Comparing Regulations to Protect the Commons: An Experimental Investigation

In a laboratory experiment we test three regulations imposed on a common-pool resource game with heterogeneous users: an access fee and subsidy scheme, transferable quotas and non-transferable quotas. We calibrate the game so that all regulations improve users’ profits compared to free-access extraction. We compare the regulations according to five criteria: resource preservation, individual profits, profit difference, Pareto-improvement from free-access and sorting of the most efficient users. One of the main findings is that, even though it performs better in sorting out the most efficient subjects, the fee and subsidy scheme is not more profitable than tradable quotas.     

Fishing Technology and Optimal Distribution of Harvest Rates

This paper examines the problem of the optimal management of a joint-ownership fishing exploitation, where agents use different fishing gears. We consider a model in which the fishing activity may affect resource growth, not only through the harvest function but also through the natural growth rate of the resource. This allows us to capture the fact that some fishing gears alter the natural growth rate of the resource. We find that when the natural growth of the resource is altered by the fishing technology, the optimal stock is not independent of how harvest quotas are distribute among the agents. As a result, a fishing policy that firstly determines the optimum stock and, secondly, decides how to distribute the harvest among the different agents, will not be efficient. We also analyze the joint determination of optimal stock and harvest quotas and show that positive harvest quotas will only be optimal when countries are characterized by certain asymmetries.     

Generating Enhanced Fishery Rents by Internalizing Product Quality Characteristics

This paper demonstrates howadditional rents are generated in a fisherycharacterized by intraseasonal variation infish characteristics, including size,condition, and composition. Based on anexpanded conceptual model of the optimalharvest rule, fish characteristics affect preand post harvest production yields and outputprices. A dynamic empirical model, which uses asystem of quality characteristics and anhedonic equation, illustrates the complexrelationships and management choices associatedwith internalizing seafood qualitycharacteristics in a hake fishery. The modelretains the regulated open access managementsystem, but controls intertemporal andintersectoral quotas, production portfolios,and total allowable catch. Results demonstratethat including revenue-side effects frominternalizing fish quality can generatesignificantly greater rents and reduce therelative benefits of increased productionyields. If excluded, bioeconomic models canunderestimate the level of regulatory rentdissipation and overemphasize managementobjectives such as full utilization, whichcould misdirect processing decisions and resultin a suboptimal resource management plan.Implications for data collection,multidisciplinary analysis, and improvements inmarine resource management are discussed.     

Efficient Environmental Policy with Imperfect Compliance

Discussions of efficient environmental policytend to recommend taxes rather than quotas ongrounds of efficiency; a uniform tax willequalize marginal abatement cost betweenpolluters. When polluters' actions are imperfectly observable, the distinction betweentaxes and quotas becomes less clear. Taxes maybe evaded by underreporting of emissions, whilequota violations will not always be discovered.This paper explores the conditions under whichthe efficiency properties of taxes continue tohold even when evasion is possible, and theextent to which the fine for quota violationsplays the same role as a tax on emissions withsimilar efficiency properties.     

Resource extraction by cartels facing constraints on cooperation

This paper considers a non-renewable resource cartel facing constraints on cooperation. Although different kinds of constraints are conceivable and some of them are also investigated, the analysis focuses on the case in which cooperation is restricted to sufficiently high quotas. This approach of imposing constraints on cartelization complements papers that assume exogenously when a monopoly ends (in particular Benchekroun, H., Gaudet, G., Van Long, N., 2006. Temporary natural resource cartels. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 52, 663–674) in two aspects: an endogenous determination when the cartel breaks up and the consequence that it is impossible to shift resource sales between the two regimes.     

The Welfare and Resouce Allocation Implications of the U.S.Dairy Quotas

This paper examine the welfare and resource allocation implications of the U.S. dairy quotas. A computable general equilibrium model detailing five dairy sectors and nine aggregate sectors is calibrated to a 1989 benchmark of the U.S economy. The model is used to simulate the removal of the U.S.dairy quotas both the with and without a first-best subsidy to maintain a dairy farm output objective. Welfare, production, trade, and employment results are provided. The welfare cost of the U.S dairy quotas ranges from $0.7 to $1.0 billion. The first-best subsidy ranges from $2.0 to $2.3 billion or approximately $1.4 million per full-time equivalent job maintained in the dairy farm sector [F13, Q17]     

The allocation of PhD enrolment quotas in China’s research-oriented universities based on equity and efficiency principles

PhD enrolment quota allocation proves the key concern for China’s universities to promote institutional reform and improve research level, and it is often characterized by the zero sum game among schools within a university. Therefore, this article develops a new indicator system for PhD enrolment quota allocation and efficiency evaluation in China, and then it reallocates the quotas considering the preferences of decision-makers and the efficiency based on the historical data during 2011–2015 in a research-oriented university in China. The results indicate that, first, the preferences of decision-makers in the university for article publications and research funds may significantly affect the allocation of PhD enrolment quotas among schools. Second, when the linear combination weighting method is used, the overall efficiency for PhD enrolment allocation proves the highest, among various weighting methods concerned. Finally, to improve the overall efficiency of the 19 schools, five social science schools and four engineering schools have to cut their PhD enrolment quotas; among them, three engineering schools should reduce the largest redundant quotas sharply. The methods and results in this article are conducive to the allocation of education resources which have the zero sum feature and are often accompanied with undesirable outputs.     

The effect of subsistence on collapse and institutional adaptation in population–resource societies

We extend the Brander–Taylor model of population and resource development in an isolated society by adding a resource subsistence requirement to people's preferences. This improves plausibility; amplifies population overshoot and collapse, and can destabilize the steady state; and allows for complete cessation of non-harvesting activities, in line with archaeological evidence for many societies. We then use bifurcation techniques to give a global analysis of four types of institutional adaptation: an ad valorem resource tax, and quotas on total resource harvest, total harvest effort and per capita effort. In all cases, we find that a higher subsistence requirement makes it harder, or often impossible, for adaptation to avoid overshoot and collapse.     

On the social efficiency of conflict

In sharp contrast with the economic literature on conflict, this paper shows that confrontation may be efficiency enhancing. Conditions are derived under which a contest over the exclusive control of a resource Pareto dominates peaceful access.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL TRAINING AND EARNINGS PREMIUMS IN TAIWAN

Abstract

International capital mobility and economic restructuring have brought training and skills acquisition to the forefront of policy dialogues. Taiwan has gone beyond most countries in promoting vocational education and setting strict quotas for schooling. Although the education plans do not have separate targets for men and women, they have gendered outcomes. Estimates of earnings premiums using ordinary least squares and quantile regression techniques indicate that only men have gained consistently higher premiums from vocational school compared to general schooling. Women who were denied access to the university system have forgone college premiums that exceed those of men. Also, the commerce track, in which women cluster, yields an earnings penalty compared to general schooling, while the technical track, in which men predominate, yields an earnings premium. Policy reforms based on relaxing education quotas and enforcing equal opportunity legislation would provide women with more rewarding education and career options.     

Import sensitive products and perverse tariff‐rate quota liberalization

Abstract This paper shows that a Tariff‐Rate‐Quota's (TRQ) minimum access expansion can perversely trigger domestic price increases. Often, TRQs have prohibitive over‐quota tariffs to mimic import quotas in providing minimum market access. In the WTO's Doha Round, it is likely that countries using TRQs will avoid aggressive tariff reductions if they increase the quota portion of TRQs. We show that when the import price lies between the unit cost of production and the price received by domestic upstream firms, an increase in import quota as a share of domestic production may cause an increase in the domestic retail price.     

Information,optimality and pollution control

A mechanism that provides for the efficient production of public goods suggested recently by Groves-Ledyard is reinterpreted as an efficient emissions' rights market scheme. A generalization of the Groves-Ledyard mechanism which Suchanek has shown to comprise an efficient emissions' quotas scheme is restated and then converted into an efficient emissions' charges scheme. The relationship between these schemes yields the standard duality of optimal emissions' charges and optimal emissions' quotas. This duality result is not as strong as one might believe. As an illustration, two emissions' charges schemes are presented each of which generates the charges dual to the optimal quotas given by the specified optimal emissions' quotas government but which are inefficient in general.     

International Management of North-Sea Herring

North-Sea herring is a transboundary resource,shared by the EU and Norway. The purpose ofthis paper is to investigate how the harvestsor total allowable catch quotas (TACs) for thisspecies should be divided between these twojurisdictions so that both parties aresatisfied. We apply a discrete-timegame-theoretic model in which we show that theEU should be allocated more than half of theTAC even if the EU has higher harvesting costs.This result is due to the distribution patternof the herring, with a larger share of herringlocated in the EU zone. However, we find thataccording to the Nash bargaining solution, thecurrent sharing allocates too large a share tothe EU.     

The Pricing and Management of Walking Tracks in Tasmania

Walking tracks are an important component of the recreational use of Australian national parks. This paper applies economic theory to the issues associated with the management of walking tracks in Tasmania and, by implication, the rest of Australia. An economic model is developed to assess the implications of three policy regimes (pricing, quotas and unrestricted access) for the management of walking tracks. The model is calibrated to approximate (as best as practicable) the most popular of Tasmanian walking tracks, the Overland Track.     

Bioeconomic Analysis and Management

This article discusses bioeconomic analysis and different management strategies in fisheries. It reviews recent developments, which show the need to expand the analysis to multispecies fisheries and management. Significant gains can be made if the interdependencies between species and/or jointness in inputs for many fisheries are identified. Both common property resource management and individual transferable quotas (ITQs) can be fruitful strategies in different settings. The article suggests that there is scope for the development of a multiple use management approach of marine resources. Besides the aim of an efficient use of fish stocks, equal attention should be given to other values from aquatic ecosystems, like ecological services, biodiversity and recreation possibilities.     

Between a cap and a higher price: Modelling the price of dairy quotas under price ceiling legislation

This paper considers various policy alternatives to price ceiling legislation in the market for production quotas in the dairy farming sector in Quebec. I develop a model of farmers’ demand for quotas and estimate a structural parameter that is required for the counterfactual experiments. Using my econometric results and the modelled equilibrium price, I estimate the price of dairy quotas over the period 1993–2011. The counterfactual experiments indicate that the price of quotas could be reduced to the ceiling price through a 4.16% expansion of the aggregate supply of quotas, or through moderate trade liberalization of Canadian dairy products.     

A Distributional Argument for Supply-Side Climate Policies

This paper presents a distributional argument for the use of supply-side climate policies whereby carbon emissions are controlled through (i) depletion quotas or (ii) permanent confiscation of a fraction of the in situ carbon stocks. The modeling considers intertemporal competitive equilibria in the Cobb-Douglas version of the Dasgupta-Heal-Solow-Stiglitz model of capital accumulation and costless resource extraction. It is shown how policies (i) and (ii) preserve the functional distribution of income between capital owners and resource owners, compared to the case where no climate policy is needed, while suggested demand-side policies do not. Such observations are of interest as avoiding functional redistribution may facilitate climate change negotiations. The paper discusses policy implications of the analysis outside the simplified setting of the stylized model.     

Sensitive products in the Doha negotiations: The case of European and Japanese market access

Given the highly concentrated distribution of agricultural protection, allowing in the negotiations too many exceptions through sensitive products puts at risk the objectives of World Trade Organization. This issue is difficult to analyze with the commonly used applied trade models, because they represent trade flows at an aggregate level, while sensitive products are picked at the product level and their protection, under the form of tariff-rate quotas, is contingent on the level of imports. This paper assesses the effect of these exceptions, based on the case of agricultural trade protection in Europe and Japan, two countries where tariff dismantling in the agricultural sector is a particularly sensitive issue. Since agricultural border protection is heterogeneous, we avoid aggregation bias by extending a multi-country computable general equilibrium model to the product level. This allows us to represent trade policies explicitly and to account for their interdependencies. The results suggest that consideration of sensitive products strongly limits the potential gains from a possible agriculture agreement at Doha. Moreover, there is no aggregate trade-off between decreasing tariffs and increasing/opening quotas. To achieve “substantial” market access improvements in the agricultural sector, the objective should be most favored nation tariff reduction.     

Renewable resource and capital with a joy-of-giving resource bequest motive

In this article we ask whether a privately owned natural renewable resource can be conserved and managed efficiently when households have a joy-of-giving resource bequest motive. We model an overlapping generations economy in which firms have access to a CES production technology combining the natural resource, physical capital and labor. Our results shed light on the interplay between the resource bequest motive and the substitutability/complementarity relationship between capital and the natural resource in the determination of the equilibrium propensity to use the resource. The mere existence of the bequest motive does not guarantee that the resource will be conserved in the long run. When the resource is highly substitutable with capital, the equilibrium actually never exhausts the resource stock whatever the intensity of the bequest motive. When the resource is a poor substitute for capital, the equilibrium preserves the resource only if the taste for bequeathing is strong enough. Be the economy in over-accumulation or in under-accumulation of the natural resource, it always increases aggregate consumption to run the stock of capital at a level lower than the efficiency level.     

Immigration Policy,Self‐selection,and the Quality of Immigrants*

This paper investigates the effects of immigration quotas on the average quality of immigrants by developing a human capital migration model where efficiency in migration depends on skills and emigration rates are higher among skilled workers. Studying the joint determination of the domestic level of wages and immigrants' self‐selection, we find a negative relationship between the wage level and the percentage of educated workers among immigrants, which results in a nonstandard downward‐sloping labor supply. In our framework, a higher quota increases the skill mix of immigrants through its negative effect on wages and raises aggregate national income.