Spatial Welfare Economics Versus Ecological Footprint: A Sensitivity Analysis Introducing Strong Sustainability

The aim of this paper is a sensitivity analysis with the core-periphery model of ‘new economic geography’ put forward in Grazi et al. (Environ Resour Econ 38:135–153, 2007). This model comprises interregional trade, agglomeration advantages and resource (land) use or environmental externalities. Grazi et al. (2007, GBR) compare a social welfare (SW) indicator with the ecological footprint (EF) indicator for measuring spatial sustainability of a set of land use configurations. Their main result is that the SW and the EF indicator can yield completely different rankings and only for extreme parameterizations of environmental externalities the rankings coincide. We adapt the model by interpreting total natural land as a resource constraint and differentiate between weak and strong sustainability. In a sensitivity analysis we show that the main results of GBR (2007) correspond to the case of weak sustainability in our adapted model version. In the case of strong sustainability our adapted model version shows the same welfare rankings for both indicators without the extreme parameterization that is necessary to obtain the same results in the original GBR (2007) model.     

Interest Groups, Trade Liberalization, and Environmental Standards

In considering a country that imposes a minimum standard on an imported polluting good, which generates negative consumption externalities, we construct a common-agency model, in which a domestic environmental group and a foreign industrial lobby can influence the formation of the minimum standard by providing political contributions to the government. This paper investigates the effects of trade liberalization on the political equilibrium environmental standard, the pattern of trade, environmental disutility, and social welfare. We find that trade liberalization tightens the minimum standard, decreases imports of the polluting good, and reduces environmental disutilities. The importing country’s social welfare, however, does not necessarily increase with trade liberalization. The weaker the environmental group’s lobbying efficiency, or the stronger the foreign firm’s lobbying efficiency, the more likely it is that trade liberalization will enhance the importing country’s welfare.     

Eco-Labeling and Market Equilibria with Noisy Certification Tests

An intriguing alternative to traditional methods for regulating externalities is the provision of information about firms’ environmental attributes. An increasingly important example of this approach is “eco-labeling,” where a third party certifies firms’ products. Such schemes are currently used in a variety of countries. This paper investigates the equilibria that may occur with eco-labeling, and the attendant welfare effects. I model certification as a noisy test, subject to both type I and type II errors, but where green firms more likely to pass than brown firms. While it commonly leads to an increase in the fraction of green units in the market, the introduction of an eco-label can either increase or decrease welfare.     

Consumption taxation, social status and indeterminacy in models of endogenous growth with elastic labor supply

In this paper, we examine the effects of consumption taxation on long-run growth in an infinitely lived representative-agent model of endogenous growth with endogenous labor supply in which the desire for social status induces private agents to care about others’ wealth or consumption levels. This analysis shows that the increase in consumption taxation raises (reduces) the long-run growth rate when the equilibrium path is locally indeterminate (determinate), provided the desire for social status is not too strong in the relative wealth model. By contrast, in the consumption externalities model, the same result holds, if the Frisch labor supply and labor demand curves have the ‘normal’ slopes at their intersection point, while the result is reversed if these two curves have the ‘wrong’ slopes.     

Bad Eggs,Learning-by-doing,and the Choice of Technology

We model long-run economic development through technology adoption under scientific uncertainty about environmental effects. There are four possible long-run equilibria in a socially planned economy: ‘High-growth’, adopt rapidly, but abandon damaging technologies once revealed (DDT, CFCs); ‘Cautious’, brake the introduction of new technologies to avoid mistakes (genetically modified organisms); ‘No-growth’, halt technological progress to preserve secondary knowledge; and ‘Collapse’, adopt rapidly without ever abandoning damaging technologies. In the base parameterization a short-sighted social planner chooses the cautious strategy. A far-sighted planner chooses the high-growth strategy, unless damages are irreversible in which case the cautious strategy again dominates. Regulatory options in the market economy are investigated. Pollution taxes do not affect the firm’s level of precaution if they can only be applied after the adopting firm has reaped the benefits; however, they do encourage the abandonment of damaging technologies. Liability rules do affect precaution, but may lead to excessive caution, or even a no-growth trap.     

