External balance,dynamic efficiency,and the welfare effects of unilateral and multilateral permit policies in interdependent economies

This paper investigates domestic and foreign welfare effects of unilateral and multilateral permit policies in a two-country overlapping generations model with producer carbon emissions. We show that the welfare effects of a more stringent cap on emissions depend on the external balance of the policy implementing country, the dynamic (in)efficiency of the world economy, and the preference for environmental quality. Under dynamic efficiency, the global welfare loss of policy implementation in a net foreign creditor country is lower than of a policy in the net foreign debtor country. Moreover, although the country which has unilaterally implemented a permit policy would gain from a multilateral policy, the associated welfare loss for the other country is larger than that of a unilateral policy abroad.     

构建中国低碳产业集群区域创新系统的研究

面对日益严重的全球环境问题,推动低碳产业集群的建设已经成为可持续的必然要求,集群内区域创新系统的构建至关重要。结合国内外最新发展趋势构建低碳产业集群的区域创新系统,它主要包括技术创新子系统、服务创新子系统和环境创新子系统构成。在此基础上,提出优化调整产业结构、完善促进集群创新机制、扶持引导集群核心企业、培育净化区域文化环境等支撑政策,以期进一步推动中国低碳产业集群的发展,实现节能减排的目标。     

The impact of carbon cap and trade regulation on congested electricity market equilibrium

Greenhouse gas regulation aimed at limiting the carbon emissions from the electric power industry will affect system operations and market outcomes. The impact and the efficacy of the regulatory policy depend on interactions of demand elasticity, transmission network, market structure, and strategic behavior of generators. This paper develops an equilibrium model of an oligopoly electricity market in conjunction with a cap-and-trade policy to study such interactions. We study their potential impacts on market and environmental outcomes which are demonstrated through a small network test case and a reduced WECC 225-bus model with a detailed representation of the California market. The results show that market structure and congestion can have a significant impact on the market performance and the environmental outcomes of the regulation while the interactions of such factors can lead to unintended consequences.     

Environmental Protection for Sale: Strategic Green Industrial Policy and Climate Finance

Industrial policy has long been criticized as subject to protectionist interests; accordingly, subsidies to domestic producers face disciplines under World Trade Organization agreements, without exceptions for environmental purposes. Now green industrial policy is gaining popularity as governments search for low-carbon solutions that also provide jobs at home. The strategic trade literature has largely ignored the issue of market failures related to green goods. I consider the market for a new environmental good (like low-carbon technology) whose downstream consumption provides external benefits (like reduced emissions). Governments may have some preference for supporting domestic production, such as by interest-group lobbying, introducing a political distortion in their objective function. I examine the national incentives and global rationales for offering production (upstream) and deployment (downstream) subsidies in producer countries, allowing that some of the downstream market may lie in nonregulating third-party countries. Restraints on upstream subsidies erode global welfare when environmental externalities are large enough relative to political distortions. Climate finance is an effective alternative if political distortions are large and governments do not undervalue carbon costs. Numerical simulations of the case of renewable energy indicate that a modest social cost of carbon can imply benefits from allowing upstream subsidies.     

排污权交易政策对企业环保行为的传导机制研究

从企业的目标函数和生产函数两个角度出发,分析了排污权交易政策对企业环保行为的影响机理,并讨论了排污权交易政策下企业的环保行为选择。研究发现：排污权交易政策通过影响企业的资本要素分配,从而影响企业环境资源的使用成本,进而影响企业的生产和环保行为决策;在排污权交易政策的作用下,企业主要采取不同的污染治理投资策略来满足该政策的规制。基于此,政府应制定配套政策和措施,引导企业沿着“政策遵从—环保投资策略—新环保技术采纳”的行为选择路径进行行为决策,以实现排污权交易政策的目标。     

Location decisions of a polluting firm and the time consistency of environmental policy

This paper considers location decisions of a monopolist, who faces a tax on its emissions in the home country, under ex post that is, time consistent, and ex ante, that is precommitment, environmental policies. We show that the monopolist will relocate more often under ex post optimal emission taxes. A government which cannot commit to an ex ante emission tax and sets its tax ex post after abatement effort has been chosen, is unable to affect the monopolist’s location decision, because it cannot commit to strategically reduce its tax level in the first stage. Domestic welfare is often higher under ex post emission taxes whenever the monopolist relocates under both policy regimes. Otherwise, welfare is higher under government commitment to an ex ante emission tax level. Thus, government commitment to a policy is not always welfare improving.     

The role of public infrastructure and subsidies for firm location and international outsourcing

This paper presents a model in which final goods producers outsource intermediate input production. Intermediate inputs are differentiated and their production can be located at home or abroad. The model is used to examine competitive location policy in a (two-country) free trade area (FTA). It is shown that national public infrastructure investment has a positive effect on both the number of intermediate input producers and the return to the immobile factor in the home country. International outsourcing from home declines. Opposite effects are triggered in the partner country. In a welfare analysis we characterize national infrastructure policies that aim to maximize national income (net of tax costs) and compare the non-cooperative FTA-equilibrium with optimal policies from an integrated point of view. We show whether or not there is a need for policy coordination. Firm subsidies are discussed as an alternative to public infrastructure investment.     

地区工业废气排放负担的差异及对策研究

工业废气的排放是造成大气污染和环境污染的重要原因,对各地区的气体污染物排放负担、工业生产贡献进行比较和模型分析,可以更加清晰地看出各地区气体污染物的负担差异,这种差异主要是由于各地区工业发展水平、产业结构及环境政策的差异造成的,据此,从提升清洁技术、调整产业结构、污染治理和污染源管理等方面,提出更为有效的环境保护政策与措施,更好地促进经济与环境和谐发展。     

The Effects of Emission Permits on Growth and the Environment

We develop an overlapping generations model of growth and the environment in which industrial firms produce environmentally harmful emissions. A government controls the emissions by assigning emission quotas to firms, and permits could be issued and freely traded as financial instruments across firms on the basis of the quotas. We show that an environmental policy that decreases an aggregate number of emission quotas could degenerate economic growth and lower environmental quality in the long run. We also show the implications of this result for environmental policy.     

Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy

A theoretical, representative‐agent economy with a depletable resource stock, polluting emissions and productive capital is used to contrast environmental policy, which internalises externalised environmental values, with sustainability policy, which achieves some form of intergenerational equity. The obvious environmental policy comprises an emissions tax and a resource stock subsidy, each equal to the respective external cost or benefit. Sustainability policy comprises an incentive affecting the choice between consumption and investment, and can be a consumption tax, capital subsidy or investment subsidy, or a combination thereof. Environmental policy can reduce the strength of the sustainability policy needed. More specialised results are derived in a small open economy with no environmental effects on utility.     

Economic instruments and the environmental accounts

The Nordic countries have now had experience with environmental taxes and subsidies as a major component of their environmental policy over an extensive period of time. The Swedish System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) include environmental taxes and subsidies as part of the official statistics. This article presents the accounts for taxes and subsidies, linked to the accounts for emissions data by industry. It demonstrates disparities between emissions and environmental taxes, as well as where industries or environmental problems are not regulated. The data show that in Sweden economic instruments are always aimed at particular actors or areas, and are never quite as comprehensive as recommended by economic theory. The environmental taxes are primarily aimed at fossil fuel use and related emissions, and have been mostly applied to the household sector and services sector, while industry often has been given exemptions due to concerns about international competition. The environmentally motivated subsidies are mainly directed to agriculture, fishing and research on renewable resources. A fully developed international data set on taxes and subsidies would provide a sound base for comparing the impact on international competitiveness. Eurostat is promoting the use of environmental accounts data for its member countries by harmonizing methods and engaging in publication of international comparisons.     

Liability Structure and Carbon Emissions Abatement: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises

As it is known that the linkage between financial performance and environmental performance of enterprises has not obtained conclusive results, and the role of liability and its structure have not been considered yet. In view of these gaps, this paper employed the data of Chinese manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2011, to examine the impact of liability structure on enterprises’ carbon emissions abatement. The results manifest that both the relative and absolute proportions of long-term liabilities have a significant negative effect on the level value and growth rate of enterprise carbon emissions in China. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that enterprises in high energy consumption group have higher total carbon emissions and growth rate compared with enterprises in low and middle energy consumption groups. For enterprises of different ownership, the level of private-owned enterprises is higher and the growth rate is lower. The findings imply that policy makers should not adopt a one-size-fits-all policies to reduce firm carbon emissions.

     

中国经济增长与环境污染关系的研究——基于环境库兹涅茨曲线的实证分析

基于环境库兹涅茨曲线理论的面板数据分析模型,并考虑了人口密度、环保政策、贸易开放度、技术进步、产业结构在内的其他因素对SO2排放量的影响,选取全国30个省、自治区、直辖市2004—2011年这8年的面板数据,对我国经济增长与环境污染指标SO2排放量之间的关系进行了实证研究。研究结果表明,与倒U型的环境库兹涅茨曲线不同,我国人均GDP与人均SO2排放量存在倒N型关系。并结合控制变量对环境作用的正负效应提出了有助于降低SO2排放量、改善环境质量的针对性的政策建议。     

Absentee Ownership of Immobile Factors and Environmental Policies in a Federation

This paper studies the effects of absentee ownership of immobile factors on environmental policy of a jurisdiction in a federation. An increase in emissions in a jurisdiction increases factor incomes, but part of the increased factor incomes goes to absentee owners while only the residents of the jurisdiction bear the full disutility. In addition, the increase in emissions in a jurisdiction attracts capital and decreases capital in other jurisdictions, reducing the incomes that the residents of the jurisdiction earn from owning immobile factors in other jurisdictions. Absentee ownership thus reduces the marginal benefit of an increase in emissions while it leaves the marginal cost unaffected from the jurisdiction’s perspective. As a consequence, absentee ownership makes environmental policy of a jurisdiction too stringent relative to the efficient level. The paper also considers the effects of absentee ownership on environmental policy when goods trade is allowed.     

Alternative standards and instruments for air pollution control in Poland

Like other Central European countries, Poland faces the twin challenges of improving environmental quality while also fostering sustainable economic development. In this study we examine the costs of different standards for air pollution control, and the cost savings from using incentive-based policy instruments in lieu of more rigid command-and-control policies. The comparisons are based on the results of a simulation model of energy use and air pollution control for the Polish economy over 1990–2015. The model simulates least-cost energy supply decisions under different environmental policy assumptions, the corresponding emissions, and the cost of achieving the specified policy objectives. The model results suggest that incentive-based policies will have efficiency gains over command policies that are at least worthy of consideration and may be quite substantial. The size of the gains in practice depends in part on how much flexibility is built into the command approach, e.g., capacity for intrafirm trading as well as alack of technology-specific requirements. To achieve these gains, an increase in the current levels of emissions fees is desirable both to strengthen abatement incentives and to improve the capacity of the Polish government to overcome past environmental damages. However, it seems highly unlikely in practice that fees could be raised to the levels necessary to meet current Polish emissions standards. To make further headway, an evolutionary approach to emissions trading patterned after (and profiting from the experience with) emissions trading in the U.S. seems useful. The program could start out relatively modestly and increase in ambitiousness as the Polish economic transition proceeds.     

生育政策调整是否会影响我国“碳达峰”目标的实现?——基于STIRPAT和Leslie模型的实证研究

以中国人口生育政策调整为研究背景,基于STIRPAT模型和Leslie模型综合考察中国人口生育政策调整可能对实现“我国二氧化碳排放力争2030年前达到峰值”目标所带来的影响。结果表明,除了经济发展水平、能源技术水平、能源消费结构等因素外,人口年龄结构对人均碳排放也具有显著影响。在论文设置的四种生育率情景下,人口总量峰值分别出现在2025年、2027年、2031年和2027年。若生育政策调整能够有效提高社会总和生育率,人口规模和人口年龄结构的变化会使碳排放总量峰值推后出现。因此,中国逐步放宽的人口生育政策可能会给实现碳达峰目标带来一定压力。     

Examining the influencing factors of CO2 emissions at city level via panel quantile regression: evidence from 102 Chinese cities

Ascertaining the influencing factors of carbon dioxide emissions in Chinese cities is an important issue for policy-makers. This paper investigates the effect of several determinants on carbon emissions per capita in Chinese cities. Non-normally distributed and heterogeneous features of carbon emissions per capita in Chinese cities are considerably important. The empirical results demonstrate that GDP per capita has an increasingly positive impact on carbon emissions per capita due to the growth in household consumption. Urbanization has a slightly decreasing positive effect on carbon emissions per capita with a quantile increase resulting from continuous highway construction. Industrialization has a decreasing positive effect with carbon emission per capita quantile increases because of increasing energy efficiency and lower costs related to carbon reductions. The population has a decreasing negative effect on carbon emissions because of people’s increasing demand for environmental safety. The distributions of emissions per capita conditional on the 10th and 90th quantiles of independent variables also vary considerably. Specific policy implications are provided based on these results.     

Optimal policy for environmental goods trade in asymmetric oligopolistic eco-industries

In this paper, we examine the optimal structure of an environmental tax to pollution, a production subsidy to a domestic eco-industry, and an import tariff on environmental goods (EGs) in a two-country model where the home country imports EGs from the foreign country. Home and foreign firms that produce EGs engage in Cournot competition. We then assume that the number of the home local firms which produce EGs is constant, but that of the foreign firms is variable. Our main findings are as follows: (I) The optimal environmental tax level may be lower than the Pigouvian level even if the tax has a positive impact on the output of EGs produced by a domestic firm. (II) The optimal tariff level may be positive when the country implements the first best policy combination in a closed economy regarding the environmental tax and the subsidy. (III) The optimal subsidy level may be positive, and then the subsidy may be substitutive for the import tariff on EGs.     

中国产业结构变动的碳排放效应分析——基于省际数据的实证研究

在碳排放模型框架内，利用测算的全国省际二氧化碳排放数据，通过设定多种模型形式考察了各种因素特别是产业结构变动对二氧化碳排放产生的影响。分析结果表明，产业结构的工业化进程直接加剧了二氧化碳的排放，产业结构变化是中国碳排放增长的重要驱动因素之一，其影响程度较大；同时，FDI环境效应的合力是负面的，贸易并非国际碳污染转移的主要渠道。     

Capital-accumulation games under environmental regulation and duopolistic competition

In a differential game between two symmetric firms, provided with a clean and a dirty production activity, it is analyzed how investment and emissions are affected by environmental regulation. If both firms face the same environmental policy, a stricter policy reduces long-run investment in the dirty activity, while the impact on the clean activity is ambiguous. Both long-run emissions of each firm and total emissions decrease. This result does not necessarily hold if both firms face different policy instruments: Each firm's investment levels increase with a stricter environmental policy towards its rival, which causes more emissions by this firm.