On the rebound: estimating direct rebound effects for Australian households

Reducing dependence on fossil fuels by decreasing energy consumption is a common environmental policy. One mechanism used to achieve this is to encourage increased energy efficiency. However, improving efficiency may have an opposing effect and cause an increase in energy consumption if the intensity of use changes. This phenomenon is known as the rebound effect. We estimate direct rebound effects for energy use in Australia based on both aggregate residential energy use data and on household energy expenditure data. Our approach implements a new methodology developed by Hunt and Ryan (2014, Catching on the rebound: Why price elasticities are generally inappropriate measures of rebound effects. Surrey Energy Economics Discussion Paper Series SEEDS 148; 2015, Energy Economics 50, 273) that explicitly relates energy service use with energy source demand and directly incorporates measures of efficiency changes. The results indicate that the rebound effect is relatively high for energy use by Australian households. Due to the unique nature of our household data set, we can examine the influence of demographic and housing characteristics. We find that low‐income households and households with vulnerable members have the largest rebound effects. The relatively large rebound effects found here suggest that consumers gain from efficiency by improved energy services, and thus, policy targeting energy efficiency is not likely to be successful at reducing energy consumption.     

Beyond symbolic and substantive: Strategic disclosure of corporate environmental information in China

Under increasing regulatory pressure to disclose environmental impacts, corporate environmental information disclosure (EID) is becoming more prevalent. However, the motives for EID and disclosure approaches (i.e., symbolic or substantive) remain controversial. Using a sample of data for 742 listed manufacturing firms in China across 3 years, we provide evidence to show that the level of EID is significantly positively associated with a firm's advertising intensity and that firms in moderately competitive industries have a higher propensity for adopting an EID‐based differentiated strategy than firms in stronger or weaker competitive industries. We also find that firms that are more sensitive to environmental issues strategically understate their environmental impact when directly facing consumers. Our results suggest that the implementation of corporate EID is strategic and that firms have strong market motives, even under regulatory pressure to demonstrate legitimacy. We discuss this study's contributions to research on EID theory and implications for strategic EID management.     

Tax competition,imperfect capital mobility and the gain from non-preferential agreements

The gain to competing governments from entering into binding non-preferential tax agreements (that prevents discriminatory taxation in favor of mobile capital) depends on the extent of capital mobility between jurisdictions. In particular the gain is increasing in the cost of relocation of capital and the fraction of the domestic tax base which is relatively immobile. We show this in a symmetric model of tax competition between two governments where all capital is imperfectly mobile and differ only in their cost of relocation.     

海南省旅游业发展对经济增长的拉动效应研究

[目的]海南当前处于国际旅游岛建设和全面建成小康社会的关键时期,旅游业作为海南省的主导产业对海南经济发展的支撑作用显著增强,在此形势下,分析旅游业发展对海南经济增长的拉动效应,有利于为进一步提升旅游业对海南区域经济发展的影响,促进区域经济发展和经济结构转型,提出科学可行的对策和建议。[方法]文章从时间和空间两个维度,运用旅游业依存度、贡献率和拉动率3个指标,以旅游收入与地区生产总值等统计指标为基础,探讨了海南省旅游业对经济增长的拉动效应。[结果]从时间维度来看,海南省旅游业对地区经济增长的拉动作用进一步加大;从空间维度来看,海南省旅游业的拉动效应并不突出;从市(县)域维度来看,海南省各市(县)旅游业对经济增长拉动效应存在空间差异,东部地区拉动效应持续增长,中部地区增长势头迅猛,北部地区增长缓慢。[结论]不断完善海南旅游基础设施与管理体系;要不断细分和规范旅游产品,提升旅游产品的吸引力和复购率,完善营销及咨询服务体系;注意与其他产业的协调发展,加强与周边省份的交流与合作,省内要因地制宜,挖掘各地旅游业发展特色,推动各市(县)均衡发展,以进一步加强海南省旅游支柱产业的作用,并快速实现区域经济跨越式发展。     

Determinants of the Performance of Investment Promotion Agencies: Evidence from a Mix of Emerging Economies

This article argues whether and how investment promotion agencies (IPAs) efficiently influence investment promotion in the cases of the following selected variables: resources (experience, total staff, and overseas staff), service functions (combined promotion service of inward investment and trade, and inward and outward investment), and organizational structure (autonomous status of private/upper ministry-level IPAs). The results reveal a positive relationship between IPA’s performance and longer experience, larger staff, larger overseas IPA staff members, autonomous private agency types, and upper ministry-level IPAs. However, an IPA’s performance was negatively associated with the combined promotional service of inward investment and trade, and inward and outward investment. The results suggest that an IPA’s performance can be enhanced by adjusting the service functions and restructuring the governance and structure in addition to improving the IPA’s resources and the country’s investment climate.     

