USING OXYGENATED FUELS TO MITIGATE CARBON MONOXIDE AIR POLLUTION: THE CASE OF DENVER

Using alternative fuels to reduce air pollution has received considerable interest lately. Recently, the Denver metropolitan area initiated a program requiring the use of oxygenated fuels so as to reduce carbon monoxide air pollution. This paper documents the environmental and economic impacts of the first year of the Denver program. In addition, it compares the costs of using oxygenated fuels with those of other policies that could be implemented so as to reduce carbon monoxide air pollution.     

Inefficient Local Regulation of Local Externalities

The consequences of commitment failure have been missing from debates about the decentralized regulation of automobile emissions and other sources of local consumption externalities. Even when the direct external effects of such products are limited to a single jurisdiction, the presence of increasing returns‐to‐scale production causes one jurisdiction's choice of regulatory standard to affect the prices and availability of goods elsewhere. Decentralized regulatory equilibria may be inefficient as a result. Because of a commitment failure, production may be split between standards—and consumers denied the full range of products—when it is efficient to have standards that allow products to be consumed everywhere. Coordination failures may cause similar inefficiencies. The results question the usefulness of the principle of subsidiarity as commonly employed.     

Household Optimism and Overborrowing

We use Finnish household‐level data from 1994 to 2013 to measure how often and what kind of forecast errors households make and how the errors are linked to the households' borrowing behavior and overindebtedness. We find that those households that make the largest optimistic forecast errors have greater debt‐to‐income ratios. They also are more likely to report that they suffer from excessive debt loads and have problems in coping with their bills. There are no such systematic effects for the households that make pessimistic forecast errors.     

基于城市层面的中国电动汽车分时租赁商业模式创新研究

新能源汽车产业作为解决环境问题和能源危机的有效手段,在全球和中国都得到了快速 发展。中国的电动汽车不仅销量增长迅速,而且商业模式领域也取得较多的创新。其中,基于“互 联网 +”思维下的电动汽车分时租赁模式更是获得了较多的公众关注。文章从城市层面分时租赁 商业模式入手,以政策、技术和产品为分析要素,对中国电动汽车分时租赁市场——起步阶段和 快速发展阶段的商业模式特点进行了深入剖析。文章进一步从运营城市、运营车型、取还方式、 收费模式和运营效果 5 个方面对不同阶段中国电动汽车分时租赁商业模式创新特点进行了研究, 并选取了北京车纷享、杭州微公交、上海 EVCARD、重庆盼达四个分时租赁商业模式作为城市案 例进行剖析。研究认为中国电动汽车分时租赁商业模式将呈现区域运行、相关利益方进一步增加、 技术创新和新产品不断发展以及充电领域与电池技术颠覆式创新的四大发展趋势。