Environmental Liability Law and Induced Technical Change – The Role of Discounting

We analyse the incentives of environmental liability law for inducing progress to emission abatement technology. We consider three liability rules: strict liability, a negligence rule with an emission norm as the due care standard, and a double negligence rule which combines the emission standard with an abatement technology norm. In the case of distortive discounting, i.e. where the private discount rate deviates from the social one, we show, how the level of distortion influences the ranking of liability rules, according to the criterion of generated social cost.     

Abatement and Permits when Pollution is Uncertain and Violations are Fined

This paper considers a firm’s choice of abatement and of the number of permits if actual pollution is stochastic such that full compliance cannot be ensured. This straightforward extension induces non-trivial and unexpected comparative static properties, such as: permits and abatement can be either substitutes or complements, higher fines can lower the number of acquired permits (or abatement), and higher permit prices can reduce abatement. Yet integrating these reactions into a (competitive) permit market eliminates puzzling features. This is an additional justification of tradable permits over standards, where regulators must cope with potentially counterproductive firm reactions. A first version of the paper was written at the School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney and I am grateful for the enjoyed hospitality. I am also grateful for the valuable comments from an anonymous referee.     

中国技术进步偏向性的测算与分析

借助不变替代弹性生产函数,利用1985—2013年中国的相关数据,测算了中国技术进步的总体偏向性以及资本增强型技术进步和劳动增强型技术进步的变化速率。结果表明:资本与劳动的替代弹性约为0.402,资本与劳动呈现互补特征,且中国的技术进步呈资本偏向性。指出:从技术进步偏向看,独立自主的发展方针、实现国家工业化的目标以及资本和技术的缺乏共同导致了目前中国的技术进步偏向;中国工业化向高技术发展仍会加强技术进步的资本偏向性,并将引发一系列问题。认为短期内中国仍需维持一定规模的传统劳动密集型产业,长期应大力发展人力资本密集的现代服务业等第三产业。     

Embodied and Disembodied Technical Change in Fisheries: An Analysis of the Sète Trawl Fishery, 1985–1999

Overfishing and excess capacity in mostfisheries around the world have generated considerableand increasing concern about their biological and economic performance ramifications. Theseproblems, in part, stem from substantialinvestment in technical improvements to boats andequipment in fishing fleets, which exacerbatesexcess fishing capacity and low returns tofishing effort and investment, given regulatoryand biological constraints. However, little attempt hasbeen made to quantify the extent or effects oftechnical change in fisheries. In this paper, we usedetailed data on innovation patterns for 19vessels in the Sète trawl fleet of southernFrance to evaluate the contributions oftechnical change to catch rates. We find thatembodied technical change enhanced productivity by approximately one percent per year between 1985 and 1999, but that external (disembodied) events counteractedthis trend, causing a net output decline ofabout three percent per year.     

Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Agriculture in the EU: A Spatial Assessment of Sources and Abatement Costs

Agriculture significantly contributes to emissions of greenhouse gases in the EU. By using a farm-type, supply-side oriented, linear-programming model of the European agriculture, the baseline levels of methane and nitrous oxide emissions are assessed at the regional level in the EU-15. For a range of CO₂-equivalent prices, we assess the potential abatement, as well as the resulting optimal mix of emission sources in the total abatement. Furthermore, we show that the spatial variability of the abatement achieved at a given carbon price is large, indicating that abatement cost heterogeneity is a fundamental feature in the design of a mitigation policy. The cost savings permitted by market-based instruments relative to uniform standard are shown to be large.     

逆向外包与技能偏向性技术进步

经济新常态和新工业革命背景下,中国经济迫切需要通过技术创新,尤其是技能偏向性技术进步的创新来实现经济增长方式的转变和产业结构的升级。文章根据后金融危机时期中国企业加快海外并购等典型事实,基于李嘉图框架构建了包含逆向外包的一般均衡模型,从理论上论证了逆向外包作为一种后发国家集聚全球创新资源的新方式,能够弥补后发国家高技能劳动力的不足,诱导企业采用更加偏向技能劳动力的生产技术,进而对后发国家的技能偏向性技术进步产生促进作用。利用制造业16个细分行业2003－2011年样本数据的实证检验表明,本土制造业企业主导的逆向外包显著促进了制造业的技能偏向性技术进步,FD I和人力资本供给的增加加速了技能偏向性技术进步的形成和发展。文章的研究不仅丰富了现有的关于技能偏向性技术进步和逆向外包的全球化理论,对中国制造创新方式的转变和经济结构的调整也具有重要的启示。     

Embodied Technical Change and the Fluctuations of Unemployment and Wages

A matching model where technological change is partially embodied in the job match is shown to be successful in explaining the variability of unemployment and vacancies. If we incorporate long‐term wage contracts into the model, it also explains a number of stylized facts on the dynamics of real wages, which have been found in the empirical labor literature.     

Environment,Directed Technical Change and Economic Policy

We study the effects of an economic policy in an endogenous growth general equilibrium framework where production of consumption goods requires two resource inputs: a polluting non-renewable resource and a non-polluting labour resource. The use of the former contributes to the accumulation of pollution in the atmosphere, which affects welfare. There is a specific research sector associated with each of those resources. We provide a full welfare analysis, and we describe the equilibrium paths in a decentralized economy. We go on to study the effects of three associated economic policy tools: a tax on the polluting resource, and two research subsidies. We show that the optimal environmental policy has two main effects; it delays the extraction of the resource and with it the level of polluting emissions and it reallocates research efforts, decreasing the amount put into “grey” research to the benefit of “green” research. We also show that the environmental policy is grey-biased in the short-term, and green-biased in the long-term. Finally, we compute the optimal values for these tools.      

交易费用和制度变迁的分析与启示

交易费用与制度变迁都涉及到经济生活中的具体操作方面,比如资源优化配置和效率问题。中国在深化改革的过程中,不仅必须考虑到资源优化配置、改革成本和经济运行效率,而且更应以此作为检验改革成效的标尺。这些又与特定的制度安排有着内在联系,因此,只有认真研究交易费用和制度变迁的相关问题,才能保证中国改革的进一步深化。     

Health Damage of Air Pollution: An Estimate of a Dose–Response Relationship for the Netherlands

This paper estimates the dose-response relationship between air pollution and the number of work loss days for the Netherlands. The study is based on illness data (work loss days) for the Dutch labour population and average year concentrations of air pollution in 29 districts. The dose-response relationship has been estimated by means of two different techniques: the ordinary least squares method (OLS) and the one-way fixed-effects method (OWFEM), which we consider to be more adequate. In general health effects are much smaller when OWFEM is applied than if OLS is used. With OWFEM a significant relationship is found between sulphate aerosol (SO₄), ammonia (NH₃) and the number of work loss days (WLDs). Particulates (TSP), O₃ and SO₂ have no significant effect on the number of WLDs. These results differ from those obtained in studies in the United States, which indicate that particulates (TSP) and other small particles, ozone (O₃) and to a lesser extent SO₄ and SO₂ significantly influence the number of WLDs.     

我国全要素生产率变化解构及区域收敛性分析

笔者利用Malmquist生产力指数将1991年~2007年间中国29个省(自治区、直辖市)的全要素增长率按照构成分解为技术变动和技术效率变动,并对区域技术效率的收敛性进行了分析。结果表明:(1)以1997年为界限,东部、中部和西部三大区域的全要素生产率和技术变动均呈现先升后降的趋势,而技术效率在整个研究期间都是逐步降低的。(2)技术变动解释了全要素增长率区域差异的75%,技术效率变动则解释了剩余的25%。1997年之前的全要素生产率及其构成因素的变化有利于缩小地区生产差距,1997年之后则成为区域差距扩大的重要原因之一。(3)29个省份之间以及三大区域内部各省份之间的技术效率随时间变化均呈现出明显的发散趋势。     

贸易、环境污染与经济增长——基于开放经济下的一个内生增长模型

通过构建一个开放经济条件下的内生增长模型,文章探讨了国际贸易、环境质量与经济持续增长三者的内在关系以及相互作用的动力机制。首先,通过对模型的竞争性市场均衡分析,给出了平衡增长路径的经济增长率,并系统地分析了在环境污染进入效用函数的情形下长期经济增长的内在机理。其次,通过对最优增长路径进行比较静态分析,分别讨论了贸易自由化对环境质量、经济增长、福利效应的影响;污染外部性对长期经济增长的约束等。最后给出了模型的综合结论及其现实涵义。     

The Environmental Kuznets Curve and Flow versus Stock Pollution: The Neglect of Future Damages

In this paper we offer a possible explanation for the empirical finding that the pollution-income relationship (PIR) for flow pollutants is an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), i.e. inverted-U shaped, but that the PIR for stock pollutants is monotonically rising. We analyse an overlapping generations model with two pollutants: The flow pollutant causes immediate damages, but the stock pollutant harms the environment only in the future. Hence, a succession of myopic governments lets stock pollution grow with income. In contrast, the flow pollutant follows an EKC whose downturn might be caused by the neglect of future damages and by ever rising stock pollution: Without the stock pollutant the PIR for the flow pollutant can increase monotonically. We also show that the turning point of the EKC for the flow pollutant lies at lower levels of income and of flow pollution if stock pollution is high and harmful. This casts doubts on most empirical EKC studies because they assume that the turning point occurs at the same income level in all countries. However, it is consistent with recent empirical findings that the income level at the turning point of the EKC varies across countries.     