Schumpeter’s ‘conduct model of the dynamic entrepreneur’: scope and distinctiveness

Schumpeter formulated a ‘conduct model’ of entrepreneurial behaviour. Received wisdom has emphasised the economic functions of Schumpeter’s entrepreneur, neglecting behavioural aspects. Schumpeter’s model is examined; it posits a continuum of behaviours which are ‘entrepreneurial’, that rely on socially situated, tacit knowledge and are expressions of conscious, subjective rationality. Schumpeter’s model excluded unconscious optimisation and decision rules derived from bounded rationality. Comparisons are drawn with modern neoclassical, Austrian, and the older behavioural characterisations of entrepreneurial behaviour. The newer ‘effectuation’ model of entrepreneurial behaviour is also contrasted with Schumpeter’s approach. We find, among other things, that modern Schumpeterian economics associated with Nelson and Winter is not a natural continuation of Schumpeter’s model. However, some developments in neo-Schumpeterian economics, including the effectuation model deriving from the older behavioural tradition, are congruent with both the original ‘conduct model’ and Schumpeter’s directions for further research.     

土地利用持续性的生态足迹评价法

本文运用生态足迹模型和灰色预测法,基于生态可持续性评估方法度量人地协调性,探讨土地可持续利用的生态足迹评价法。研究结果表明随着人口增长和经济发展,我国土地利用状况不断变化,1978年开始出现生态赤字,并持续增长,直到1996年开始稍有缓和,但土地利用仍处于非可持续状态。作者认为生态足迹评价法能定量地反映土地利用和经济发展的协调性,引导人类社会积极采取应对措施,促进土地可持续利用。     

Price Premiums for Eco-friendly Commodities: Are ‘Green’ Markets the Best Way to Protect Endangered Ecosystems?

‘Green’ markets represent a means through which public goods can be privately provided. A green product is an impure public good consisting of a private good (e.g., rain forest honey) bundled with a jointly produced public good (e.g., biodiversity protection). In the context of ecosystem protection, popular green commodities include eco-tourism excursions, coffee grown under forest canopies (‘shade-grown’), tagua nuts for buttons and ornaments, rainforest nuts and oils for cosmetic products, and rain forest honey. We examine the dynamic efficiency of eco-friendly price premiums in achieving ecosystem protection and rural welfare goals by contrasting the use of price premiums to the use of payments that are tied directly to ecosystem protection. We demonstrate analytically and empirically that direct payments are likely to be more efficient as a conservation policy instrument. Depending on the available funds, the direct payments may be better or worse than green price premiums in achieving rural welfare objectives. If direct payments are not feasible for social or political reasons, we demonstrate analytically and empirically that the price premium approach is likely to be more effective at achieving conservation and development objectives than the currently more popular policy of subsidizing capital acquisition in eco-friendly commercial activities.     

中国土地财政的社会福利效应*——基于森（Sen）的可行能力理论

本文基于森（Sen）的可行能力理论,运用模糊数学与因子分析法测度中国2004-2013年31个省份社会福利指数,并分析社会福利与土地财政关系。通过理论与实证检验研究发现：第一,沿海城市社会福利指数相对较高,且透明性担保、社会机会、经济条件、防护性保障和政治自由对社会福利指数贡献率呈递增的趋势。第二,东部沿海地区土地财政收入绝对值与相对值远超西部地区,且各地区社会福利与土地财政二者呈脱钩现象。第三,各地区社会福利指数之间存在正的空间相关性,且各省社会福利指数存在空间集聚与扩散现象。最后,利用空间动态面板模型实证检验发现,地方政府土地财政收入占比与社会福利之间呈倒U型曲线。     

Conditions for indeterminacy and thresholds in neoclassical growth models

This paper considers externalities and investigates which general properties and respectively their magnitudes induce complex behavior like thresholds and indeterminacy (and cycles). The objective is to obtain general mechanisms within a general setting in order to complement the much advanced but model specific literature. It turns out that these arithmetic and simultaneously economic conditions for thresholds or indeterminacy require complementarity and non-moderate dynamic social influence. In other words, complexities can be related (necessary and sufficient) to a familiar static property that social interactions turn the (stationary) demand for the private stock into a Giffen good. Indeterminacy requires in addition ‘low’ subjective discounting and proper interactions between control, stock and externality. These conditions provide an easy way to construct models that allow for the targeted outcome, stability, thresholds or indeterminacy.     

