One size may not fit all: Welfare benefits and cost reductions with optional differentiated household electricity rates

We consider optional time-of-use (TOU) pricing for residential consumers, offered by a publicly regulated electricity supplier, as an alternative to a single TOU or flat rate structure. An equilibrium model explores and quantifies the effects of such pricing on welfare, consumption, and production costs. The supplier offers to each household a menu of possible rate structures obtained by maximizing a collective welfare function subject to three restrictions: Pareto efficiency, incentive compatibility, sufficiency of supplier revenue to cover costs. Simulations based on realistic calibration of the model demonstrate that optional pricing can increase overall consumer welfare and reduce average cost.     

Effects of investor tax heterogeneity on stock prices and trading behaviour around the ex-dividend day: the case of Australia

Using a sample of Australian stocks during the 1996–2014 period, this study examines how tax heterogeneity between domestic and foreign investors affects trading behaviour and stock prices around the ex-dividend day. Domestic investors prefer dividends and tend to buy stocks cum-dividend and sell them ex-dividend whereas foreign investors tend to trade in the opposite direction. Abnormal trading turnover increases with tax heterogeneity. Moreover, stocks with a larger domestic investor base are associated with a higher price drop-off ratio on the ex-dividend day and higher market value of franking credits. Overall, our findings support the dynamic dividend clientele hypothesis.     

Price competition between green and non green products under corporate social responsible firm

This article deals with a newsvendor inventory model in light of green product marketing of corporate social responsible firms. In this model, comparison between green and non green marketing is analyzed including subsidy and tax implementation by Government where the Government offers higher subsidy and lower tax to the green producer unlike the lower subsidy and higher tax to the non green producer. There is also price contest between green and non green producer as the demands of the products are dependent on sales price, carbon emission and corporate social responsibility index. Assuming the cost and profit parameters, an expected profit function of the systems is formulated and maximized analytically. Finally, numerical examples are illustrated to justify the proposed model.     

Genetically modified organisms and the age of (Un) reason? A critical examination of the rhetoric in the GMO public policy debates in Ghana

Using narrative policy analysis we examined the adversarial rhetoric of claims-makers in their bid to undermine alternative and conflicting accounts of GMOs as environmental and human health risk and to forestall any challenges to the scientific authority of the technological deterministic account of the GMO policy debates in Ghana. The study shows that the GMO discourse was built with the rhetorical frames of smallholder farmer vulnerability and entitlement used in the account it contradicts, thereby legitimating its own appeal for responsive remedies. Civil society claims attacked GMOs as discriminatory and as an environmental and human health risk. Government and scientists engaged in unsympathetic counter rhetorical strategies in hopes of debunking or neutralizing the claim made by civil society. In other words, Government and scientists were denying the claim that GMO was discriminatory and posed significant human health risk, as well as the call to action to do something about GMOs. Civil society adapted the counter rhetoric of insincerity, claiming that scientists had some kind of “hidden agenda” behind their claim, such as eagerness to just earn money from their patents on GMOs. It is imperative that communication on GMOs includes the underlying assumptions, the uncertainties and the probabilities associated with both best and worst case scenarios. This is a necessary condition to minimise misinformation on GMOs but may be insufficient to completely erase conspiracy theories from the minds of the public especially when scientists and government are perceived to be biased towards multinational corporations that are ostensibly preoccupied with making profits.     

Liquidity risk and policy options

On the basis of a liquidity management model, liquidity risks, defined as the probability of payment failures in a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) payment system, may either stem from liquidity management inefficiencies or insufficient cash balances. I will show that penalties charged on the amount of payment failures minimise liquidity risks without interfering with the bank’s technology preferences. I will instead show that liquidity requirements, although as effective as penalties to contain the risk of liquidity shortage, may distort the bank’s technology preferences and cannot stem liquidity management inefficiencies. I will also show that liquidity risks within RTGS payment systems are potentially smaller because they depend more on the liquidity management efficiency than on the randomness of cash inflows and outflows.     

