基于过度自信的企业发展低碳经济激励机制研究

在考虑企业过度自信的情况下,建立了企业发展低碳经济的激励机制模型并进行了系统研究。结果表明:政府的最优激励补贴与企业的风险规避度、外界不确定因素方差、努力成本系数负相关,与企业节能减排产出系数和过度自信水平正相关;当企业的过度自信水平满足一定约束条件时,政府的激励补贴强度以及期望环境收益都要大于企业完全理性时的情形;当企业的过度自信水平超过一定约束条件时,政府的最优激励补贴以及期望环境收益小于0;企业过度自信的容忍度与企业风险规避系数以及外界不确定因素正相关。     

如何发挥地方政府在节能减排中的作用

中央政府的节能减排目标与地方政府短期利益的矛盾,导致地方政府在推进节能减排工作中缺乏内在动力。现有的财税制度和政绩考核体系形成的对地方政府的激励机制不利于节能减排目标的实现。鉴于此,本文提出了构建有利于地方政府推进节能减排的激励机制。     

低碳经济发展激励机制研究

我国发展低碳经济需要兼顾经济增长与节能减排的双重任务。通过建立多任务委托代理模型,对政府激励和引导企业通过发展低碳经济最优化经济效益和节能减排效益的激励契约进行了分析。结果表明,政府一方面应根据企业可观测的努力程度来制定不同的激励契约,另一方面需要考虑不同任务间的相关性对企业激励的影响。     

纺织企业节能减排技术创新的困境及对策研究——以宁波为例

通过对宁波纺织企业节能减排技术创新中面一临问题的调查分析,提出了促进宁波纺织企业节能减排技术创新水平的对策：实施财税激励政策以降低企业节能减排技术创新成本;促成纺织企业联盟以增强中小企业节能减排技术创新能力;建立政府干预与市场运作相结合的节能减排技术服务平台。     

企业学习效应和公平偏好对节能激励机制的影响

综合考虑了企业的学习效应和公平偏好等差异,建立了政府与企业间的节能激励契约。结果表明:初始实力强的企业节能可以提高政府的期望效用,而学习效应可以使政府获得额外效用;公平偏好对企业节能努力水平和学习水平的提高有阻碍作用,可以通过影响企业的学习效应进而影响政府的期望效用。     

地方政府与污染企业动态博弈分析

近年来,中央和地方政府相继出台了一系列保护环境的激励政策和相关措施,但效果并不理想。人口的压力,资源的短缺,环境的胁迫,生态的危机,这一系列的世界性问题,已经成为21世纪中国乃至世界急需考虑并解决的问题。为了实现经济与环境的可持续发展,近年来,中央和地方政府相继出台了一系列保护环境的激励政策和相关措施,但由于外部性和公共产品属性等因素的存在,环境治理过程中存在市场失灵。为了探求这一现象背后的原因,本文利用博弈论的分析方法进一步考虑财政补贴、税收、罚金等系数对企业支付函效的影响,在更为一般的条件下分别建立政府监管部门和企业的完全信息条件下静态博弈模型和无限阶段重复博弈模型,并且讨论了多种因素对局中人的影响,并导出企业的最优策略和纳什均衡解,以揭示环境治理政策设计的经济机理和提出优化我国节能减排政府政策设计的一系列政策建议,旨在为提高我国节能减排政府政策设计的效果提供理论论证和现实见解。     

低碳时代基于节能减排的博弈均衡分析

节能减排作为我国发展低碳经济的一项主要举措在实施推广中存在诸多挑战。如何协调节能减排与经济平稳发展的关系,对我国当前时期的经济发展具有积极的现实意义。本文采用经济分析中常用的博弈论方法,首先借助“公共地的悲剧”模型,对同行业中企业为何陷入“减排难”的困境展开分析,提出政府在节能减排实施中参与规制的必要性;其次由于政府与企业在节能减排初期存在利益冲突,本文通过“规制博弈”模型,探讨政府与企业的利益均衡,就政府应该从哪些方面对企业的行为进行激励和规制展开分析;最后提出了开展节能减排的激励与规制建议。     

企业碳会计的生态治理功能及实现机制研究

企业碳会计是涵盖了碳交易核算及碳信息披露,以实现企业节能减排为导向的新兴会计领域。从国家治理的角度看,其承担着推进企业绿色发展、实现碳减排目标的重要任务。企业通过碳核算及碳信息披露形成的微观财务、资本市场和产品市场三种信息反馈激励机制是企业碳会计生态治理功能实现的重要途径。为推进我国低碳经济的快速发展,应尽快统一企业碳会计核算和碳信息披露规则,提高社会公众低碳环保意识,促进三种信息反馈与节能减排动力传导循环的实现。     

基于碳汇功能的中国海洋渔业政府激励机制分析

生物碳汇扩增在发展低碳经济中具有特殊的作用，海洋渔业在节能减排和发展碳汇产业方面起着不可忽视的作用。从我国海洋渔业的碳汇功能出发，运用信息经济学的理论与方法，构建政府与企业间的委托一代理激励模型，对政府和企业的行为进行分析。政府为了提高激励政策的有效性，一定会积极掌握各方面的信息以了解企业的努力程度。并且得出在信息非对...     

