Timing of environmental inspections: survival of the compliant

Environmental inspection agencies have limited resources. A natural response to this shortage of resources is targeting and this targeting policy leads to higher compliance than random inspections. This paper uses individual inspection data on the inspection policy of the environmental agency for the textile industry in Flanders (Belgium). We distinguish between three types of inspections and use a survival model to show that the environmental agency inspects firms in a non-random way. Even though the agency solves most environmental problems, it can increase compliance by using the deterrence effect of more stringent inspections and sanctions.      

Utility Regulation and Risk Allocation: The Roles of Marginal Cost Pricing and Futures Markets

The effects on consumer welfare of requiring a utility facing cost or demand risk to use either a fixed retail price or marginal cost pricing are assessed. With marginal cost pricing and cost volatility an efficient futures market allows consumer welfare to be at least as high in every state as with the fixed price. With demand risk marginal cost pricing can benefit the consumer in every state without harming the firm if the profit difference is transferred to the consumer. A futures market can act as a partial replacement for the transfer.     

Collusive Long-Run Investments Under Transmission Price-Caps

In the short run, constraints in the electricity transmission system may give market power to generators. This paper examines whether the constraints themselves are a long-run equilibrium outcome in a competitive environment. We show that independent transmission companies and generators can tacitly collude to raise prices to consumers and divide the resulting profits. We also show that price cap regulation does not prevent this behavior and may in fact contribute to it. The mechanism for collusion is that generators locate their plants so that a capacity-constrained transmission line lies between them and their consumer market. We show that this constraint-based collusion can be sustained in a static game without any punishment strategies.     

Corporate Lobbying, Regulatory Conduct and the Porter Hypothesis

Michael Porter, the influential Harvard management guru, has promoted the idea that compliance with stricter environmental regulations can afford secondary benefits to firms through improved product design, innovation, corporate morale and in other ways. Once these secondary benefits are factored, the net cost of compliance is argued to be lower than conventionally thought and may even be negative. Whilst environmental economists have rejected the Porter Hypothesis as being based on excessively optimistic expectations of the likely size of such secondary benefits the underlying ideas do enjoy significant credence in the business community. In the context of a lobbying model of regulatory policy-making we argue that the EPA should change the way it conducts regulatory policy to take account of Porter's views – even if it knows those views to be misguided. The model serves to illustrate the more general point that fashions in management thinking can be expected to impact the optimal conduct of regulatory policy.     

金融监管效率的基石:激励相容的监管机制

本文通过金融监管过程中的博弈分析,揭示了当前的金融监管制度安排在信息不对称条件下导致的监管当局提供有效监管激励的缺失及金融机构普遍的道德风险是造成金融监管失灵的主要原因.因而解决金融监管低效率或失灵问题的关键,在于通过金融市场透明度建设、监管制度安排的合理设计及金融机构治理结构的完善,实现社会公众、监管当局、金融机构之间的激励相容.     

我国制造业环境管制的实证研究

从制造业的角度出发,分析了政府对环境管制(ER)的两种形式:正式管制(FER)和非正式管制(I-ER),建立了环境管制均衡方程,并且采用面板数据的分析方法对理论假设进行了验证。研究表明,假设的影响制造业环境管制的主要因素:政府保护意愿、劳动密集程度、产业规模、经济外向度、产业国有化程度、科技吸收转化支出和劳动力素质的高低均产生了显著的影响。     

中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率及影响因素分析——基于ML生产率视角对“波特假说”的再检验

选用船舶工业宏观数据和资源环境约束等作为基础数据,运用方向性距离函数和ML指数测算了中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率(Total Factor Productivity),通过面板模型系统考察了环境规制、技术进步对中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的作用。发现从长远来看,绿色全要素生产率呈增长趋势且具有明显的收敛特征,技术进步和技术效率共同推动船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的增长,但整体上绿色全要素生产率低于传统全要素生产率。运用动态面板模型分析中国船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的影响因素,结论表明:较高的技术水平能显著提高绿色全要素生产率,而对国际市场的过度依赖阻碍了船舶工业绿色全要素生产率的增长。环境规制对船舶工业绿色全要素的增长已经带来"补偿效应"从而提高了中国船舶工业的国际竞争力,为考察船舶工业绿色竞争力提供了新的视角。     

Consistency and optimality in a dynamic game of pollution control II: Monopoly

This paper continues a line of research begun in Batabyal (1995a). I model the interaction between a regulator and a monopolistic, polluting firm as a Stackelberg differential game in which the regulator leads. The firm creates pollution, which results in a stock externality. I analyze the intertemporal effects of alternate pollution control measures. The principal issue here concerns the dynamic inconsistency of the optimal solution. Inter alia, I compare the steady state levels of pollution under optimal and under dynamically consistent policies.     

对冲基金的最新发展与监管框架重构研究

以近年来对冲基金的迅猛发展为背景，总结对冲基金竞争优势的来源，在分析现行国际监管制度缺欠的基础上，探讨以完善基金治理结构、强化信息披露和实施以风险为基础的监管措施三方面构筑有效合理的监管制度，具有重要现实意义。     

Environmental regulation and profitability: An application to Swedish pulp and paper mills

In this paper we analyze the impact on firm profits of the environmental regulations in the Swedish pulp and paper industry. The approach taken is a non-parametric programming model of the technology. A feature of this industry is that environmental regulations are determined individually for each mill. A question, then, is if these individual regulations have a similar impact on firm profits. The approach in this paper allows us to calculate both the regulated and unregulated profits, which means that the severity of the regulations, in terms of foregone profits, can be calculated for each mill. The empirical result shows that the impact on the mills varies substantially, and that the burden from the regulations is less severe in 1990 than in 1989.