立足全局,迎难而上,打好基础,深化改革,理顺思路,良性发展

2003年是新一届政府施政的第一年，是我区转变发展观、启动新一轮发展的关键一年。一年来，区政府以“三个代表”重要思想和十六大精神为指导，在市委、市政府和区委的正确领导下，在区人大、政协的监督和支持下，团结和带领全区人民与时俱进，务实创新，胜利完成了区三届人大一次会议确定的年度工作任务。     

法则,技术,消费者

很荣幸能够出席９６年度美洲电讯大会，同时感谢组委会给我这样一个机会与大家进行交流。能到这里旅行我感到非常欣喜，不仅因为里约热内卢是一座美丽的城市，更重要的是这是一个有着独特风格的国度──世界足球冠军之乡。从球王贝利２０年前赴美访问算起，不久前主办了世界杯足球赛似乎又一次激起了美国人对足球的兴趣。１９９４年的世界杯锦标赛吸引了我们的注意力──甚至引起了我们的联想。特别是在决赛中巴西队戏剧性地战胜了意大利队，作为世界杯赛历史上首次由罚点球决出冠亚军的比赛，导致要求改革比赛规则的呼声越来越高。电讯业也…     

深化改革,苦练内功,迎接挑战

1994年,我厂通过加强企业管理,提高产品质量,降低产品成本,努力扩大生产,企业实现了快速发展,一跃成为同类型水泥企业中规模全国第一、质量广东第一和出厂水泥唯一免检的大型企业,并被评为广东省优秀企业。全年(包括合资企业)共生产“塔牌”水泥和熟料一百多万吨,实现销售收入3亿多元,利税5500多万元。今年以来,受国家继续紧缩银根、控制基建和固定资产投资的影响,我厂水泥生产举步维艰,受到前所未有的冲击。1——2月份共生产水泥16多万吨,虽比去年同期增长27.2%,但实现的销售收入4300万元,仅比去年同期增长     

企业家要自觉,自律,创新,学习

企业家要自觉什么是自觉？就是企业家要认识国内外形势和发展,并且能适应这个发展。国内形势比较清楚,正在从计划经济向社会主义市场经济转变。应当肯定,成绩是主要的。当然,在前进中也出现了一些问题,等着我们去解决。我常与外国朋友讲,虽然我们有很长的路要走,但...     

人生,政治,经济学

<正>不像其他那些伟大人物,加尔布雷斯在生命的早期并未显示出卓异的特征和禀赋。甚至在他大学毕业之前,都没有显示出成为经济学家的预兆。1931年,作为加拿大     

Disentangling the effects of process and product innovation on cost and demand

ABSTRACT

We explore in this note different structural models of the impact of process and product innovation on firms' demand and production cost functions. We find that the introduction of process and product innovations affects them differently as could be expected. Both product and process innovation shift forward the demand for the products of the firm. Process innovation reduces production marginal cost, but not always. A possibility, that we cannot prove or reject with the current specification of our models and available data, is that process innovation associated with product innovation raise marginal cost. Interestingly, we also find that advertising significantly augments demand but does not affect production marginal cost. To obtain broader conclusions, richer data will be needed allowing an enlargement of the model, in which process and product innovations could be specified distinctively and well identified.     

Using Non Market Valuation to Inform the Choice Between Permits and Fees in Environmental Regulation

The purpose of this short note is to open an exploration regarding the use of non market valuation to help guide the selection of economically efficient pollution control instruments. As long as non market valuation techniques can correctly estimate the slope of the marginal benefit of abatement curve, this information along with engineering cost estimates of the unit costs or slope of the marginal abatement cost will provide useful information to policy makers in choosing between fees and permits. An illustrative review of the literature suggests that both stated and revealed preference methods have estimated slopes of marginal benefit functions for reducing several pollutants. To investigate the efficiency of permits versus fees, an illustrative review of corresponding marginal abatement costs is also made. For air pollutants affecting visibility, the slope of the marginal benefit curve is far greater than the slope of the marginal abatement costs, suggesting permits as the efficient instrument. For nitrates in groundwater used for drinking, the marginal benefit curve is flatter than the rather steep marginal abatement cost, suggesting fees/taxes would be a more efficient economic instrument. We hope this note stimulates more emphasis in non market valuation on estimating the slope of the marginal benefit function to enhance environmental economists ability to make policy recommendations regarding the choice of pollution instruments for specific pollutants.      

Climate Policy,Uncertainty, and the Role of Technological Innovation

We study how uncertainty about climate change severity affects the relative benefits of early abatement and a portfolio of research and development (R&D) in lowering future abatement costs. Optimal early abatement depends on the curvature of the marginal benefit and marginal abatement cost (MAC) functions and how the uncertain parameter affects marginal benefits. R&D in a particular technology depends on whether uncertainty increases early abatement; whether investment lowers marginal costs for that technology; whether R&D lowers the slope of that technology's MAC function; and the shape of that technology's MAC function. We illustrate, focusing on the role of backstop technologies.     