企业节能减排激励机制研究

工业化城市化进程加快而引发的资源、环境问题正日益显现。我国节能减排现状不容乐观,节能主体的观念意识问题最为突出,多数企业节能减排的动力不足。文章通过建立政府与企业之间的委托-代理模型和线性支付合同的激励函数,利用政府效用最大化原值对模型求解,得出最优的政府固定补贴和激励强度因子,最后提出了促进企业节能减排的对策。     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

Planned adaptation in risk regulation: An initial survey of US environmental, health, and safety regulation

In principle, we want regulatory programs to be based on current realities, as reflected for example in the best knowledge of relevant experts. That would imply that old rules now on the books should be consistent with today's knowledge base, not just what was known when a rule or standard was originally set. This paper reports on a survey of US programs, examining how often existing rules are actually updated in light of better knowledge, and identifies five programs that attempt to make policy routinely adaptive. These programs exhibit what we term Planned Adaptation: they both revise rules when relevant new knowledge appears, and take steps to produce such improved knowledge. While Planned Adaptation is rare, it is used in several nationally prominent programs, including air pollution, airplane safety, and drug safety. Planned Adaptation is a policy tool that deserves more attention.     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

The greenhouse effect: Damages,costs and abatement

The buildup of so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — CO₂ in particular-appears to be having an adverse impact on the global climate. This paper briefly reviews current expectations with regard to physical and biological effects, their potential costs to society, and likely costs of abatement. For a worst case scenario it is impossible to assess, in economic terms, the full range of possible non-linear synergistic effects. In the most favorable (although not necessarily likely) case (of slow-paced climate change), however, it seems likely that the impacts are within the affordable range, at least in the industrialized countries of the world. In the third world the notion of affordability is of doubtful relevance, making the problem of quantitative evaluation almost impossible. We tentatively assess the lower limit of quantifiable climate-induced damages at $30 to $35 per ton of CO₂ equivalent, worldwide, with the major damages being concentrated in regions most adversely affected by sea-level rise. The non-quantifiable environmental damages are also significant and should by no means be disregarded.The costs and benefits of (1) reducing CFC use and (2) reducing fossil fuel consumption, as a means of abatement, are considered in some detail. This strategy has remarkably high indirect benefits in terms of reduced air pollution damage and even direct cost savings to consumers. The indirect benefits of reduced air pollution and its associated health and environmental effects from fossil-fuel combustion in the industrialized countries range from $20 to $60 per ton of CO₂ eliminated. In addition, there is good evidence that modest (e.g. 25%) reductions in CO₂ emissions may be achievable by the U.S. (and, by implication, for other countries) by a combination of increased energy efficiency and restructuring that would permit simultaneous direct economic benefits (savings) to energy consumers of the order of $50 per ton of CO₂ saved. A higher level of overall emissions reduction — possibly approaching 50% — could probably be achieved, at little or not net cost, by taking advantage of these savings.We suggest the use of taxes on fossil fuel extraction (or a carbon tax) as a reasonable way of inducing the structural changes that would be required to achieve significant reduction in energy use and CO₂ emissions. To minimize the economic burden (and create a political constituency in support of the approach) we suggest the substitution of resource-based taxes in general for other types of taxes (on labor, income, real estate, or trade) that are now the main sources of government revenue. While it is conceded that it would be difficult to calculate the optimal tax on extractive resources, we do not think this is a necessary prerequisite to policy-making. In fact, we note that the existing tax system has never been optimized according to theoretical principles, and is far from optimal by any reasonable criteria.During the academic year 1989–90 Dr. Ayres was at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.During the summer of 1989 Mr. Walter was a member of the Young Scientists' Summer Program at IIASA.     

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: TRACING THE FLOW OF BASIC RESEARCH THROUGH MANUFACTURING AND TRADE

This paper describes flows of basic research through the US economy during the late 20th century. In addition, the paper studies the effect of the flows on scientific papers in industries and fields. This article differs from others in its use of measures of science rather than technology. Together, its results present a picture of the structure of basic research flows in a modern, science-intensive economy. Basic research flows are large within petrochemicals and drugs, and within software and communications. Flows of chemistry, physics, and engineering are common throughout all industries – biology and medicine are almost confined to petrochemicals and drugs; and computer science is nearly as restricted to software and communications. In general, basic research flows are more concentrated within scientific fields than within industries. Our findings concerning the production of scientific papers indicate that the effect of a 1% change in academic R&D spillovers significantly exceeds that of industrial spillovers. In addition, within-field effects exceed effects between-fields, while within- and between-industry effects are roughly equal. It follows that scientific fields limit basic research flows more than industries do, perhaps because large firms implicitly span a range of industries.     

Bayesian estimation of duration models: An application of the multiperiod probit model

The multiperiod probit model is presented and Bayesian estimation using the Gibbs sampler with data augmentation is described. As an empirical illustration, the multiperiod probit model is then used to estimate a duration model using employment duration data for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Bayesian estimation with unobserved heterogeneity is shown to be a simple extension of estimation of a duration model with no unobserved heterogeneity. More importantly, perhaps, some numerical problems encountered by other authors using Maximum Likelihood are avoided.I would like to thank M. Baker, G. Koop, A. Melino and D. Poirier for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank M. Baker for providing his data.     

Scenarios and creativity: Thinking in new boxes

To be creative and make change happen, leaders must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest, using the popular American expression. After all, the space outside the box is infinitely expansive. Moreover, there can be no guarantee that a solution to the problem will be found. The answer: ‘Think in new boxes.’ This requires developing the right new box; in other words, useful new models, a helpful new approach to a problem. That is the real art of practical creativity. This short article outlines the approach (Thinking in New Boxes) and its application to classic scenario planning with a few examples. The authors also present the ‘Expressway to Scenarios’, an approach that wins in impact and practicality what it loses in deep analysis, by having top executives involved in key steps.     

On the Role of Paradigms in Understanding Economic Globalization

Any adequate analysis of economic globalization necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization. This paper is based on the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It argues that any view expressed with respect to economic globalization is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization which correspond to the four broad worldviews. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of economic globalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of economic globalization, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for each paradigm to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms.