Environmental taxes with heterogeneous consumers: an application to energy consumption in France

This paper constructs a model with four groups of households who have preferences over labor supply, consumption of polluting (energy related) and non-polluting (non-energy) goods, and emissions. It quantifies the model for the French economy and computes its optimal tax equilibria under nine second-best tax regimes. We find that the redistributive role of environmental taxes requires the polluting goods to be taxed at a rate much below their marginal social damage. These goods may even require an outright subsidy if the society values equality ‘a lot’. Secondly, if environmental taxes that have an exclusively externality-correcting role, they benefit all types—although the gains are rather modest. The gains and losses become more substantial when environmental taxes have a redistributive role as well. Third, setting the environmental tax at its Pigouvian level, rather than its optimal externality-correcting-cum-redistributive level, benefits the high-income group at the expense of the low-income groups. Fourth, nonlinear taxation of polluting goods, and nonlinear commodity taxation in general, is a powerful redistributive mechanism. Fifth, introducing environmental taxes in the current French tax system, with its suboptimal income taxes, results in substantial welfare gains for the highest income group and a sizable loss for the least well-off persons.     

Macroeconomic News and Stock Returns in the United States and Germany

Abstract. Using daily data for the January 1997 to June 2002 period, we analyze similarities and differences in the impact of macroeconomic news on stock returns in the United States and Germany. We consider 27 different types of news for the United States and 12 different types of news for Germany. For the United States, we present evidence for asymmetric reactions of stock prices to news. In a boom (recession) period, bad (good) news on GDP growth and unemployment or lower (higher) than expected interest rates may be good news for stock prices. In the period under consideration there is little evidence for asymmetric effects in Germany. However, in the case of Germany, international news appears at least as important as domestic news. There is no evidence that US stock prices are influenced by German news. The analysis of bi-hourly data for Germany confirms these results.     

Protection of diffuse interests in the EEC and the perspective of “progressively establishing” an internal market

Present Community action and law is characterised by a conflict between market integration, protection of diffuse interests, and the rule-of-law principle. Community law first concentrated on negative integration which created and protected traders' freedom of market access and workers' freedom of circulation. By Court practice, these freedoms were developed into a basic right of EEC citizens to move freely within the EEC and to satisfy their demands wherever they wanted. Positive integration tried to establish common protective standards in matters relating to the environment, consumer protection, health care, and equal rights. The Single Act, ratified in 1987, amended the EEC Treaty by the objective of completing the internal market by the end of 1992. These provisions can only to a limited extent be said to have a direct effect. Positive integration has been reinforced by provisions on environmental and health policy. In his concluding remarks, the author insists on the need for an overall expansion of protective standards within the EEC in spite of tendencies towards a mere free trade approach.

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Zusammenfassung Die gegenwärtigen Aktivitäten der Gemeinschaft sowie das europäische Wirtschaftsrecht sind von einer komplexen Spannungslage zwischen Marktintegration, Schutz diffuser Interessen (Umweltschutz, Verbraucherschutz usw.) und rechtsstaatlich-demokratischen Anforderungen beherrscht. Zunächst konzentrierte sich das Gemeinschaftsrecht auf Maßnahmen der sog. Negativintegration, um dem Marktbürger Zugang zu dem Gemeinsamen Markt und Arbeitnehmern Zirkulationsfreiheit zu gewährleisten. Die Praxis des Gerichtshofes der EG hat diese Marktfreiheiten zu grundrechtsähnlichen Gewährleistungen aller Bürger i.S. einer Entscheidungs- und Aufenthaltsfreiheit ausgebaut. Die Positivintegration versuchte, gemeinsame Schutzstandards in den Bereichen Gleichbehandlung, Umwelt, Gesundheit und Verbraucherschutz durch sekundäres Gemeinschaftsrecht zu schaffen. Die 1987 ratifizierte Einheitliche Europäische Akte hat das Ziel der Gemeinschaft festgeschrieben, bis Ende 1992 den Binnenmarkt als Raum ohne Binnengrenzen zu verwirklichen.Die unmittelbare Wirkung dieser Vorschriften bleibt allerdings fraglich. Die Positivintegration ist durch Kompetenzen im Bereich Umwelt- und Gesundheitsschutz abgesichert worden. In einer Schlußbetrachtung wird auf die Notwendigkeit EG-einheitlicher Schutzstandards ungeachtet des Vorherrschens von Freihandelsvorstellungen hingewiesen.

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Norbert Reich is Professor of Civil Law, Commercial Law and European Legal Policy at the University of Bremen and Managing Director of the Centre for European Legal Policy, Universitätsallee GW 1, D-2800 Bremen 33, FRG.The article is based on a speech at the University of Helsinki on May 20, 1988, and was previously published in the Finnish legal journal Juridiska Föreningens Tidskrift. The author thanks his Finnish colleague Thomas Wilhelmsson, University of Helsinki, for stimulating discussions of previous drafts and for allowing publication in JCP.     

