Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments: Comment

In this comment, I analyze Damania's political economy model (Environmental and Resource Economics 13: 415–433, 1999), correcting some flaws and clarifying some ambiguities. I arguethat the political parties are identical at the outset of the game. Onlyafter the parties have chosen the instrument (standards or taxation) and thestrictness of environmental policy do the environmentalists and thepolluting firms know which party to support in the election campaign. Inequilibrium, both parties choose the same platform, so that both have anequal probability of winning the election.     

经济政策不确定性与企业多元化程度选择

多元化是现代企业发展战略中的一个重要问题。近年来多元化程度下降成为我国上市公司发展中一个主要特征。以2003-2017年沪深两市上市公司为研究对象,考察经济政策不确定性对上市公司多元化的影响。结果显示:经济政策不确定性与上市公司多元化程度显著负相关;对内生性问题进行处理后,这种负相关性在民营企业、高成长企业、非受保护行业的企业以及在金融危机爆发后更为明显。进一步研究还表明:上市公司经营实力、治理环境和股东监督力度的提高,会使经济政策不确定性对降低公司多元化程度的影响有所减弱。政府减少政策变动,保持政策的长期性和稳定性,并在制定经济政策时充分考虑企业的异质性特征,有利于企业多元化程度选择;另一方面,公司也需不断提高自身的学习能力,优化治理体系,增强抗风险能力。     

Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments

This paper investigates the impact of political lobbying on the choice of environmental policy instruments. It is argued that the prevalence of pollution emission standards over more efficient policy instruments may result from rent seeking behaviour. The model further predicts that when an emission standard is used to control pollution, rival political parties have an incentive to set the same standard. There is therefore a convergence of policies. Moreover, it is shown that emission taxes are more likely to be supported and proposed by political parties which represent environmental interest groups. This feature appears to accord with the observed support for environmental taxes by Green parties in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.     

农业面源污染控制的一体化环境经济政策体系研究

农业面源污染由于排放主体的分散性和隐蔽性、污染发生的随机性、污染负荷的时空差异性,使得农业面源污染具有很强的外部性、不确定性和非对称信息,这是农业面源污染控制的理论依据。文章在对农业面源污染控制面临的污染控制成本不确定性、污染者排污水平不确定性进行理论分析后,构建了农业面源污染控制的一体化环境经济政策体系,指出农业面源污染控制须针对各责任主体设计独特化、具体化、精确化、针对性的环境经济政策。     

Policy Instruments for Groundwater Management in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands agriculture andnature have conflicting interests with respectto groundwater management. Insight into thesuitability of policy instruments to achieveoptimal groundwater level and extractionmanagement in the Netherlands is, however,missing. In this paper the suitability ofpolicy instruments for groundwater managementis studied. Changes in the institutionalenvironment and voluntary agreements seem to bemore suitable for groundwater level managementthan economic instruments. The currenthistorical groundwater extraction rightssystems together with the low groundwaterprices encourage low-value agriculturalgroundwater usage, whereas sprinkling bans andirrigation scheduling currently aim to reducelow-value use of groundwater. These extractioninstruments are less efficient than a systemthat considers externalities in the price ofwater or diverts water away from agriculturewhile encouraging trading.     

Alternative Monetary Targets,Instruments and Future Monetary Policy Frameworks

ABSTRACT

This article expands on the debate of whether merely controlling inflation can be considered a good outcome in terms of monetary policy, discussing proposals for adopting alternative monetary targets (e.g., price level, nominal GDP), alternative instruments (e.g., monetary finance, central bank digital currencies), for enlarging central banks' mandates (e.g., incorporating employment, wages, inequality, environmental objectives) and for the design of future monetary policy frameworks.

We argue that in the coming years, central banks should not simply maintain their pre-2008 standards by de-implementing unconventional monetary policies. Instead, they must take advantage of their past and recent experiences in order to improve, under an evolutionary perspective, future monetary policy and financial stability frameworks. Based on this, measures implemented since the 2008 crisis would have three possible treatments in new frameworks: i) be discarded, due to their predominantly adverse effects; ii) not be regularly implemented, but be used as backstop mechanisms if needed; iii) be incorporated as regular measures of monetary policy/financial stability frameworks. Accordingly, monetary and financial stability authorities will increasingly need to evolve and engage in a continuously adaptive and innovative process in order to face challenges posed by financial markets that are becoming more dynamic, innovative, complex, interconnected and globalised.     

