Harmonization of carbon taxes in international climate agreements

The use of some kind of carbon tax is often proposed as part of an international climate policy. One possibility could be an international climate agreement requiring a harmonization of domestic carbon taxes. It is shown that there are several practical difficulties with such an agreement, and that it therefore is unlikely that CO₂ emissions will be allocated efficiently between countries with this type of agreement. Alternative types of agreements include an international carbon tax, in which the governments of the participating countries pay a tax, in proportion to their CO₂ emissions, to an international agency. A very similar arrangement would be to introduce a system of emission permits which are internationally tradeable between governments. Under quite general conditions, agreements of these two types can be designed so that they are both efficient and satisfy whatever distributional objectives one might have. Under both of these systems, the choice of domestic policies could be left to the individual countries. A domestic carbon tax is an obvious policy response from a country participating in an agreement of this type.Significant parts of the paper are based on research at CICERO (Center for International Climate and Energy Research, Oslo) and the Centre for Research in Economics and Business Administration (SNF), Oslo. The paper draws heavily on a related paper (Hoel, 1992a) which was prepared for Workshop on Fee and Charge Systems for Reducing Greenhouse Gases, OECD, Paris, November 5–6, 1991. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for useful comments on an earlier version of the paper.     

气候变化经济学和气候政策

在气候变化经济学和气候政策的文献综述基础上,剖析了经济学原理在全球气候变化研究中的应用。在总结西方流行的气候变化的经济影响评估、预测、分析方法和模型的前提下,回顾了不同空间和时间尺度上温室气体减排成本估算的方法和结果,特别分析和强调了气候变化不确定性的特点对经济模型和政策设计的影响,提供了有效的基于市场的政策选择。     

生育和经济社会的协调发展

有三个相关的生育问题需要作些深入研究,第一个是究竟我国当前生育是在什么水平?第二个是假如总和生育率的水平是1.8,这个水平能在今后三十年保持不变吗?第三个是假如未来三十年总和生育率过高或过低于1.8是不是会不利于人口与经济社会的协调发展?第一个问题应该可以用现有的但没有发表的生育数据作更深入分析和举办一次追踪调查去了解妇女生育的历史,追踪同样样本妇女的妊娠结果(活产、死产、流产)和出生儿童的性别。第二个问题的答案是否定的,因为世界上还没有一个国家能够不鼓励生育而能保持正在下降的出生水平。我国社会具备了生育水平继续下降的一切条件,特别是小家庭社会制度的普及更在促进生育水平下降。第三个问题用人口预测的方法比较未来不同生育水平对人口发展的影响,显示出不同预测的人口总数和年龄结构相差不大,无法得出过高和过低于1.8生育水平的未来人口会不利于人口与经济社会的协调发展的结论。     

欧盟碳税政策的经验与启示

随着全球气候变化带来的恶劣影响进一步加剧,减缓和适应气候变化已成为世界各国所关心的重要议题。越来越多的国家采取了各种温室气体减排措施,征收碳税就是其中之一。目前欧盟一些国家已实行碳税,并取得了一定的效果。以芬兰、丹麦、瑞典和英国为例,对这四个国家的碳税情况进行比较分析,以期对中国有所启示。     

Time Preference, Stock Externalities and Strategic Reactions

This paper examines the relationship between the rateof time preference and strategic reactions in dealing with climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Treating climate change as stock externalities, the RICE model (Nordhaus and Yang [1996]) is employed in this paper for simulation studies. The simulation results show that when regions' rate of time preference in evaluating climatechange is sufficiently low, the paths of efficient GHGemission reduction measurement and the inefficient Nash equilibrium outcome are close. The paper also provides general interpretations of such phenomena. Finally, the implications of a low rate of time preference on GHG emission reduction policies are discussed.     

Optimal greenhouse gas emissions under various assessments of climate change ambiguity

The probabilities associated with global warming damage are likely to be continuously revised in the light of new information. Such revisions of probability are the defining characteristic of ambiguity, as opposed to risk. This paper examines how climate change ambiguity may affect optimal greenhouse gas emission strategies, via the decision maker's attitude towards anticipated changes of damage probabilities. Two conceptualizations of ambiguity are distinguished, according to the emphasis placed on the ambiguity of priors or on the ambiguity of news, respectively. It is shown that the way in which ambiguity is viewed and the attitude taken towards it have a substantial influence on the optimal emission trajectory.     

Fertility and housing

Young households in Hong Kong face particularly steep increases in house prices and low fertility despite low gender wage gaps. The model of fertility and housing in this paper explains why fertility decline need not reverse as female wages rise relative to male wages where housing land is scarce. For given house prices, demand for children may rise with female relative wages if housing comprises a sufficiently large share of childrearing. If the user cost of housing falls with rising house prices then fertility also rises. For endogenous house prices, however, growth in wages and a burgeoning working age population raises the market price of housing. In turn, fertility no longer rises with female relative wages. The analysis provides a novel mechanism whereby high population support ratios depress fertility and the results fit recent evidence that house prices affect fertility.     

Energy substitutions, climate change and carbon sinks

We determine the optimal exploitation time-paths of two energy resources, one being depletable and polluting, namely a fossil fuel, the other being renewable and clean. These optimal paths are considered along with the two following features. First, the cumulative atmospheric pollution stock is set not to exceed some critical threshold and second, the polluting emissions produced by the use of fossil fuel can be reduced at the source and stockpiled in several carbon sinks of limited capacity. We show that, if the renewable resource flow is abundant, the optimal path requires that sequestration is implemented only once the ceiling is reached. Moreover, the reservoirs should be completely filled by increasing order of their respective sequestration costs.     

计划生育奖励扶助水平差异对生育水平的影响——基于全国30个省区数据的定量分析

采用固定效果模型分析方法,实证考察我国省区层面不同水平的计划生育奖励扶助政策对生育水平(育龄妇女避孕率、计划生育率)的影响效果是否存在差异。农村部分计生家庭奖励金、城镇独生子女父母退休奖励金以及在社会保障、生产扶持、利益分配、扶贫开发等方面优先优惠水平的地区差异性会对育龄妇女避孕率产生明显不同的影响效果,另外,模型估计结果中仅发现在计生家庭参加社会保险方面给予不同力度的优先优惠对计划生育率的作用效果产生了显著差异。生育利益导向政策并非标准越高、项目越多对群众生育行为的影响越大。     

The Nobel Memorial Prize for William D. Nordhaus

William D. Nordhaus and Paul M. Romer received the 2018 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. This paper surveys Nordhaus’ contributions on “integrating climate change into long‐run macroeconomic analysis”, for which he was recognized with this Prize.     

Demographic Transition and Fertility Rebound in Economic Development*

Recent evidence on the “fertility rebound” offers credence to the idea that, from the onset of early industrialization to the present day, the dynamics of fertility can be represented by an N-shaped curve. An overlapping generations model with parental investment in human capital can account for these observed movements in fertility rates during the different stages of demographic change. A demographic transition with declining fertility emerges at the intermediate stage, when parents engage on a child quantity–quality trade-off. At later stages, however, the process of economic growth generates sufficient resources so that households can rear more children while still providing the desirable amount of education investment per child.     

Countermeasures of adaptation to climate change： establishment and application for implementation matrix

In the conceptual framework of adaptation policy assessment to climate change, adaptation measures can be categorized as two groups：facilitation and implementation. Facilitation measures refers to activities that enhance adaptive capacity, while implementation refers to activities that actually avoid adverse climate impacts on a system by reducing its exposure or sensitivity to climatic hazards, or by moderating relevant non-climatic factors. This paper aims to establish a matrix of implementation measures of adaptation to climate change, through four different ways how adaptation can influencc the relevant elements of climate change. reducing the exposure, reducing the sensitivity, alleviating the adverse impacts and reducing the negative non-climatic factors, and then further discuss the particular implementation measures of adaptation to climate change, through application studies on the selected sub-systems, intend to organize the disordered implementation measures in existent, and put forward some new measures under the guidance of this matrix, which could enrich and promote the system and content of implementation measures of adaptation.     

Impacts of climate change on food utilization in Nepal

Understanding how long-term climate patterns affect food security outcomes is crucial for crafting food policy in developing countries. In the case of Nepal, existing studies have focused overwhelmingly on food production and supply, but relatively little attention has been paid to understanding how extreme climate trends affect food utilization. This study fills that gap in the literature by examining the effects of temperature and rainfall trends from 1976 to 2005 on individual daily caloric intake and food diversity in Nepal. We use the copula method to jointly estimate the two potentially correlated food utilization outcomes. We find that climate risk negatively affects both outcomes. One percent increase (0.01 points) in climate risk index (index ranges from 0 to 1) leads to a decrease in weighted caloric intake by 8.1 calories (equivalent to 1.1% of average weighted caloric intake of 726 calories) and food diversity by 0.114 points (a reduction of 0.43% reduction of the mean score). We also find that factors such as ecological belts and social capital are strongly correlated with food security. Based on our findings, we recommend policies that attract private and public investments towards improving farmers' access to financial institutions, transportation networks, and risk-mitigation products and programs.     

