BANKING AND BORROWING IN THE EU ETS: A REVIEW OF ECONOMIC MODELLING,CURRENT PROVISIONS AND PROSPECTS FOR FUTURE DESIGN

Abstract This paper deals with the issue of banking and borrowing in the context of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) by attempting to provide a policy‐oriented unifying theoretical framework. After describing the main features of the EU ETS, the core part of the paper consists of variations of an intertemporal continuous time optimization model. Additional elements include flexibility measures currently discussed and proposed in other emissions trading systems (USA, Australia), which include the use of safety valves, minimum price auctioning or offsets from domestic or international projects.     

Financial,ecological and managerial impacts of emission trading schemes: the case of Lufthansa

Commencing in 2012, emissions from flights departing from or arriving at airports within the European Union (EU) will be covered under the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS). This research analyzes the financial and ecological impacts of the ETS for the Lufthansa Group using a simulation model built on the now‐fixed system design. The results show that while ecological impacts are modest in the first years after introduction, the ETS will result in much higher emission reductions in the medium and long term. These ecological benefits come at the expense of increased financial impacts. This paper argues that the ETS will have a variety of managerial implications at the company level in fields such as environmental monitoring, financial risk management and marketing. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Disentangling economic crisis effects from environmental regulation effects: Implications for sustainable development

With climate change becoming more severe, policy makers must impose environmental regulations that will lead firms to adopt sustainable corporate models. According to the Porter hypothesis, environmental regulation can favour the implementation of business strategies that improve economic and environmental performances. In this study, we examine how one such form of regulation, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), impacts firm performance, and we subsequently widen the examination beyond the regulation to evaluate an economic crisis which could potentially confound regulation effects. We estimate a panel model with time- and firm-fixed effects for different subsamples that disentangle the effect of the EU ETS policy from the 2008 economic crisis. The results indicate that the EU ETS policy in its third phase can activate the Porter hypothesis and is effective in fuelling the implementation of sustainable corporate models by firms. However, we also find that the economic crisis neutralises the effects of the regulation on firm performance, precluding the triggering of the Porter hypothesis in severely affected firms.     

A SURVEY OF THE EFFECTS OF THE MINIMUM WAGE ON PRICES

Abstract.  It is well established in the literature that minimum wage increases compress the wage distribution. Firms respond to these higher labour costs by reducing employment, reducing profits, or raising prices. While there are hundreds of studies on the employment effect of the minimum wage, there are merely a handful of studies on its profit effects, and only a couple of dozen studies on its price effects. Furthermore, a comprehensive survey on minimum wage price effects is not available in the literature. Given the policy relevance of this neglected issue, in this paper we summarize and critically compare the available evidence on the effects of minimum wages on prices.     

The impact of renewable energy diffusion on European consumption-based emissions

The amount of carbon embedded in the final consumption of goods and services in a country or region depends on the amount of goods and services consumed and the emission intensity of the production processes along global production chains. A reduction of consumption-based emissions can be achieved from both sides, a reduction in total consumption and a reduction in the emission intensity of the production processes. The power sector is one of the most carbon intensive industries along global production chains and the global deployment of renewable power generation technologies (RPGTs) is one possibility to significantly reduce emissions in this industry. This paper combines three different strands of literature, multi-regional input–output analysis, dynamic energy–economy–environment models and technological change in renewable energy (RE), to model the impact of the global diffusion of renewable energies on European consumption-based emissions. The global diffusion of RE technologies (photovoltaic and wind) depends on the development of technology costs, which are modeled using learning curves. With increasing deployment of renewables within the EU as well as increasing RD&D efforts, the EU can achieve an accelerated costs decrease for these technologies, thus fostering deployment of RPGTs at a global scale through the effect of decreasing costs. This behavior indirectly influences the electricity mix abroad, making it less carbon intensive, so that consumption-based emissions of the EU decrease.     

