Environmental policy and stable collusion: The case of a dynamic polluting oligopoly

We show that the imposition of a Markovian tax on emissions, that is, a tax rate which depends on the pollution stock, can induce stable cartelization in an oligopolistic polluting industry. This does not hold for a uniform tax. Thus, accounting for the feedback effect that exists within a dynamic framework, where pollution is allowed to accumulate into a stock over time, changes the result obtained within a static framework. Moreover, the cartel formation can diminish the welfare gain from environmental regulation such that welfare under environmental regulation and collusion of firms lies below that under a laissez-faire policy.     

The house price determination process: Rational expectations with a spatial context

Applying the rational expectations hypothesis, this essay models the current value of a house as the conditional expectation of the discounted stream of housing services accruing to the owner of the house. The value of housing services is determined by neighborhood effects as well as the physical attributes of the property itself. In the existing hedonic literature, future transactions have not been utilized to describe neighborhood effects. The rational expectations asset pricing model in this study accounts for expected future neighborhood effects as well as observed current neighborhood effects. The reduced form of the rational expectations model is a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model with two spatial lags. After employing the generalized method of moments (GMM) in estimating the spatial asset pricing model, I find that both expected future transactions and prior transactions in the neighborhood are significant. The inclusion of expected future transaction prices in the neighborhood takes into account the influence of expected changes in the community and factors these potential changes into the current house price. This is consistent with forward-looking households. The forward-looking model generates superior out-of-sample prediction performance relative to both the conventional hedonic model without considering neighborhood effects or the standard spatial hedonic model including only past transactions.     

Drug testing in the transportation industry: The maritime case

The maritime industry provides an interesting case study of the design and implementation of drug-testing programs in the transportation industry during the 1980s. It is clear that such programs were designed and implemented less because of empirical evidence of safety problems than for political reasons. The results in the maritime industry are indicative of a program that is expensive to operate, intrusive with regard to employee privacy, and which will have little or no impact on safety. Focusing such programs on the issue of impairment rather than on the issue of drug usage per se is likely to improve the outcome of the programs. Although, despite common belief, there is little evidence that drug usage or the “drug problem” in U.S. society as a whole had gotten worse in the preceding years (Schonsheck, 1989, 250–251).     

The Warwick way: A case study of entrepreneurship within a university context

The University of Warwick perceives itself as an innovative and entrepreneririal organization, and has a reputation as such amongst institutions of higher education within the UK. The Conservative Government of Mrs. Thatcher has since 1979 applied steadily increasing pressure on the British system of higher education for it to be more flexible, responsive and business-minded, with less dependency on public funding. The result has been a turbulent and challenging environment for the quasi-public sector universities, with a premium being placed on their ability to manage change. At the time ofwriting, Warwick appears to have operated successfully within this new climate, both to its benefit and to that of its local industrial district. The airticle examines the factors which facilitate and stimulate innovative and entrepreneurial activity amongst the Warwick academic community - factors which will become increasingly important if the university world .is to adapt with flexibility, responsiveness and imagination to the changing and increasingly demanding economic and governmental climate now prevailing not only in the USA and the UK, but also in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Nigeria.     

社区治理中的政府定位——以杭州市为例

社区治理必须树立现代治理理念.政府与社区组织之间存在着相互依赖关系,必须彼此交换资源、合作互动、持续协调才能顺利实现各自目标.目前政府与社区组织在社区治理中的关系尚未理顺,政府职能转变进程的滞缓和主导性强势行为直接影响了社区治理的效果.要改变现状,政府必须正确定位,摆脱自身社会管理的重负,采取积极有效措施加快培育发展社区自治组织,使之有能力以主体姿态参与社区治理,实现社会管理社会化.     

Estimation for spatial dynamic panel data with fixed effects: The case of spatial cointegration

Yu et al. (2008) establish asymptotic properties of quasi-maximum likelihood estimators for a stable spatial dynamic panel model with fixed effects when both the number of individuals n and the number of time periods T are large. This paper investigates unstable cases where there are unit roots generated by temporal and spatial correlations. We focus on the spatial cointegration model where some eigenvalues of the data generating process are equal to 1 and the outcomes of spatial units are cointegrated as in a vector autoregressive system. The asymptotics of the QML estimators are developed by reparameterization, and bias correction for the estimators is proposed. We also consider the 2SLS and GMM estimations when T could be small.     

Spatial oligopoly: price-location interdependence and social cost in a discrete market space

Spatial oligopoly theory has been restricted in largest part to the analysis of duopoly. Although ingenious, the work has led to results of limited applicability. The present paper generalizes the analysis to n firms but is restricted to the use of specified functions, in the belief that more general results are not to be obtained. Use is made of a nonlinear programming and a Weber-point algorithm in tandem to derive a number of interesting propositions for specific examples. Location patterns and social costs of oligopoly are derived, and an attempt is made to tie the results to previous parameters used by Smithies and to extend his analysis.     

交通巨变条件下贫困县的旅游发展——以陕西省柞水县为例

通过分析柞水县旅游发展状况及存在问题,指出贫困县在旅游业发展初期阶段必须由政府强力主导,系统规划,充分利用国家交通干线带来的大好机遇,达致双赢.     