经济政策不确定性、金融摩擦与宏观经济

基于Baker的经济政策不确定性指数和平滑转移向量自回归模型,分析了经济政策不确定性对宏观经济的影响及其传导机制。研究表明:经济政策不确定性的冲击通过实物期权机制对投资和产出造成短期的负面影响,加大了宏观经济的波动性;金融摩擦使经济政策不确定性冲击对宏观经济的影响具有非对称性;金融摩擦的程度以外部融资溢价水平来衡量,在外部融资溢价水平"高"的情况下,经济政策不确定性的冲击对宏观经济的不良影响更大。     

光伏发电政策工具与政府选择——基于德国、日本和中国的比较研究

光伏发电市场在本质上是一个公共政策驱动的市场。为促进光伏发电产业技术进步和规模化发展,培育战略性新兴产业,我国出台相关政策,但其驱动效果与发达国家相比仍有很大差距。通过对比中国、德国和日本三个国家的光伏发电政策工具,可以发现政策设计要取得预期效果,不仅要考虑政策工具的性质及其适用性,还需要兼顾政策工具与政策环境、政策问题、目标受众的适应性。     

The Causal Relationship between Economic Policy Uncertainty and Stock Market: A Panel Data Analysis

This study applies recently developed bootstrap panel Granger causality, proposed by Kónya, to investigate a causal link between economic policy uncertainty and stock markets in nine countries over monthly periods from 2003M01 to 2014M12 (Kónya (2006 Kónya, L. (2006). Exports and growth: Granger causality analysis on OECD countries with a panel data approach. Economic Modelling, 23, 978–992. doi: 10.1016/j.econmod.2006.04.008[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) Exports and growth: Granger causality analysis on OECD countries with a panel data approach. Economic Modelling, 23, 978–992). The modeling allows us to examine both the cross-sectional dependency and the country-specific heterogeneity. The empirical results indicate that not all countries are alike, and that the theoretical prediction that stock markets fall at the announcement of a policy change is not always supported. Specifically, this work finds evidence of the stock market leading hypothesis for India, Italy, and Spain, while the economic policy uncertainty leading hypothesis cannot be rejected for the United Kingdom. In addition, the neutrality hypothesis was supported in the remaining countries (Canada, China, France, Germany and the United States), while the feedback hypothesis, however, is not found. The findings of this study could provide important policy implications for these nine countries.     

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Investor Sentiment: linear and nonlinear causality analysis

In this paper, we study the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and investor sentiment. US data were analysed based on linear and non-linear Granger causality analysis. We reveal the obvious impact that economic policy uncertainty has on the investor sentiment, which can be explained by the real option and financial constraint theory.     

货币政策工具对资产价格动态冲击的识别检验

文章以不同的货币政策手段在资产价格波动的不同阶段所表现出的作用效果为出发点,通过SVAR模型,识别出不同货币政策工具的单独动态冲击,并分别分析了膨胀阶段和低迷阶段的资产价格对货币政策冲击响应的程度,以解决针对不同阶段资产价格波动的货币政策调控手段和时机的选择问题。结果表明,货币政策对资产价格的作用具有有效性,在价格膨胀阶段可在一定时期内采取利率手段对资产价格波动进行微调,当出现价格泡沫时控制货币供应量会收到即时效果;而在资产价格低迷阶段,以利率调节资产价格具有明显和相对持久的作用。     

Allowing for Household Preferences in Emission Trading – A Contribution to the Climate Policy Debate

In the context of emission trading it seems to be taken as given that people's preferences can be ignored with respect to the whole process of fixing emission targets and allocating emission permits to polluters. With this paper we want to reopen the debate on how citizens can be involved in this process. We try to show how citizen preferences can be included in the process of pollution control through emission trading. We propose an emission trading system where all emission permits are initially allocated to households who are then allowed to sell them in the permit market or to withhold (at least some of) them in order to reduce total pollution. This proposal tries to overcome the fundamental disadvantage of traditional permit systems which neglect consumer preferences by solely distributing emission permits to producers / polluters. In our system the property right to nature is re-allocated to the households who obtain the opportunity of reducing actual emissions according to their personal preferences by withholding a part or all of the emission permits allotted to them. Such a change in environmental policy would mark a return to the traditional principles of consumer sovereignty by involving households (at least partially) in the social abatement decision process instead of excluding them. Another advantage of admitting households to the TEP market as sellers or buyers of permits is that this increases the number of agents in the permit market and thus significantly reduces the possibilities of strategic market manipulations.     