Effects of Environmental Regulations on Trade Flow in Manufacturing Sectors: Comparison of Static and Dynamic Effects of Environmental Regulations

This study analyzes environmental regulations and trade performance in manufacturing sectors under static and dynamic conditions. We investigate environmental innovation induced by environmental regulations and the spillover effect on manufacturing sectors, determine whether the spillover effect offsets any negative effect found under static conditions and analyze environmental regulations on the import side. For this, we formulate a trade model that incorporates the environmental innovation equation. We analyze environmental tax, energy tax and the Emissions Trading System (ETS) using strong, balanced panel data from 19 OECD countries for 1996–2009. The results reveal that the static effect of energy tax on exports is negative, but the dynamic effect is positive; however, the positive effect does not offset the negative effect. In short, environmental tax and energy tax decrease the international competitiveness of the manufacturing sectors. Environmental tax and energy tax limit imports, especially in the high‐energy consumption group. The analyses of the ETS further complicate the overall picture. It shows that the further research on the effects of ETS on manufacturing firms' competitiveness over their foreign competitors in the global is required. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

发展低碳金融 促进低碳城市建设

低碳城市建设热潮在全国掀起,普遍面临资金缺口和减排机制创新问题,这就需要低碳金融业加快发展提供支持.国际社会在低碳金融发展方面已积累较多经验,如英国创设了碳信托和节能信托基金,欧盟设计了碳排放交易体系,世界银行设立各型碳基金等.国内低碳金融业发展现状是:银行业低碳绿色信贷业务增长迅速;碳权市场中项目市场发展较快,配额市...     

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF HOUSEWORK ON THE MARKET WAGE,AND CAN IT EXPLAIN THE GENDER WAGE GAP?

Abstract Does housework reduce the market wage, and if so, does it have a similar impact for males and females? In this paper, we survey and evaluate the recent and growing empirical literature on the linkages between housework and the wage rate. The review is motivated by unexplained gender wage gaps across studies, which consider personal and market‐related factors. We focus on this less‐studied aspect of wage determination. We consider the required modelling framework, and provide standardized estimated effects of housework on the hourly wage across studies. We evaluate how this literature has addressed potential estimation problems, in particular, the endogeneity of housework, concavity of the housework–wage function, threshold effects and work effort effects. We conclude that the evidence across ordinary least squares, instrumental variable, fixed effects and two‐stage least squares results casts serious doubt on the idea that the negative female housework–wage relationship is only driven by endogeneity bias or individual‐specific characteristics. Yet, much more needs to be done to address modelling and data requirements, and we point out likely and promising future research directions.     

CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS: HAS THE GFC INFLUENCED PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR UTILITY FOR BANKS?

Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) are considered as one of the most versatile financial innovations of the 21^st century. Since its inception, the credit derivatives market has grown to a peak of $64 trillion in 2008 in terms of gross notional values (Cont, 2010 ). However, after the onset of the GFC, this market has decreased to a large extent. While there is evidence that promotes the risk reduction properties of CDSs, there is a growing body of research post GFC that identifies destabilising effects of these instruments. In this paper, I review the relevant scholarly literature and provide evidence of how the views on CDSs have changed post GFC due a deeper investigation of issues such as systemic risk, regulatory arbitrage, information asymmetry and risk‐taking, among others, in the banking industry. This paper provides a survey of the literature of views ‘for’ and ‘against’ the use of CDSs during pre and post GFC periods and finally concludes that in comparison to the pre GFC period, post GFC there is a significant increase in the literature that highlights the detrimental nature of CDSs.     

Does Turkey have a special trade relation with the EU?: A gravity model approach

We apply the gravity model to Turkey's trade flows over 1967–2001. First, we check whether this model fits Turkey's geographical pattern of trade in goods. Second, provided that the model works, we assess whether Turkey already has a “special” trade relation with the EU, namely whether merchandise exchanges between the two parties exceed what the gravity approach predicts. The main findings are: (i) the gravity model provides a good fit of Turkey's trade patterns, and (ii) despite the 1963 Association agreement and the customs union launched in 1996, there is no evidence of additional trade between Turkey and the EU.     

碳关税对世界经济和农产品贸易的影响研究

采用GTAP 8.0模拟欧盟、美国、日本分别和同时征收碳关税时对世界经济和产品贸易的影响。结果表明：碳关税将对世界经济均衡增长产生负面影响,受影响最大的是中国、金砖和东盟国家;碳关税将改变世界贸易结构和贸易利益格局,发达国家受益、发展中国家受损;碳关税将使世界农产品出口总额小幅下降,但对改善世界农产品贸易结构具有积极作用。     

Enforcement of Accounting Standards in Europe: Capital-Market-Based Evidence for the Two-Tier Mechanism in Germany