Mapping the benefits and costs associated with process innovation: The case of RFID adoption

The successful implementation of any innovation requires an understanding of its benefits and costs. This study examines the changes in the magnitude of costs and benefits associated with technology process innovation adoption as the innovation diffuses across different industries. Using RFID as an exemplar technology, the study shows that the magnitude of benefits and costs associated with technological process innovation adoption within different industries varies as technology diffuses beyond early adopters to the early majority. During the early stages of technology evolution, the development cost, the cost of capital, ethical costs and simple direct implementation costs (in the form of the cost of tags) predominate. As a dominant design emerges the profile of costs changes with the emphasis on initiation costs, more holistic direct implementation costs and indirect implementation costs. A similar change in the emphasis of benefits is observed, with a shift from direct to indirect benefits being noticeable as the technology moves from early adopters to early majority adopters. Our findings help to explain the difficulties in consistently measuring innovation outcomes observed in the innovation implementation literature, and emphasize the need to take into consideration the stage of technology development as a significant factor that influences the realised outcomes from innovation implementation.     

The costs of organized violence: a review of the evidence

I critically review recent studies that estimate those costs of violence and conflict that can emerge among organized political groupings, such as states, religious and ethnic organizations, guerillas and paramilitaries. The review includes studies that estimate direct and indirect costs due to internal conflicts (civil wars and other lower-level conflicts), terrorism, and external conflicts, including military spending. There are a number of key theoretical concerns on what counts as a cost, and, depending on the methods and evidence used, estimated costs vary widely. However, even minimum estimates are economically significant, especially for low-income countries. This is even more so when the costs of different types of organized conflict and violence are aggregated.     

The operating costs of taxation: a review of the research

This paper considers key aspects of the literature on the operating costs of taxation, identifying the factors that have led to its development and evaluating its impact on policy responses to compliance and administrative costs issues. It starts by identifying the key components of the operating costs of the taxation system. The paper then identifies the main research trends over the past 60 years or so around the world, placing current concerns about taxation compliance and administrative costs within a broader - deregulatory - context and analyzing governmental responses to concerns about compliance costs highlighted by the literature. Finally, it offers some tentative views on the likely directions that research in the area may take in the coming decades.     

山地城市空间格局建构的生态适应性——以滇西地区为例

滇西地区具有独特的山地城市形态结构.这种独特的结构要求在山地城市景观体系建构上,体现出整体景观、边缘景观、重点景观的优化组合.通过对滇西地区的景观环境体系、绿化网络等建设实践的分析,为该地区及相似地区的可持续发展提供有益借鉴.     

伦敦的"交通收费"及其福利经济学解释

2003年2月17日起,伦敦市采取对进入市中心的车辆收取5镑进入费的做法来缓解交通堵塞.对这一政策的运行方式、政策效果及反对意见进行了评价,并从福利经济学的角度作出了解释.     

Transaction costs, relational contracting and public private partnerships: a case study of UK defence

This paper is concerned with the economics of public private partnerships (PPPs)/private finance initiative (PFIs) and in particular the role of transaction costs and the importance of trust in relational contracting. The discussion is illustrated by reference to the UK defence sector. The paper begins by discussing the nature of PPPs/PFIs before moving on to consider how the economics of contracting literature can shed light on their strengths and weaknesses. The transaction cost literature is reviewed alongside a resource-based perspective of procurement decisions. The concepts of trust and reputation are then considered in the context of minimising procurement transaction costs. The theoretical framework developed is then applied and illustrated through a case study of UK defence contracting, in an attempt to assess whether the use of PPPs will necessarily lead to improved economic efficiency. The case study highlights both the scope of PPPs/PFIs and their potential transaction costs in defence procurement, with the normal perils in terms of contracting given information asymmetry, asset specificity and the resulting scope for opportunistic behaviour.     

轻轨对中小城镇商业发展的影响——以中山市为例

作为一种大运量、快捷、准点的交通方式,轻轨的建成运营将对相关城镇的客流量在数量、空间分布等方面产生深刻影响,并对城镇发展产生积极的作用.在商业发展方面,轻轨交通的影响主要体现在市场因素、空间因素、竞争因素等方面.在深入剖析轻轨交通对商业发展的影响因素、借鉴地铁商业经验、分析相关预测数据的基础上,就广珠轻轨对中山市城镇商业发展的商业格局、商业规模、商业网点空间分布和商业业态结构等多方面的影响进行了探析.     

An extension of the monocentric urban spatial equilibrium model to a multicenter setting: The case of the two-center city

Firms in a monocentric city conforming in substance to the “new urban economics” produce an export commodity under agglomeration economies and employ homogeneous labor and capital. Workers reside about the CBD in decreasing densities with distance. A developer establishes a second export production center within the city's residential area. Conditions for economic viability and growth of the subcenter are examined, and its impacts on short-run and long-run city location patterns are discussed. A limiting condition on subcenter employment size is provided.     

街区概念的理论建构与空间实践——1840以来的法国城市社区研究

"街区"是法国社区研究的核心概念。将1840年以来法国城市社区研究分为"一个地方性视角(1840-1918)"、"空间与社会现象的交汇(1919-1945)"、"多学科的建构(1946-1967)"、"社会问题与批判(1968-1979)"以及"新的社会冲突与多元化发展(1980以后)"五个阶段,从"空间实践"和"理论探索"两个角度对各阶段街区概念的发展进行梳理,并指出法国经验中"空间学科与社会学科"互动的重要意义。