Climate-change lore and its implications for climate science: Post-science deliberations?

Using of the results of survey questionnaires distributed to climate scientists who focus on the German Baltic coast, regional political decision makers on the German Baltic coast and weather observations from the same region, this paper assesses the existence of developing climate-change lore and the implications for the role of climate science in the science–policy interface. The Oxford Dictionary (1993) provides one definition of lore as ‘A doctrine, a precept; a creed, a religion.’ This is the definition adopted for this paper. The paper concludes that the discrepancies among weather observations, scientific assessments and decision makers’ perceptions suggest that climate-change lore exists, or is coming into existence. The paper then discusses the implications for the science–policy interface and suggests that given current trajectories, science could come to play a secondary role to climate-change lore in regional political decision making concerning climate change. To the truth-to-power model of the science–policy interface and the tenets of post-normal science, three additional possibly evolving science–policy configurations (as pertaining to the climate change issue) are offered.     

基于银行流动性管理视角的宏观审慎与货币政策协调研究

本文从商业银行流动性管理视角出发,探究银行微观主体行为如何影响宏观审慎与货币政策的协调。我们借鉴净稳定资金比例的设计理念,将商业银行的流动性管理行为纳入传统理论模型,刻画出两种流动性管理行为对货币政策信贷传导渠道效率的潜在影响及传导路径。在此基础上,采用我国50家商业银行2012年第1季度—2018年第2季度面板数据进行实证检验。我们发现,银行为提升长期流动性水平而进行的优化信贷资产结构的行为,能够显著提高货币政策传导效率。但是,部分净稳定资金比例较低的股份制银行和城市商业银行调整非信贷资产结构的行为则有可能降低货币政策传导效率。因此,在执行既有流动性监管措施的同时,关注与引导银行资产结构调整方式,对增强宏观审慎与货币政策的协调大有裨益。     

Drivers of adoption of agroecological practices for winegrowers and influence from policies in the province of Trento,Italy

Many agricultural practices are negatively impacting the environment and threatening the ecological foundations of the global food system. Therefore, agroecological practices are being proposed as viable and desirable alternatives. Biophysical, economic, social, and political factors, matched with farmers’ psychological attributes, may all be governing the choice of agricultural practices. Public policies can play a significant role as they can stimulate the adoption of innovative farming practices. The main objective of this research was the evaluation of farmers’ motivations for the adoption of agroecological practices in the viticulture sector in the province of Trento, Italy. A specific focus was laid on the influences from the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) measures. For the evaluation of farmers’ perceptions of their systems of practices, the Cognitive Mapping Approach for Analysing Actors’ Systems Of Practices (CMASOP) was applied. Based on information collected during in-depth interviews, Individual and Social Cognitive Maps were generated, representing the most frequently adopted agroecological practices and the major drivers of adoption of such practices, as mentioned by farmers. Drivers of adoption were categorized according to the self-determination theory of human motivations. Farmers reported that adoption of agroecological practices was mainly driven by existence of site-specific pedoclimatic conditions, followed with decreasing importance by requirements from wineries, availability of material, appreciation for aesthetics, health concerns, influence from irrigation consortia, and legal requirements, among which a local legislation for integrated pest management based on a CAP measure. Overall, results show that farmers reported to adopt agroecological practices mainly because of autonomous choices rather than coercion. Therefore, wineries and local policy-makers might incentivize the adoption of agroecological practices by promoting autonomy-supportive policies that foster farmers’ identified and intrinsic motivations.     

How important is fiscal policy cooperation in a currency union?

By constructing a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, which assumes a currency union consisting of two countries with nontradables, we study the importance of fiscal policy cooperation. As shown in the previous studies, we find that the role of fiscal policy is important in maximizing social welfare. However, we have a contrary result for fiscal policy cooperation. While the previous studies highlight that fiscal policy cooperation has a nontrivial effect in maximizing social welfare, we show that fiscal policy cooperation has no benefits, regardless of the share of nontradables. Self-oriented fiscal policy can replicate social welfare under the cooperative setting.