On the background of regulatory initiatives that mandate the establishment of comparable enforcement systems in EU jurisdictions to ascertain consistent and faithful application of IFRS, this paper provides capital-market-based evidence on investor reactions for one specific institutional set-up: the two-tier enforcement system in Germany. In operation since 2005, the German enforcement mechanism consists of a private body, the DPR, which investigates compliance of published financial reports of firms listed on a regulated market segment and, upon error findings, involves the German securities regulator BaFin, which on a second level enforces disclosure of these findings to establish adverse disclosure (‘name and shame’). For a sample of error findings published in the period 2005–2009, we investigate short- and long-term market reactions to error announcements. Results for abnormal returns, abnormal trading volumes and abnormal bid‐ask spreads indicate that these announcements represent new, negative information and suggest that, despite an enforcement environment that is categorised as weak in the extant literature, the activities of the DPR/BaFin seem to penalise infringing firms and thus provide potential deterrence. Multivariate analyses yield weak evidence that the magnitude of the market value discount is positively associated with the severity of the errors, with the threat of subsequent litigation and with cases in which firms disagreed with the error findings of the DPR.     

Eco‐efficiency: GHG reduction related environmental and economic performance. The case of the companies participating in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

Empirical findings on eco‐efficiency are still inconsistent. Using survey data based on a sample of 283 European carbon‐intensive companies participating in the EU ETS between 2005 and 2012, this article investigates the causal relationships between the corporate environmental strategy focus, proactive GHG reductions and related environmental and economic performance, while taking into account an important contingent factor: the initial state of technology. The study's findings show that eco‐efficiency was generally not obvious among the companies during the first two trading periods. It furthermore indicates that GHG emissions were generally not reduced cost‐effectively, as companies' intrinsic values were more likely to have influenced carbon reduction related decisions to a greater degree than the economic incentives resulting from the market mechanisms of the ETS. The results not only shed light on firm behavior with regard to technology management but also provide insights for policy makers into how to stimulate more cost‐effective environmental investments. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

A composite indicator of social inclusion for EU based on the inverted BoD model

In this paper, after reviewing the existing modeling approaches for reverse indicators, we opt for the use of the inverted Benefit-of-the-doubt (IBoD) model when all the considered indicators are reverse, as is the case with composite indicators related to social inclusion. Using EU data for 2014 we provide comparative empirical results using the IBoD model and three data transformations employed by previous studies. We also provide a thorough analysis of the performance of EU countries during the period 2011–2020 in terms of the composite indicator obtained from the IBoD model. Our empirical results indicate that relative performance across the EU has neither improved nor deteriorated and there is evidence supporting local instead of global convergence in social inclusion with certain groups of countries.     

A Test for a Functioning Market Economy: Seton'S Eigenprices of Turkey

We use Seton's eigenprices to see if some evidence can be found in support of the European Commission's official statement that the Turkish economy can be considered as a functioning market economy. Given an input–output flows matrix, there is a unique set of prices for outputs and production factors compatible with final demand, generating demand for factors. The findings based on Turkey's most recent I–O table and comparable I–O matrices for Romania and Poland (two EU members) in 2005 show that price distortions were on average five times larger in Turkey. Hence, based on price distortions alone, there was no solid evidence in support of the statement that Turkey had a functioning market economy.     

Carbon Taxes and Carbon Emissions Trading

This paper surveys the literature on, and examples of current implementation of, carbon taxes and carbon emission permits. It sets out the theoretical basis for these instruments, with special reference to the revenue‐recycling and tax interaction effects. This theoretical work concludes that instruments which raise revenue which can be recycled so as to reduce pre‐existing distortionary taxes are significantly less costly than those which do not. The paper then reviews the sizable literature on the distributional effects of these instruments, especially with regard to industrial competitiveness and regressive effects on low‐income groups, evaluating attempts to mitigate these where they are perceived as unacceptable. The paper concludes that such efforts at mitigation, while possible, can substantially reduce the efficiency benefits of the instruments. The projected costs of carbon taxes depend on a wide range of assumptions. This is still a contested area, but the paper concludes that, on a range of plausible assumptions, these costs need not be high. Finally the paper notes that early evaluations of the environmental effectiveness of carbon taxes have been generally positive. This suggests that, if concern about anthropogenic climate change continues to increase, more countries will introduce carbon taxes and emission permits, with the latter increasingly auctioned.     