低生育稳定期:中国特色的人口转变阶段

从人口转变角度审视和分析当前中国人口发展的形势,提出中国的人口转变有一个独特的阶段,即低生育稳定期。分析了低生育稳定期的阶段性特征。这个时期问题复杂,趋向明朗,是主要矛盾转换期和生育政策调整期。还分析了这一时期中国人口发展战略目标的转换及相应的对策。     

Identification of national priority areas for adaptation to climate change in China

The problem of global warming has been identified as the first in the list of the top ten environmental problems in the world. As climate change will seriously affect the social and natural world that people live in, so it may lay serious repercussions on economic progress, social improvement, and sustainable development. International bodies everywhere and many of the countries＇ governments are responding urgently to this call In recent years, climate change has affected different regions in China in different ways. In its national agenda, the Chinese government should address the problem of climate change and its negative impact on socio-economic development. In this endeavor the nation should introduce policies which will help its people and economy to adapt to these effects and changes. Priority-fields of adaptation to climate change are the sensitive areas or departments which are more vulnerable to the negative influences of climate change. The negative impacts of climate change in some parts of China are considered to be very serious indeed as they affect the whole economy and community. As a result, priority should be given to these more affected regions for the limited state financing. This paper defines adaptation and discusses the basic principles and programs in the identi.fication of national priority areas where adaptation should be exercised. Based on the past studies, four priority areas in China are identified, namely, disaster prevention and mitigation, water resources, agriculture, and ecosystem. An analysis on the identification procedures, and the reasons and tasks involved are given for each.     

A comment on “Economy-wide estimates of the implications of climate change: Human health”

In a recent article in this journal, Francesco Bosello, Roberto Roson, and Richard Tol make the remarkable prediction that one degree of global warming will, on balance, save more than 800,000 lives annually by 2050. They introduce enormous, controversial monetary valuations of mortality and morbidity, varying with income; they then focus primarily on modeling the much smaller, indirect economic effects of the changes in health outcomes. Their calculations, large and small, are driven by the huge projected reduction in mortality — an estimate that Bosello et al. fail to substantiate. They rely on research that identifies a simple empirical relationship between temperature and mortality, but ignores the countervailing effect of human adaptation to gradual changes in average temperature. While focusing on small changes in average temperatures, they ignore the important health impacts of extreme weather events. They extrapolate the effects of small changes in average temperature far beyond the level that is apparently supported by their principal sources, and introduce arbitrary assumptions that may bias the result toward finding net health benefits from warming.     

中国低生育水平与意愿生育水平的差距

以历次全国性有关生育率的各项调查数据为基础,介绍了中国当前的低生育水平和低生育动态模式。依据近几年全国性有关生育意愿的调查数据,计算了在有计划生育政策条件下和无计划生育政策条件下的中国育龄妇女的意愿生育率。在有和无计划生育政策条件下,中国育龄妇女的意愿生育水平均低于更替水平,生育意愿在一定的相对较短的时期内可以保持稳定。使用官方公布的总和生育率与计算的育龄妇女的总和意愿生育率数据绘制了低生育水平和意愿生育水平之间的差距图。在低生育时代下中国育龄妇女的生育意愿和生育行为存在差距的现象与世界普遍存在的现象是相一致的。     

Second-Best Road Taxes in Polycentric Networks with Distorted Labor Markets*

This paper examines the interaction of road taxes with spatially invariant labor taxation in a polycentric network. It derives analytical expressions for the network counterparts of the traditional double-dividend effects (i.e., Pigouvian, tax-interaction, and revenue-recycling effects), and computes them under different policy regimes. The analysis reveals a series of conditions under which a system of cordons around the major nodes of a network might be more efficient than marginal external cost pricing. With a high elasticity of labor supply and limited public transport coverage, it is shown that the Pigouvian tax rule might reduce welfare even when the generated revenue is used to finance labor tax cuts.     

Climate Change and the Representative Agent

The artifice of an infinitely-lived representative agent iscommonly invoked to balance the present costs and future benefitsof climate stabilization policies. Since actual economies arepopulated by overlapping generations of finite-lived persons,this approach begs important questions of welfare aggregation.This paper compares the results of representative agent andoverlapping generations models that are numerically calibratedbased on standard assumptions regarding climate--economyinteractions. Under two social choice rules -- Pareto efficiencyand classical utilitarianism -- the models generate closelysimilar simulation results. In the absence of policies toredistribute income between present and future generations,efficient rates of carbon dioxide emissions abatement rise from15 to 20% between the years 2000 and 2105. Under classicalutilitarianism, in contrast, optimal control rates rise from 48 to 79% this same period.     

The ‘curse of dimensionality’ resolved: The effects of climate change and trade barriers in large dimensional modelling

Solving large scale optimisation problems over space and time quickly generates a computational impasse, termed the ‘curse of dimensionality’. This severely limits the practical use of economic models, especially for determining the effects of climate change and protectionist trade policies. In this paper, we employ an innovative approach to solving (otherwise unsolvable) large scale systems through the use of parallel processing methods and a proper ordering of variables and equations in a ‘Nested Doubly Bordered Block Diagonal’ form. We illustrate how the approach can be used to solve an intertemporal CGE model with more than 500 million equations. Using existing damage functions, the framework allows us to determine the impact of climate change on long-run economic growth for 112 countries as a result of the effect of sea-level rise on land endowments, variation in crop yields and productivity and shifts in the demand for energy and transportation. We also compare our solution to more common (and smaller dimensional) recursive methods, in terms of both the economic effects of climate change and potential increases in trade barriers, showing the power and efficiency of our computational approach and parallel processing routine.