Twenty-Five Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: An Empirical Revisit of West German Consumers' Attitudes Toward Products and Brands from Former East Germany

More than 25 years after the German reunification, data show that products/brands from the eastern regions of Germany (“Neue Länder”) still do not have significant shares in the country's western part (“Alte Länder”). To analyze potential reasons for this phenomenon, our current study replicates a previous study that investigated selected attitudes of Alte Länder consumers toward products/brands from the Neue Länder. It is shown that factors such as consumer ethnocentrism, product judgment, willingness to buy, and economic animosity continue to influence consumer behavior and as such our study offers potential explanation for the failure of Neue Länder products/brands in the western regions of Germany.     

Settlement procedures and stock market efficiency

This study examines why most derivatives markets that settle on the day following expiration choose the opening rather than the closing price as the final settlement price (FSP), whereas most markets that settle on the expiration day select an average rather than a single price as the FSP. Four exogenous changes in the Taiwan Futures Exchange settlement procedures provide an experimental basis for studying the settlement procedures’ impact on underlying assets. Greatest market efficiency is observed when the FSP is determined by a single rather than an average price and hypothesize that manipulation is prevented at the expense of market quality.     

Plausible versus implausible tensile price claim: Selective accessibility model approach

Retailers frequently use exaggerated price discount advertisements with a tensile price claim (TPC; e.g., “Save up to 70%”) to attract consumers because they expect that once consumers enter a store, they will purchase low‐ or medium‐discounted products. Drawing on the selective accessibility model, this study investigated the way in which an implausibly high maximum level of savings stated in a TPC influences consumers’ expected price discount (EPD) and perceptions of actual price discounts across different types of TPCs (i.e., TPC stating a maximum level and TPC stating a range of savings). This study also investigated two situations in which consumers have previous knowledge of a product’s price discount versus when they have less or no knowledge of the discount. For both conditions, a single‐anchor TPC (i.e., “Save up to Y%”) that stated an implausible maximum level of savings led to a higher EPD and lower perceptions of the deal (i.e., perceived savings, price fairness, and perceived value) with respect to the actual price discount than did a TPC with a plausible maximum level of savings. In contrast, when the TPC stated two anchors (i.e., “Save X–Y%”) and consumers had knowledge of the price discount, their EPDs assimilated only toward the plausible anchor (X), and ignored the implausibly high maximum price discount (Y), resulting in a lower EPD and higher perceptions of the deal of the actual price discounts than a TPC that stated a plausibly high maximum level of savings. In contrast, when consumers had no knowledge of the price discount, their EPDs only adjusted toward the more plausible anchor (X), regardless of whether they perceived the maximum anchor as plausible or implausible. Thus, there was no difference in consumers’ perceptions of “Save X–Y%” between implausibly and plausibly high Y%.     

河北省产业承接的技术溢出效应研究

京津冀协同发展战略上升为国家战略,河北加快承接京津产业转移的步伐,对河北经济转型升级和科技创新能力提升具有重要意义。以河北省为研究对象,基于2005-2016年的数据,使用DEA的曼奎斯特指数方法测算出河北省十二年的技术进步变化情况,并以此为核心变量建立技术溢出模型实证检验了产业承接的技术溢出效应。研究结果发现,河北存在承接区际产业的技术溢出效应,但FDI的技术溢出效应并不显著;R&D经费投入对河北技术进步的促进作用最为明显,而人力资本投入对技术进步的拉升作用较小。     

中国粮食虚拟水驱动效应与空间联动分析

以中国粮食虚拟水为主要研究对象,运用LMDI指数分解法,对粮食生产用水量的驱动效应进行分解,从结构、粮食产量、经济发展和人口规模4个重点驱动效应方面实行量化研究,并利用geoda软件求得莫兰指数,分析粮食用水量的空间相关性以及其各种驱动效应在省际间的影响,并针对中国粮食生产用水的现状提出建议。