Using Labels to Investigate Scope Effects in Stated Preference Methods

Insufficient sensitivity to scope (variations in the scale of the environmental good on offer) remains a major criticism of stated preference methods, and many studies fail a scope test of some sort. Across a range of existing explanations for insensitivity to scope (commodity mis-specification, embedding, warm glows) there seems to exist no clear conclusion on how to deal with the problem. This paper provides an alternative explanation for insufficient sensitivity to scope, based on re-definition of the determinants of value for environmental goods within an attributes-based choice model. In the proposed framework respondents’ Willingness To Pay need depend not only on physical characteristics of a good, but may also depend on the ‘label’ under which the environmental good is ‘sold’ in the hypothetical market. To investigate this problem, a Choice Experiment study of biodiversity was conducted. We find that controlling for the effects of a label—in this case, national park designation—leads to significant increase in the scope sensitivity of welfare measures.     

Out of a slave contract: the analysis of pre-Hobbesian anarchists in the Old Testament

Buchanan’s constitutional economics takes social conflict (the ‘Hobbesian jungle’, ‘Hobbesian anarchy’) as the starting point for the analysis of social contract. Buchanan argues that in the presence of social conflict either some social contract (e.g. some system of formal laws) or some generally shared moral precepts are needed to resolve the predicament that social conflict presents. The present paper argues that a social conflict model also served the Old Testament as an analytical starting point. However, contrary to both standard theological interpretation and Buchanan’s explicit claims, I argue that the Old Testament had already made an attempt to model ‘Hobbesian anarchy’ in order to approach social conflict in an essentially modern, non-metaphysical manner. I argue that figures like Adam and Eve or Jacob, in the tradition of Hobbesian anarchists, questioned godly authority and the associated imposed, authoritarian, metaphysical social contract. In this way, one can detect a modern, contractarian constitutional economics in pre-Enlightenment literature (and in Genesis, specifically) in direct contrast to Buchanan’s claims.     

增长失衡与政府责任:基于社会性支出角度的分析

There exists a kind of growth imbalance in China’s current development process, which is essentially characterized by the imbalance between the nation’s wealth and the people’s welfare. This paper points out that growth imbalance results mostly from insufficient government social spending on people’s welfare. Consequently, the government should shoulder the basic responsibility for the provision of education, health and social security, quicken the transformation of government expenditure structure and increase the share of social spending, in order to improve the people’s welfare and achieve the rebalancing of growth. The increase in social spending can also promote the accumulation of human capital, which will help the conversion of economic growth pattern and the realization of sustainable and healthy economic development. Translated from Jingji Yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2006, (10): 4–17     

Climate policy targets in emerging and industrialized economies: the influence of technological differences, environmental preferences and propensity to save

Although emerging economies claim that industrialized countries need to reduce their carbon emissions first, stabilization of the future global climate system requires immediate action by all countries. In a stylized two-country intertemporal general equilibrium model, we derive welfare maximizing emission caps in emerging and industrialized countries, taking account of country differences in technology, environmental preferences and propensity to save. Simultaneous target setting is compared to a sequential one in which the industrialized country commits itself to binding targets first. In the latter case, when the industrialized economy has stronger environmental preferences and a lower relative pollution production share, the industrialized economy can increase its joint economic and environmental welfare by setting a laxer target. On the other hand, when the emerging economy has considerably higher environmental preferences, our results suggest that the industrialized economy will choose a more restrictive target in a sequential setting than in a simultaneous one, contrary to first thought that a first mover is always pursuing a ‘symbolic’ policy with a lax target.     

