环境责任保险在环境保护中的经济优势及依存条件分析

环境责任保险是一种运用现代保险制度解决环境问题的经济政策,在众多的环境保护措施中,环境责任保险凭借自身的经济优势得到了人们越来越多的关注和重视。本文在深入剖析其经济优势的基础上详细阐述了环境责任保险的依存条件,以期推动环境责任保险在我国能够顺利发展,并在环境保护中发挥重要作用。     

The effects of zoning on population and employment density

This article examines zoning's impacts on population and employment density. It develops a model to explore the effects of zoning on the density of residential and nonresidential land use. Drawing on this model, density gradients that incorporate the effects of zoning are estimated for Greensboro, North Carolina. The model is used to simulate the effects of a change in restrictive-use residential zoning. The simulation shows that a 1 percent increase in the level of restrictive-use residential zoning across all neighborhoods in the city is associated with a 0.3 percent increase in gross population density and a 0.1 percent decline in net density (intensity). It suggests that restrictive-use zoning affects both the density and the intensity of residential land use through its effects on the value of residential land.     

投资环保产业的经验之谈

维思资本创始及管理合伙人王刚:环保产业需要技术产业化,需要资本支持 环保产业有两种投资模式,第一种是生产销售获取利润的模式,诸如生产材料、零部件、储能设备等产品卖给下游的客户.这种模式的特点是可以很快地获取收益,几年后就可以去IPO.第二种是投资污水处理厂、垃圾焚烧场、太阳能发电厂等服务性设施,根据处理能力,获取服务费用.这种模式初期投入大,年回报率在8％-10％之间,属于长期性获取收入模式.以上两种模式投资人可以选择适合自己的模式来投资.     

Panama's International Banking Center: The direct employment effects

Despite the political saliency of employment, the growing scholarly literature on financial centers contains only a few cursory estimates of employment in international banking. We use simple methods to calculate the total and marginal direct employment effects of Panama's International Banking Center. The results, which appear reasonable, suggest that international banking activities are not very labor intensive and provide even fewer jobs than many observers infer from the relatively impressive asset amounts involved.     

Quantifying the employment effects of micro-electronics

The paper attempts to quantify some of the compensatory effects on employment which may offset the direct displacement effects of faster technological change. It is argued that technological change will not necessarily increase unemployment levels. There are a number of compensating effects which may reduce and even outweigh any initial displacement effects. The study uses simulation techniques with a detailed model of the UK economy. One conclusion is that, even if the UK does not innovate as fast as its major competitors, a more rapid rate of diffusion of new technology may result in higher employment than would otherwise be the case.     

Overtime reductions: Negligible employment effects

Summary Overtime hours were worked in Germany during the period 1990–1997 primarily by well-qualified blue-collar and white-collar workers. In addition, it is evident that overtime is increasingly being compensated by flexible leisure schedules. The scope for potential employment effects from a reduction of paid overtime is thus constantly decreasing and is much lower than the figures cited by unions in the current discussion. If the regulations to make working time more flexible being discussed in the “Alliance for Jobs’ were to be implemented, this would reinforce the observed trend towards compensation for overtime through leisure, further diminishing the potential employment effects. If the bargaining parties or the legislators would implement a reduction of overtime nonetheless, well-qualified blue-collar and white-collar workers in western Germany will suffer income losses.     

The real effects of bank distress: Evidence from bank bailouts in Germany

How does bank distress impact their customers' probability of default and trade credit availability? We address this question by looking at a unique sample of German firms from 2000 to 2011. We follow their firm-bank relationships through times of distress and crisis, featuring the different transmission of bank distress shocks into already weakened firm balance sheets. We find that a distressed bank bailout, which is subject to restructuring and deleveraging conditions, leads to a bank-induced increase of firms' probabilities of default. Moreover, bailouts tend to reduce trade credit availability and ultimately firms' sales. We further find that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends on firm quality and the relationship orientation of banks.     

Pricing effects when competitors arrive: The case of discount certificates in Germany

This article investigates how overpricing of outstanding certificates, also called master certificates, changes when competing products that duplicate the features of master certificates are issued. I argue that competition effects may be reverted and overpricing may increase rather than decrease after competitors arrive, when retail investors fail to detect implications of credit risk differences on certificates’ values. Using difference-in-differences estimations on matched samples, I find that overpricing of master certificates decreases after the competing products have been issued, but only when the master issuer’s credit risk is lower than that of the duplicate issuer, while it increases when the credit risk difference is positive. These findings are robust to controlling for retail investors’ demand in various ways. Thus, the study indicates that retail investors’ failure to detect the value implications of issuers’ credit risk can undermine product competition.     

Expiration day effects of stock index derivatives in Germany

There is a significant increase in trading volume on quarterly futures expiration days in Germany. Delays in the opening for the majority of index stocks indicate that a large part of this extraordinary volume is indeed traded right at the opening of the market. an increase in trading activity is also observed over the 10-minute settlement period for index options. Volatility remains unchanged around the expiration of a futures contract. an increase is found for the 10-minute settlement period of DAX options. Return reversals as the measure for the economic costs of contract expirations are significantly higher when a futures contract expires at the open. When an option expires at the close no clear pattern for reversals can be found.     

The effects of environmental liability on industrial real estate development

The paper explores the effects of current liability law on real estate transactions involving properties with potential environmental contamination. Sources of uncertainty and their likely impact on transactions are identified. Liability-driven market distortions are likely to be due less to legal uncertainty than to problems arising from asymmetric information and imperfect detection.     

The inherent biases in environmental research and their effects on public policy

Three types of bias: personal, institutional, and socio-cultural, will be examined together with their effects on public policy. Personal bias exists whenever a scientist, instead of being solely motivated by the search for empirical truth, tries to gain a personal benefit or advantage from research results or is unduly influenced by ideological commitments. Institutional bias occurs because “every institution directs its activities to the perpetuation of its own power and to a narrow range of objectives and missions” (Barbour IG, Technology, environment, and human values. New York: Praeger, 1980). Socio-cultural bias in Western industrialized society is reflected by the fact that most research is narrowly focused only on the mechanistic understanding of natural phenomena, a bias which arose from the discovery that mechanistic knowledge enhances the ‘control’ and exploitation of nature.Based on a detailed analysis of each kind of bias, it will be shown that self-interest, whether that of an individual scientist, a funding institution, or an entire society, is the primary cause of bias in environmental research. In general, the greater the stakes, the greater the distortion of objectivity, and the greater the likelihood that environmental policies are biased in favor of the entity that is afflicted by the excessive self-interest. Finally, a number of recommendations are given on how to minimize each type of bias and thereby maximize the effectiveness of environmental policies.     

Consumer durables and risky borrowing: The effects of bankruptcy protection

There exist substantial differences in the generosity of bankruptcy protection across U.S. states. This paper exploits cross-state variation in exemption levels to assess the dual role of durable goods as informal collateral for unsecured debt and self-insurance against bad shocks to earnings. The generosity of bankruptcy protection is found to change both the incentives and the ability of households to accumulate durable wealth. The gains from a high level of insurance are reduced by the effect of tighter credit constraints, so that the net effects of a change in exemption are very small. A more generous bankruptcy regulation reduces net durable wealth in the first half of the life cycle. In addition, the optimal level of exemption is positive but low.     

Britain and Brexit: A forecast of the future of employment protection during corporate insolvency

Brexit has produced a lot of uncertainties in the UK, not the least of which are the future of protections that have been derived from EU social policy Directives. Arguably, the UK's membership in the EU has pushed it further into a socially liberal and protective framework that it might not have adopted had it remained outside of the EU's sphere of influence. The question now is what direction the UK will take with regard to both the rescue culture and the social protections, both of which have been highly influenced by EU law and policy. The UK has ever been the “odd man out” in the EU, springing as it does from a significantly different legal origin than the Franco/German model at the heart of the EU. Examining the developmental path of other common law jurisdictions (America, Canada, and Australia) whose legal systems are derived from the British may be instructive in relation to the direction the UK might have taken had it not joined the EU, with a particular focus on the employment protections derived from the EU which are often applicable during insolvency and rescue procedures. An analysis of this counterfactual position may then also provide a clue or forecast as to the direction that the UK may take following Brexit.