On the Impact of Innovation on the Marginal Abatement Cost Curve

When modeling the effects of innovation on the marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve, many studies in environmental economics have posited, implicitly or explicitly, a uniform downward shift. The purpose of this paper is to thoroughly investigate this claim in a simple theoretical framework by introducing innovation in the production function of a price‐taking, polluting firm in four economically meaningful ways. We establish that the effects of innovation on the MAC curve depend critically on the specific type of innovation, and that only innovation in end‐of‐pipe technology leads to a uniform downward shift of the MAC curve. A second class of results points to the fact that for other types of innovation in the overall production process, the scope for an upward shift of the MAC curve in response to innovation is easier to justify theoretically. These results call for a re‐appraisal of various results in environmental policy obtained in theoretical work relying on this postulate.     

Industry-level emission trading between power producers in the EU

This paper investigates how restrictions for emission trading to the energy-intensive power sector will affect the magnitude and distribution of abatement costs across EU countries vis-à-vis a comprehensive EU emission trading regime. It is found that emission trading between European power sectors allows the harvest of a major part of the efficiency gains provided by full trade as compared to strictly domestic action. However, trade restrictions may create a more unequal distribution of abatement costs across member states than is the case for a comprehensive trade regime. The reason for this is that restricted permit trade enhances secondary terms-of-trade benefits to EU member countries with low marginal abatement costs at the expense of the other EU member states.     

CO2 abatement policy with learning-by-doing in renewable energy

This paper analyzes the implications of CO₂ abatement when there is endogenous technological change in renewable energy. A multi-sector numerical general equilibrium model for Denmark is proposed to reflect two basic assumptions about technological progress in renewable energy. First, there is learning-by-doing and unit costs of production are a decreasing function of cumulated output. Second, technological progress only benefits new vintages of capital. The learning-by-doing process is calibrated to match current projections for technological progress in wind-based electricity. The implications are a marked reduction in the total and marginal cost of abatement and a decline in the optimal level of near-term abatement.     

The meta-technology cost ratio: An indicator for judging the cost performance of CO2 reduction

This paper constructs an innovative ratio of meta-technology cost (MTCR) by combining the meta-frontier framework and shadow price model. This ratio is not only an indicator to account for country-specific technology heterogeneity or technology heterogeneity across a group of countries to measure improvement toward the meta-frontier. This ratio also computes the absolute value difference between the real and ideal minimum marginal abatement costs for the non-market good CO₂ to achieve specific emission reduction. An equally weighted combination of technological readiness and innovation is used to classify countries into groups. The value of the MTCR via the computation of the meta marginal abatement cost (MAC^meta) and group marginal abatement cost (MAC^group-k) allows us to identify the possible improvement of marginal abatement cost (MAC) in absolute value. That is, observation of the MTCR, along with its components the MAC^meta and MAC^group-k, provides more intuitive and comprehensive information for commanding the cost performance of CO₂ reduction than the traditional meta-technology ratio alone.     

Process and Product Innovation: Complementarity in a Vertically Differentiated Monopoly with Discrete Consumer Types

This paper examines the complementarity between process and product innovation where process innovation reduces the marginal cost of quality. In the context of a vertically differentiated monopolistic market with discrete consumer types, we investigate how the nature of (fixed versus variable) innovation costs and the distribution of consumers over different types affect the complementarity between process and product innovation. We show that under variable innovation costs a process innovation is more likely to occur alone than both innovations together when taste diversity (or consumer heterogeneity) is not significant and/or when there are more low-type than high-type consumers.     

Rethinking the optimal level of environmental quality: justifications for strict environmental policy

Traditional environmental theory suggests that the optimal level of a pollution emission occurs when the marginal damage created by the emissions is equal to the marginal cost of reducing the emissions. We argue that the benefits from reducing pollution should be much more broadly defined to include at least three other sources of benefits. First, we develop a game-theoretic model in which firms may under-invest in cost-saving ‘green technologies’. Second, we demonstrate that consideration of future damages and abatement costs leads to a lower current optimal pollution level than that obtained in traditional models. Finally, we show that ecological complexity creates indirect pathways by which greater pollution increases the likelihood of generating irreversible environmental damage. This broader definition of the benefits of pollution abatement yields an optimal level of pollution that may actually be less than the level at which conventionally-measured marginal damages are equal to marginal abatement costs. Thus, environmental policy should be stricter.     

Who Should Abate Carbon Emissions? A Note

Economists commonly believe that failure to equalize the marginal cost of carbon abatement across countries implies a loss of global efficiency. Chichilnisky and Heal [(1994), Economic Letters 44, 444] first challenged this consensus a decade ago, demonstrating that, in general, efficiency does not require equalizing marginal abatement costs. This note revisits that important debate. It provides the missing intuition behind Chichilnisky and Heal’s surprising result, explains what critical assumption gives rise to their result, and clarifies the role a social welfare function plays in their model. The implications of Chichilnisky and Heal’s result are increasingly important, given international debate over the preferential role given to developing countries in the Kyoto Protocol and the role those countries will play in future climate negotiations.