Trade,competitiveness and investment: an empirical assessment

ABSTRACT

The Eurozone crisis has exposed several weaknesses of the European Monetary Union economies. This paper aims to assess the impact on external competitiveness of an expansionary capital stock policy that could contribute to reduce the trade balance asymmetries within the EU and help European exporters to recover their competitive role in international markets. A policy action to increase capital stock accumulation through investment in selected European countries could generate a double dividend: increasing both price and nonprice competitiveness, so stimulating their competitive position as exporters, and consolidating the growth path of EU economy. The analysis employs a bilateral trade model built at INFORUM with several distinguishing characteristics: a comprehensive bilateral data set, econometric estimation of key parameters, and emphasis on sectoral details. Our findings show that a capital stock increase is effective in narrowing trade imbalances within EU. Heterogeneous effects are estimated for commodities in China and the US.     

MIND THE GAP: UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE NEW EU REGIONS

Abstract.  The paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on regional unemployment during transition in Central and Eastern Europe. The focus is on optimal speed of transition (OST) models and on comparison of them with the neo-classical tradition. In the typical neo-classical models, spatial differences essentially arise as a consequence of supply side constraints and institutional rigidities. Slow-growth, high-unemployment regions are those with backward economic structures and constraints on factors mobility contribute to making differences persistent. However, such explanations leave the question unanswered of how unemployment differences arise in the first place. Economic transition provides an excellent testing ground to answer this question. Pre-figuring an empirical law, the OST literature finds that the high degree of labour turnover of high unemployment regions is associated with a high rate of industrial restructuring and, consequently, that low unemployment may be achieved by implementing transition more gradually. Moreover, international trade, foreign direct investment and various agglomeration factors help explain the success of capital cities compared to peripheral towns and rural areas in achieving low unemployment. The evidence of the empirical literature on supply side factors suggests that wage flexibility in Central and Eastern Europe is not lower than in other EU countries, while labour mobility seems to reinforce rather than change the spatial pattern of unemployment.     

Innovation and export activities in the German mechanical engineering sector: an application of testing restrictions in production analysis

Since Solow (Q J Econ 70:65–94, 1956) the economic literature has widely accepted innovation and technological progress as the central drivers of long-term economic growth. From the microeconomic perspective, this has led to the idea that the growth effects on the macroeconomic level should be reflected in greater competitiveness of the firms. Although innovation effort does not always translate into greater competitiveness, it is recognized that innovation is, in an appropriate sense, unique and differs from other inputs like labor or capital. Nonetheless, often this uniqueness is left unspecified. We analyze two arguments rendering innovation special, the first related to partly non-discretionary innovation input levels and the second to the induced increase in the firm’s competitiveness on the global market. Methodologically the analysis is based on restriction tests in non-parametric frontier models, where we use and extend tests proposed by Simar and Wilson (Commun Stat Simul Comput 30(1):159–184, 2001; J Prod Anal, forthcoming, 2010). The empirical data is taken from the German Community Innovation Survey 2007 (CIS 2007), where we focus on mechanical engineering firms. Our results are consistent with the explanation of the firms’ inability to freely choose the level of innovation inputs. However, we do not find significant evidence that increased innovation activities correspond to an increase in the ability to serve the global market.     

Information versus adverse Anlegerbeeinflussung: Befund und Implikationen der empirischen Rechnungswesenforschung zur Publizität von Pro-forma-Ergebnisgrößen

Pro forma earnings represent voluntarily disclosed performance metrics that modify the mandatory (GAAP) income number. Motives discussed to explain this disclosure phenomenon are to increase the informativeness of earnings (information), or to influence investors in an adverse fashion (opportunism). The objective of this paper is to survey the extant US and German literature pertaining to pro forma earnings disclosures, with a special emphasis on the ensuing regulatory discussion, to point out promising avenues for future research. Extant studies, on the one hand, demonstrate evidence in favour of (incremental) informativeness (value relevance, information content) of pro forma earnings. On the other hand, they find evidence that small investors in particular tend to process pro forma earnings information in an undue fashion. In the light of evidence that demonstrates extensive use of pro forma earnings disclosures by large German corporations, this research literature lends support to recent concerns voiced by European securities regulators, and points at avenues for future research into capital markets reception of pro forma earnings disclosures both on the German capital market and in an EU/IFRS context.