competitiveness and carbon leakage from the perspective of Austria. Based on numerical simulations with a computable general equilibrium model, we evaluate three policy options: an input subsidy for carbon allowances (thus reflecting the planned partially free allocation mechanism in the third EU ETS phase), a subsidy for domestic production, and an export rebate based on sectoral CO₂ costs. Our results show that each policy has the potential to support domestic production in exposed sectors relative to a full auctioning scenario and thus increase competitiveness. However, none is imperatively effective at reducing Austria’s net carbon emissions: while the carbon trade balance is improved and hence leakage declines, the tradability of emission permits within the EU ETS allows CO₂ emissions from Austria’s ETS output to increase. A cost benefit analysis indicates that the two policies promoting domestic output and exports are more cost effective than the CO₂ input subsidy.     

Optimal Tax Policy under Environmental Quality Competition

This paper studies the socially optimal emission and commodity tax policy when consumers are willing to pay a price-premium for environmentally friendlier variants of a commodity vertically differentiated in environmental quality. The first-best levels of quality can be obtained by a combination of a uniform ad valorem tax and an emission tax (or a subsidy for buying green products). The first-best emission tax is higher than the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality. Regardless of environmentally conscious consumers, if only one instrument is available, the second-best emission tax is equal to the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality. A uniform ad valorem tax increases welfare only if the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality is low enough.     

Optimal combination of innovation and environmental policies under technology licensing

Under what conditions will a carbon tax encourage environmental innovation? Can a regulator design an optimal environmental policy to reduce emissions and to promote clean technologies? This paper studies optimal environmental policy in the situation where a monopoly innovator develops and licenses clean production technologies to downstream polluting firms. We find that (i) a higher emission tax will encourage innovation when the burden of the tax payment in the polluters' costs and/or the price-elasticity of the demand for polluting goods are small, (ii) the innovation-inducing effects of emission tax are inversely related to the emission-reduction (Pigouvian) effects of the tax, and (iii) the social optimum can be achieved by the mix of tax and subsidy. We also show that if the policy instrument is limited to the tax, the second-best tax rate would lie between the marginal damage and the first-best rate. By performing numerical simulations, we also demonstrate that the optimal mix of the emission tax and R&D subsidy can have “double dividend” benefits.     

Pollution, Capital Mobility and Tax Policies with Unemployment

In this paper we highlight aspects related to the links among unemployment, international capital mobility, and tax policies in a small open developing economy. Without international capital mobility, the joint optimal trade and environmental policies require a zero tariff and an emission tax lower than the Pigouvian tax. With international capital mobility and a capital tax (subsidy), the optimal emission tax rate is smaller (larger) compared to the rate when capital is untaxed. When both the emission tax and the capital tax/subsidy are jointly chosen optimally, then the optimal policy on capital is a lower subsidy, or even a tax, compared to the standard capital subsidy of the no pollution case.     

Interregional Trade Linkages and the Commercial Role: The Spanish Case

The development of a national or regional economy depends on its own actions as much as on those of its commercial partners. Trade transmits economic events from one economy to another. The type and the degree of interdependence between territories—regions or countries—determines the consequences of external actions in a region. Multipliers translate the effects of a change in one variable on the others. Using an input–output scheme to express interregional commercial flows, some coefficients are developed to classify and identify the role that each region plays in interregional trade. An empirical application of the methodology on Spanish Comunidades Autonomas is presented. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Fifty-Eight International Atlantic Economic Conference, Chicago, October 7–10, 2004. The authors greatly appreciate the comments and suggestions from the participants at the meeting. The authors also wish to thank an anonymous referee and editor for their constructive suggestions and comments. This research was partially supported by the DGI project SEJ2004-07924/ECON.     

Do emission subsidies reduce emission? In the context of environmental R&D organization

This paper, which reexamines the Poyago-Theotoky model, provides additional investigation that was conducted under a corrected environmental damage parameter. As new findings, we obtain the following. First, social welfare under a time-consistent emission tax (emission subsidy) policy is always welfare-enhancing rather than the case of laissez-faire. Second, if the environmental damage parameter is sufficiently small, then the equilibrium emission tax rate is invariably negative. It is therefore an emission subsidy. Moreover, total emissions under the emission subsidy scenario become less than those under laissez-faire if the damage parameter is sufficiently small, and if the R&D cost is low. However, total emissions under the emission subsidy become greater than those under laissez-faire if the damage parameter is sufficiently small, and if the R&D cost is high.     