Pooling of Uncertainty: Enforcing Tradable Permits Regulation when Emissions are Stochastic

An under-appreciated advantage of tradable permits regulation is its ability to create better decision-making when emissions are stochastic. In general, the distribution of stochastic actual emissions around intended emissions results in over- or under-compliance. Permit tradability reduces the extent to which actual aggregate emissions deviate from regulatory targets, by giving firms an additional mechanism for responding to uncertainty. We construct a two period model of permit regulation with ex post enforcement to demonstrate how the permit market distributes uncertainty, and to illustrate the importance of expectations toward permit market outcomes.     

Incentives for Technology Adoption Under Environmental Policy Uncertainty: Implications for Green Payment Programs

Water quality protection policy in the UnitedStates has been based on the provision offinancial incentives to farmers for adoptingimproved nutrient management practices.Increasing reliance on subsidy programs couldresult in expectations for such programs in thefuture. Using an option-value model thatindicates uncertainty can lead to a delay ininvestment, this paper analyzes the extent towhich uncertainty about cost-share subsidypolicies would impact adoption decision.Application of the model to adoption ofsite-specific technologies indicates thatuncertainty about subsidy policies has thepotential to impact the investment decision.When there is currently no cost-share subsidy,an increase in the probability of an expectedpolicy delays adoption. If the policy is ineffect, an increase in the probability of awithdrawal of the program encouragesinvestment. Cost-share subsidy policy is mosteffective when it is immediately offered andguaranteed that it will be removed soon.     

新时期企业会计政策的选择

目前企业所处环境的复杂性和不确定性越来越高,为了保证会计信息的真实可靠,协调企业相关各方的经济利益,实现社会经济资源的优化配置,企业选择会计政策必须从合法性、相对独立性、经济性和道德性等基本要求出发,遵循准备阶段、政策分析阶段和决策阶段的基本程序,认清会计政策选择的发展趋势,才能有效提高选择的合理性。     

试论调控个人收入分配的财税政策选择

根据实际情况，我国政府调控个人收入分配，在财政政策方面，应加快完善社会保障制度，加大转移支付力度，缩小地区经济差距，加大扶贫投入的力度；在税收政策方面，应进一步完善个人所得税制度，适时开征遗产税与赠与税，加强特别消费税的作用，建立个人财产税制，适时开征社会保障税。     

WTO与竞争政策的冲突--论WTO下个人权利的缺失

尽管关税壁垒已经被大大消除,但反竞争行为如果得不到规制将会成为阻碍国际贸易自由化发展的新壁垒,使得贸易政策和竞争政策的冲突和矛盾愈发突出。由于贸易政策和竞争政策调整对象的不同以及基本理念和价值取向不同,尤其是对个人权利的不同关注,决定了两者在最终追求目标相互补之外的不完全相容性。现有的世界贸易组织所规范的贸易行为并没有涉及和考虑竞争政策尤为重视的经济活动参与者及其商业行为,尽管世界贸易组织协定中已有一些初步的竞争规则,但贸易政策和竞争政策的协调前景并不乐观。     

经济政策不确定性、会计稳健性与公司投资效率——中国A股上市的民营企业为证据

文章以中国A股上市的民营企业2014-2018年度财务报告数据为研究对象,探讨了经济政策不确定性、会计稳健性对公司投资效率的影响。文章实证显示,经济政策不确定性加重公司非效率性投资;会计稳健性在公司投资活动中具有治理作用,能够有效缓解企业过度投资,提高投资效率,然而会计稳健性对缓解公司投资不足的作用不明显;会计稳健性是对经济政策不确定性的一种谨慎反应,可以抑制经济政策不确定公司投资效率的负面影响。     

创业者社会资本与新企业融资工具选择

以社会资本理论为基础,构建模型分析在存在双重道德风险的情况下,创业者社会资本对债务融资与风险资本股权融资两种融资工具选择的影响。研究发现,当创业者有能力选择债务融资或者风险资本两种融资工具时,同时当创业者的社会资本拥有度较高或者较低时,创业者倾向于选择债务融资;而当创业者社会资本拥有度在中等水平时,倾向于选择风险资本股权融资。研究的主要贡献在于,将创业者社会资本纳入到新企业融资工具选择的研究框架之中,深化了新企业融资的研究成果。     

利益分配、战略行动与集体选择的不确定性

爱因斯坦说,时间是一种错觉;普利高津则说,确定性是一种错觉。而文章认为,均衡也是一种错觉:集体选择的结果存在内生的不确定性。基于个体战略行动的多样性,文章从利益分配的角度对集体选择的不确定性作出了理论上的证明。认识到集体选择的不确定性特征对于理解社会的运行以及设计与社会控制相关的制度规章都具有重要的意义。