Economic Retirement Age and Lifelong Learning: A Theoretical Model With Heterogeneous Labor,Biased Technical Change and International Sourcing

The employability of an aging population in a world of continuous and biased technical change is top of the political agenda. Due to endogenous human capital depreciation the effective retirement age is often below statutory retirement age resulting in permanent non‐employability of older workers. We analyze this phenomenon in a putty‐putty human capital vintage model and focus on education and the speed of human capital depreciation. Introducing a two‐stage education system with initial schooling and lifelong learning, not even lifelong learning turns out to be capable of aligning economic and statutory retirement. However, well‐designed education programs will keep more workers in highly productive activities at the end of their working life, and hence will substitute for simple social transfers, or for an early switch towards very low paid jobs.     

技术进步实现机制和生产要素产出弹性理论假说——来自我国9个发达经济区的实证检验

按照管理、资本和劳动要素的产出弹性关系新的理论假说,利用我国9个发达地区2000-2006年的面板数据对要素产出弹性理论假说进行检验。其结果表明,由于我国在技术进步中一直主要依靠技术引进,缺乏自主创新,从而使技术进步表现为资本增加型,理论假说前提的偏离导致实证分析结果和理论分析结果不一致。这说明,在不同的工业化发展阶段,可以选择的技术进步方式不同,要素投入的组合方式也不同。当前我国应该改变资本投入过快增长的现状,强调管理要素和高素质劳动力投入,通过不断促进技术进步,提高要素的使用效率,实现经济平稳快速增长。     

FDI、经济增长与环境污染——基于SVAR模型的实证分析

在建设美丽中国深化生态文明体制改革背景下,借助SVAR模型检验了FDI、经济增长与环境污染内在机制。实证表明:我国经济与环境延续了"先污染后治理"的国际道路,FDI短期刺激经济增长显著,同时也恶化了环境,长期不是经济增长的动力源泉,但FDI的溢出效应有利于改善环境污染。为了理论与实践上平衡FDI、经济增长与环境保护,提出了调整经济增长极、优化外资质量和结构等政策着力点。     

环境所有权、贸易结构变迁与污染分布——基于超边际经济学框架的分析

文章引入环境所有权概念,运用新兴古典经济学的超边际分析方法,研究了贸易结构变迁与相应的污染分布和转移,旨在揭示大国污染效应、工业化路径的环境效应、贸易结构变迁的环境所有权因素以及环保政策失效的原因。研究推导出不同国家间环境所有权模糊程度和交易效率变化对贸易结构变迁与污染分布变化的作用机理。研究命题可用于解释现实贸易发展中存在的环境污染现象。     

Reprint of: Sewage Pollution and Institutional and Technological Change in the United States, 1830-1915

This article examines institutions for water pollution control and their interaction with water supply and sanitation technologies in the United States before the First World War. The article discusses how growth of settlements polluted waters and created pressure to adopt local institutional responses and networked water supply and sewerage technologies in the mid-19th century. However, the new urban technologies undermined local institutional responses and expanded the scale of water pollution problems they were expected to resolve. Water companies, households and local governments litigated their water pollution conflicts in the courts in the absence of other alternatives. In the end of the 19th century, many states adopted water pollution policies. At first, public health authorities enforced the new policies to protect public water supplies from sewage contamination. However, when the effectiveness of filtration and chlorination of drinking water was demonstrated in the early 20th century, public health authorities ceased to enforce discharge prohibitions and instead pressured water companies to adopt the new technological measures to protect public health.     

中国棉花生产技术效率及其影响因素分析

深入分析我国棉花生产技术效率及其影响因素,对于稳定和提高棉花产量、保障国民经济健康发展有着重要意义.本文首先对我国12个主产省棉花生产的技术效率进行测算,并重点考察了其时序波动和地区差异特征;其次探讨了棉花生产技术效率的主要影响因素,通过构建计量模型,对可能的影响因素进行了回归分析.结果表明,2001-2009年,我国棉花生产技术效率的区域差异和时序波动特征明显,西北棉区技术效率最高且波动最小,其次是黄河流域棉区,长江流域棉区技术效率最低且波动最剧烈;适度规模经营、农民受教育程度、农业科技人员数量和非农产业发展对棉花生产的技术效率有正效应,非农人口比例和异常天气的负面影响较大.文章最后给出了相应的政策建议.     

不同污染类型工业行业的环境污染分解分析——基于1998～2005年间中国工业行业数据分析

在利用数据包络分析(DEA)方法测算1998～2005年中国污染密集型和中、低污染型行业的全要素生产率的基础上,实证分析了各种因素对不同污染类型工业行业的污染排放的影响。结果表明:经济规模的扩大增加了污染排放,恶化了中国环境;工业内部的产业结构变化对污染密集型行业和中、低污染行业的污染排放均有显著的影响;全要素生产率的提高对控制污染密集型工业行业的污染排放有显著的作用;污染密集型行业出口商品结构变化对其行业污染排放有显著影响,进口商品结构变化对各污染类型工业行业污染排放均没有显著影响。