Consumer protection in countries of emerging markets: The example of Russia

The paper aims at a preliminary analysis of the RCPA (Russian Consumer Protection Act of 1992) and the ZoR (Act on Advertising of 1995). Russian consumer legislation develops dynamically. It is hybrid in so far as one certainly cannot neglect its transitory character in an economy of change. It is part of the change and instrument for change of the Russian society and economy in the interest of the consumer. Some solutions appear extremely specific and can only be understood as an attempt to deal with the problems of the day. Others are rather innovative, e.g., a positive approach to consumer protection by giving the consumer certain rights which can be enforced by an agency, consumer associations, or individual consumers; the recognition of the specificity of consumer law; a general information obligation of manufacturers, sellers, and suppliers; a detailed set of remedies in sales law which go beyond the legal traditions of most EC Member States as far as the extent and the persons responsible are concerned; strict liability for defective products and services; compensating the consumer for moral harm; the responsibility for consumer protection and advertising by a state authority with regional offices, namely the SCAP; a group action system tailored to the specific needs of consumer associations. On the other hand, there are certainly some deficits. Suggestions for reform include: The improvement of legislation to better protect the consumer in the pre-contractual phase; reshaping of the legal technique of the acts; creation of a specific liability of importers both in sales and in product liability legislation; elimination or modification of provisions which owe their origin to still existing seller's markets once the Russian economy becomes more competitive; development of specific rules to eliminate abuses in the financial services sector, e.g., rules on disclosure and deception.

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Verbraucherschutz in Ländern mit sich entwickelnder Marktwirtschaft: Das Beispiel Rußland

Zusammenfassung Die Arbeit versucht eine erste Analyse des russischen Verbraucherschutzgesetzes von 1992 (RCPA) sowie des Werbegesetzes von 1995 (ZoR). Das russische Verbraucherrecht entwickelt sich dynamisch. Es ist hybrid angelegt, weil man seine Übergangscharakter in einer sich veränderenden ökonomischen Struktur beachten muß. Es ist Teil und Instrument der Veränderung der russischen Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft im Interesse des Verbrauchers.Einige Lösungen des russischen Verbraucherrechts erscheinen sehr speziell und können nur als Reaktion auf Tagesprobleme angesehen werden. Andere sind durchaus innovativ, etwa ein positiver Beitrag zum Verbraucherschutz durch Schaffung von Verbraucherrechten, die durch eine zentrale Behörde (das Anti-Monopolkommitee — SCAP) mit ihren Regionalverwaltungen, durch lokale Beratungs- und Beschwerdestellen, durch Verbraucherorganisationen und individuelle Verbraucher durchgesetzt werden können. Weiterhin erscheint bemerkenswert: die Anerkennung der Besonderheiten des Verbraucherrechts; eine allgemeine vertragliche Informations-verpflichtung der Anbieter; eine Reihe detaillierte Rechtsbehelfe bei Verletzung von Verbraucherrechten; die verschuldensunabhängige Haftung für fehlerhafte Produkte und Dienstleistungen ohne den Entlastungsbeweis für Entwicklungsfehler; Entschädigung auch für moralische (d.h. nichtwirtschaftliche) Schäden; die Einführung eine Art Verbandsklage bei Kollektivschäden.Auf der anderen Seite gibt es sicherlich eine Reihe von Defiziten in der Gesetzgebung. Reformvorschläge betreffen u.a.: die Verbesserung des Verbraucherschutzes bei der Vertragsanbahnung, da das Werbegesetz im Bereich irreführender Werbung insoweit noch unvollständig ist; die Einführung einer besonderen Haftung von Importeuren sowohl im Kauf- wie im Produkthaftungsrecht; Streichung von Vorschriften aus der Zeit der Existenz der Planwirtschaft mit Verkäufermärkten; Schaffung besonderer Regeln zum Schutz bei Finanzdienstleistungen, insbesondere über Angabepflichten und Täuschungsverbote.

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Norbert Reich is Professor of Civil, Commercial, and EC Law at the University of Bremen, Universitätsallee, D-28359 Bremen 33, Germany.The paper results from the author's contributions during 1994/95 to the TACIS project of the EU on technical assistance to the Russian State Committee for Antimonopoly Policy and Support of New Economic Structures (SCAP). The author owes thanks to the EC Commission for financing the research, to Professor Thierry Bourgoignie who heads the project for his support and permission to publish the results, to the collaborators in SCAP who willingly provided any information that was needed, and to Professor Ol'ga Zimenkova who helped the author to understand some intricacies of Russian law.     

False Discoveries und Fehlinterpretationen wissenschaftlicher Ergebnisse

High-quality science communication to the public depends to a large extent on the way research findings are translated into comprehensible language and common speech. In this communicative process, a reasonable evaluation of the trustworthiness of empirical findings, based on an adequate interpretation of statistical analyses, is absolutely crucial. This paper’s authors argue that the credibility of science is jeopardised by two compromising developments within science itself: on the one hand, an inflation of ostensible empirical evidence related to misuses and misinterpretations of the concept of statistical significance, and, on the other, a sensationalist overvaluation of the results of single studies instead of an adequate representation of the available body of evidence in a given scientific field.     

Do Institutions Matter for Foreign Direct Investment?

Using a panel of 69 countries during 1981 and 2005, we investigate the role of institutions in determining foreign direct investment (FDI). We find that institutions are a robust predictor of FDI and that the most significant institutional aspects are linked to propriety rights. Using a novel data set, we also study the impact of institutions on FDI at the sectoral level. We find that institutions do not have a significant impact on FDI in the primary sector but that institutional quality matters for FDI in manufacturing, and particularly in services.