碳税政策效应理论研究评述

本文对国外有关碳税政策效应的理论研究进行了系统的回顾和梳理,分析了碳税的环境效应、经济效应、分配效应和福利效应,并比较了碳税与能源税、排污许可证交易制度在碳减排效果和政策成本方面的区别。本文分析表明,中国要实施碳税应充分借鉴国际经验和现有研究成果,并要结合我国经济社会的发展状况,作出进一步的理论分析与实证研究。碳税政策的制定,既要考虑自身的多重效应,又要仔细分析它与其他政策工具之间的相互影响。     

Asset trading volume in a production economy

Judd et al. (J Finance 63: 2203–2217, 2003) show that the stationary Lucas tree model cannot generate nontrivial asset trading: Heterogenous agents will optimally choose a fixed portfolio after initial rebalancing. This paper explores asset trading volume in production economies with heterogeneous agents and dynamically complete market structures. We establish a recursive version of the Negishi approach to prove the existence of a competitive equilibrium. Furthermore, we develop a general method to solve for equilibrium portfolios in production economies within a fairly general set of complete market structures. We thus establish the theoretical reasons why production economies in general generate a nontrivial volume of asset trading even if heterogeneity of the agents is kept to a minimum. We would like to thank W. Brock, D. DeJong and, especially, H. Ennis for comments and suggestions. We also thank seminar participants at Di Tella and San Andrés Universities (Argentina), the Institute for Advanced Studies (Austria), SED Meetings 2005 (Budapest) and SAET Conference 2005 (Vigo).     

Efficient Climate Policy with Internationally Mobile Firms

A major concern in the design of an incomplete climate agreement is thatfirms that use fossil fuels intensively may respond to emission regulationsby relocating their plants from cooperating to non-cooperating countries.This paper analyses how the cooperating countries might deal with the issueof firm delocation through emission taxes, trade provisions and alocalisation subsidy to mobile firms. It is shown that firms should not beinduced to stay in the cooperating countries by lowering emission taxesbelow the Pigouvian tax rate. Incentives to stay should be given partlythrough trade provisions and partly through a localisation subsidy. A secondbest solution without localisation subsidies is also discussed. In thatcase, the efficient emission tax is lower than the Pigouvian tax rate.Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the first best and thesecond best policy regimes for the pattern of firm localisation.     

The absolute health income hypothesis revisited: a semiparametric quantile regression approach

This paper uses the 1998–1999 Canadian National Population Health Survey data to examine the health–income relationship that underlies the absolute income hypothesis. To allow for nonlinearity and data heterogeneity, we use a partially linear semiparametric quantile regression model. The “absolute income hypothesis” is partially true; the negative aging effects appear more pronounced for the ill-healthy population than for the healthy population and when annual income is below 40,000 Canadian dollars. We would like to thank two anonymous referees and Baldev Raj, the editor, for useful and constructive comments and suggestions. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Statistics Canada. Both authors would also like to acknowledge financial support from SSHRC of Canada.     

Choice and design of regulatory instruments in the presence of green consumers

Using a vertically differentiated product model, this paper examines welfare implications of various government policies in a situation where consumers are environmentally discerning. It studies ad valorem taxes/subsidies and emission taxes. The optimal policy depends on the magnitude of damage parameter associated with environmental externality. For a given distribution of tastes and preferences, as the damage parameter increases from a low to a high value, the optimal policy shifts from an ad valorem tax to an ad valorem subsidy. It also shows that for a sufficiently low damage parameter, an ad valorem tax dominates an emission tax.     

Selective penalization of polluters: an inf-convolution approach

Summary. We consider an asymmetric polluting oligopoly. We demonstrate that optimal tax rates per unit of emission are not the same for all firms. We call this property selective penalization. Our Optimal Distortion Theorem states that the efficient tax structure requires that high cost firms pay a higher tax rate. Our Pro-concentration Motive Theorem states that optimal taxes increase the concentration of the industry, as measured by the Herfindahl index. Our Magnification Effect indicates that the variance of marginal costs is magnified by a factor which depends on the marginal cost of public funds.JEL Classification Numbers: Q20, D60, D63.We wish to thank Peter Neary, Kim Long, Raymond Riezman and a referee for very helpful comments. Financial support from SSHRC and FCAR are gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Hassan Benchekroun, Kim Long, and Koji Shimomura for discussions and comments.     

创新科技政策时滞效应研究

创新科技政策传导过程存在时滞效应是一个不容回避的重要问题。通过整理2009-2016年相关数据并采用脉冲响应函数和方差分析法对创新科技政策（人才激励、研发补贴、税收优惠、政府采购、服务外包）效应外部时滞进行分析。研究结果表明：创新科技政策的时滞导致政策效果无法得到充分、及时的发挥。不同的创新科技政策工具会产生不同的政策效果时滞期。政策外部效应时滞发生于企业判断政策—确认政策—吸收政策—执行政策—创新产出这一过程之中。     

Policy instruments for curbing CO2 emissions: The case of the Netherlands

Taxes may seem to be the most attractive instrument for curbing the emissions of carbon dioxide. This paper, however, argues that environmental taxes involve a number of serious complications — especially in an open economy riddled with market imperfections like the Netherlands. Therefore, a wide-ranging policy mix is called for. As far as households and sheltered sectors are concerned, regulation can continue to play a major role. Within the context of unilateral policies aimed at exposed sectors, the combination of subsidies and voluntary agreements may be more cost effective than the tax instrument.This paper was prepared for a conference on Energy Taxation in Europe organized by the Stichting voor Economisch Onderzoek (SEO) and held on December 13, 1991 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The author would like to thank Sijbren Cnossen, Jarig van Sinderen and one anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft.