WATER CONSERVATION PROGRESS IN DENVER

Over the past 15 years, water conservation in Denver has progressed from a radical idea that was ignored and postponed—and even scorned—to an integral part of planning for future water service. This paper documents the progress through a variety of reports, proposals, and critiques. Policies already adopted have reduced projected demand for the year 2010 by 10–15 percent, and future policies could reduce demand by as much again by setting price equal to marginal cost of new water. Adopted policies include metering single-family houses, ascending block rates, offering rebates on 1.6-gallon toilets, improving irrigation in city parks, and reusing some water. Adopting such policies reflects the perseverance and alternative analysis that environmentalists opposed to constructing of the Two Forks Dam have offered over the course of 10 years. Water savings of 25 percent could postpone major new supply projects indefinitely.     

水源保护补偿机制构建

水源保护补偿机制实质上是依托在水源这个客体、借助补偿费这个工具反映经济主体之间水资源产权关系的经济制度.通过分析水源区上级政府、上下游区域政府和上下游公众等多重主体关系表明:在近期,水源区政府是水源保护补偿机制的受偿主体;在水源保护受益主体不明晰的情况下,流域中下游的企业、居民和区域政府均难以成为补偿主体,流域最高政府才是补偿主体.在中长期,政府应推动水资源产权制度改革,由近期的"政府补偿"模式转向中期的"政府补偿和市场补偿"相结合模式,进而转向长期的"市场补偿与社会补偿"相结合模式.     

IMPACT OF PRICING STRUCTURE SELECTIVITY ON URBAN WATER DEMAND

Interest in demand management policies has intensified as residential water demand has grown in the United States. Using data from the 1984 American Water Works Association (AWWA) survey, the study here provides an empirical analysis of the differences in price elasticities of demand across water pricing block structures and examines these structures' "conservation-orientedness." However, a potential sample selection bias exists. That is, in cities where people are more interested in conservation, utility managers may be more likely to select a rate structure that they believe is conservation-oriented–an increasing block structure, for example. Managers' selectivity bias may cause research results either to understate or to overstate a particular block structure's impact on water conservation. The analysis here corrects for this selectivity bias in estimating water demand and tests whether consumers respond to average prices or to marginal prices. Correcting for selectivity bias involves an explicit analysis of the factors that influence utility managers' selection of rate structures. Estimating water demand under increasing and decreasing block structures suggests that sample selection bias remains a problem worthy of further investigation.     

异质性财富偏好和资产定价

Bakshi和Chen(1996)在代表性投资者经济中提出了基于财富偏好的资产定价模型。本文研究了在异质性投资者经济中财富偏好对资产定价的影响。如果风险资产的价格服从几何布朗运动,那么资产市场具有两基金分离现象。本文首先证明了基于风险基金的资产定价模型,然后使用该模型证明了如果定价的基准是单个的投资者的最优消费和财富时,那么基于财富偏好的资产定价模型成立。但是,当定价的基准是总消费和总财富时,基于财富偏好的资产定价模型不能成立。也就是,不能在异质投资者经济中将Breeden(1979)的经典CCAPM模型推广到包含财富偏好的资产定价模型。     

HEDONIC PRICING MODELS FOR VEHICLE REGISTRATION MARKS

Abstract.  This paper attempts to link Chinese numerology to the determination of vehicle registration mark (VRM) prices in Hong Kong through the hedonic pricing analysis. The values of different patterns of the numbers and Roman alphabet letters are examined. We find that there is a very strong preference for the number '8', that visually appealing patterns add great values to a VRM and that the non-transferable VRMs are more expensive than transferable ones. We also show that their prices move in tandem with the Hang Seng Index. The findings suggest that the government can raise revenue by auctioning off intangible assets containing alphanumerical identification marks.     

OPTIONAL REAL-TIME PRICING OF ELECTRICITY FOR INDUSTRIAL FIRMS

Abstract. This paper proposes a pricing mechanism, optional real-time pricing (RTP), with day-ahead hourly prices, that exploits the potential offered by a competitive wholesale power market. When an electric utility offers the option to its industrial customers, the retail prices are based on an existing Hopkinson tariff and expectations as to the wholesale market's next-day hourly spot prices. The proposed RTP mechanism is Pareto-superior to the tariff in that it assures both the utility and the customer of profits that will be at least as great as under the tariff.     

A NOTE ON PRICING OF PRODUCT QUALITY FOR STATUS CONCERNS

The paper analyses the optimal pricing of the product quality scheme when concerns for relative standing exist among consumers. We demonstrate that if the proportion of high‐value consumers is over (respectively, under) 1/2 of the total consumers, a firm has an incentive to select a large (respectively, small) quality gap among products. Therefore, there exists a cut‐off level for status concerns, which eliminates quality differences, and the firm assigns the same quality to all the consumers. These results indicate that consumers’ qualities will reflect distortions at the top and bottom. Accordingly, the firm's profit depends on which consumer category is larger.     

POTENTIALS FOR AND BARRIERS TO BUILDING ENERGY CONSERVATION IN CHINA

China is distinct among developing countries in that it has significant heating loads over much of the country. Because nearly half of the urban residential buildings are located in climates colder than that of Washington state, the already large demand for space heating will skyrocket if the current building boom continues. Space heating energy use, excluding that for hotels and offices catering to foreigners, is constrained by mandated coal allocations resulting in partially heated buildings with indoor temperatures significantly below design conditions.
This underheating, to a significant extent, masks the energy savings obtained from more energy-efficient boilers and building designs. Even so, computer simulations show that such conservation strategies can reduce current energy use by 40 percent, while dramatically raising indoor temperatures. Economic calculations comparing energy savings with increased construction costs are skewed by the unmet heating loads as well as by government-subsidized coal prices that are below actual costs. From the perspective of building owners and managers, building energy conservation still is economically attractive in the cold Northeast– where the cost of conserved coal is half that of the subsidized coal price – but is difficult to justify in terms of economic payback in Beijing or Shanghai.     

城市化进程中环境保护投资的省际差异

政府的环境保护投资对环保的支持作用举足轻重.从时间维度而言,大陆各省、市、自治区政府对环境保护的投资近10余年来整体趋势是逐年提高的;从空间角度来看,投资力度由高到低依次表现为:东部、西部、中部.地方政府对环境投资不足的原因在于政府失灵、公共产品的利益外滋和地方政府投资行为不规范等.推进管理体制改革和增强中央政府的总体协调迫在眉睫.     

MARGINAL COST PRICING FOR UTILITIES: A DIGEST OF THE CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCE

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has adopted the policy of using marginal costs as the basis for the pricing of regulated electric services (the "Marginal Cost Pricing Doctrine"). The record of actions taken by the CPUC to translate the doctrine into pragmatic pricing techniques spans 21 years from 1976, when the policy was adopted, to March 1997. Its pricing edicts for regulated electric rates of the three large California utilities—Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG &E), Southern California Edison Company (SCE or Edison), and San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG &E)—are significant incursions into microeconomic price theory. (JEL D6, B4, N7)     

我国西南地区水土治理及西部大开发的实证研究

无论是从问题的实质,还是方法论的角度来讲,水土治理都是西南地区经济开发中的一项战略性工程。通过对云南省红河州具体的水土流失现状、危害和治理的紧迫性和治理中存在的主要问题的分析,提出了西南地区水土治理的总体战略设想和具体的治理措施。     

CHANGES IN WATER ALLOCATION MECHANISMS FOR CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE

Existing institutions allocating water in California reflect prior appropriation water rights established when water was abundant. These allocation rules queue users and do not encourage water conservation. Increased water scarcity and growing valuation of water's environmental benefits are inducing a transition to water allocation mechanisms that increase water efficiency in agriculture. Transferable rights systems will lead to market-like water allocation, induce farmers to adopt water conservation technology, and may not face strong objection from senior water rights holders. One must weigh the efficiency gains associated with transition from water rights to water markets against the transaction costs associated with installing facilities that enable water exchange and trading .
Transition to water markets may preserve the agricultural sector's well-being while allowing the transfer of some water outside of agriculture—in particular, for environmental benefit. The cost of policies proposed to reduce agricultural water supply while encouraging water trading are inversely related to the extent of trading allowed. The more farmers trade water, the less costly reducing water supply is to agriculture. Policies reducing water supply to Central Valley Project contractors and allowing trading only among these contractors are much more expensive than are policies encouraging trading among all agricultural water users in California .     

PRICING IN PUBLIC ENTERPRISES

The pricing in private and public enterprise differs primarily on the supply side. In the long run, private enterprises must cover total costs and provide an adequate return necessary to attract venture capital. In contrast, extra-commercial considerations may influence pricing in public enterprises. They may incur losses in the public interest under explicit directives from the government. A number of theories of pricing in public enterprises have been put forward. Most important of these are: (1) marginal cost of production theory; (2) no profit, no loss theory; (3) average cost of production theory; (4) theory of making profits. All these theories suffer from a number of weaknesses and none of them taken individually is a satisfactory guide for determining the prices of the products of public enterprises. There however exists a strong case for public enterprises, particularly in developing countries, to earn reasonable profits in pricing their products. Public enterprises fostered on public revenues must yield surpluses which can be used either for their own expansion or for financing the general development plans of the country. The profits which a public enterprise can earn are an important indication of the justification for the use of economic resources in that economic activity. Upholding the test of profit not only lessens possibilities of the investment decisions being subjected to political pressures but also safeguards against inefficiency in management. A policy of profits is essential for attaining the goal of building a socialist society. The amount of profits expected from different enterprises, however, cannot be uniform because of diverse objectives sought in the setting up of public enterprises, degree of essentiality of their products, nature of the services provided by them, size of their market, class of their consumers and their paying capacity, conditions of market under which they operate, their role in stimulating growth and social benefits conferred by them.     

FIRM SIZE AND PRICING POLICY

We relate pricing policy of firms to their size, where firm size is interpreted as the size of the clientele served by the concerned firm. We argue that a firm with a large clientele faces a more severe reputational backlash if it ‘reneges’, i.e., deviates from its earlier price offer. This allows the firm to effectively commit to its offers, leading to a unique equilibrium without delay. Interestingly, this equilibrium corresponds to the equilibrium of the related model that does not allow for reneging possibilities. For smaller firms, however, the reputational effects are much less intense, and consequently the equilibria may involve deviation possibilities. In this case, the equilibria are non‐unique and may involve delays as well.     

NONLINEAR PRICING IN ASYMMETRIC DUOPOLY

We characterise, for both separate and interdependent markets, the local pure-strategies Nash equilibrium of a spatial duopoly game, where consumers are horizontally and vertically heterogeneous, and firms have different cost structures and ranges of product lines. We show that standard results which emerged in the monopoly context can not be generalised to strategic contexts where firms retain market power and there is sufficient competitive pressure. We prove that in the asymmetric duopoly case, when markets are interdependent, the incentive compatibility constraints are slack, and there is no quality distortion.     

CAN RECREATION VALUES FOR A LAKE CONSTITUTE A MARKET FOR BANKED AGRICULTURAL WATER?

This paper presents estimates of the recreational use value to prevent the loss of a western lake threatened by diversions of upstream waters that supply it. The recreation demand model used to estimate recreation-related values is the popular repeated nested multinomial logit model. The model is specified to allow an individual to choose when to visit various sites during the season, because site choice is likely to be influenced by water levels that change over the course of the season. The values are compared to agricultural values in order to assess whether the potential recreation demand side of a market for a water bank exists.