Capabilities,Rights and Justice in the Context of Australian Aboriginal Welfare Policy

Since white settlement of Australia in 1788, the Aboriginal community has remained a conspicuously disadvantaged minority group. Decades of Federal and State government welfare policies have not prevented alcoholism, domestic violence and unemployment from undermining life in Aboriginal communities. Radically different policies are now being trialled, in recognition that a social emergency exists and in recognition that ‘money for nothing’ welfare handouts have not succeeded in developing human capabilities in Aboriginal communities. Despite the 2008 ‘sorry day’ apology, emotional hurts still run deep, and perceived injustices continue to impact upon the recognition of Aboriginal rights and the advancement of Aboriginal capabilities.     

Environmental Financing in European Economies in Transition

The paper offers a perspective on environmental predicament of economies in transition. Emphasis is put on how these economies finance their environmental needs. It is observed that the demand for environmental financing can be affected both by environmental policy measures (such as internalization of externalities) and by other factors (such as the softness of budget constraints faced by firms). The role of subsidies – in many countries of the Central and Eastern European region provided through special purpose ‘environmental funds’ – is then scrutinized. In particular the question is asked whether such funds crowd out commercial capital from the market. Conditions are discussed that would allow the funds to play their constructive environmental roles without crowding out private financing.     

Mobile phone termination charges with asymmetric regulation

We model competition between two unregulated mobile phone companies with price-elastic demand and less than full market coverage. We also assume that there is a regulated full-coverage fixed network. In order to induce stronger competition, mobile companies could have an incentive to raise their reciprocal mobile-to-mobile access charges above the marginal costs of termination. Stronger competition leads to an increase of the mobiles’ market shares, with the advantage that (genuine) network effects are strengthened. Therefore, ‘collusion’ may well be in line with social welfare.      

Protecting Ecosystems and Alleviating Poverty with Parks and Reserves: ‘Win-Win’ or Tradeoffs?

National parks and reserves are globally popular approaches to protecting biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services. Because these protected areas limit agricultural development and exploitation of natural resources, they are frequently opposed in developing nations where reducing poverty is an important social objective. Conservation advocates argue that protected areas can alleviate poverty by supplying ecosystem services, promoting tourism and improving infrastructure. Thus ‘win-win’ scenarios may be possible in which ecosystems and their services are protected and poverty is alleviated. Previous studies (Andam et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105(42):16089–16094 2008; 2010) suggest that Costa Rica’s protected area system reduced deforestation and alleviated poverty. We demonstrate that these environmental and social impacts were spatially heterogeneous. Importantly, the characteristics associated with the most avoided deforestation are the characteristics associated with the least poverty alleviation. In other words, the same characteristics that limited the conservation effectiveness of protected areas may have improved the social welfare impacts of these areas. These results suggest that ‘win-win’ efforts to protect ecosystems and alleviate poverty may be possible when policymakers are satisfied with low levels of each outcome, but tradeoffs exist when more of either outcome is desired.     

The Sensory Order and other Adaptive Classifying Systems

Synopsis Hayek’s cognitive theory, which seeks to describe the operation of a particular order, in fact provides a paradigmatic account of knowledge-generating orders in general. We claim that this paradigm provides a fertile conceptual framework for exploring a variety of problems in economics and social theory. In particular, we shall show that Hayek’s conception of the ‘map’ and the ‘model’, which he uses to explain the operation of the complex adaptive classifying system called ‘mind’, are promising analytical devices with applications extending to social structures of various kinds and complexity. We use Hayek’s notion of the map and model to analyze how different social structures – regarded as classifying systems – work in terms of their input, processing, and output capabilities. The adaptive characteristics of such systems, via communicative routines, multi-level classification, and feedback, form central motifs for our discussion of markets, science, and other social structures. We show that by analyzing the knowledge-generating characteristics of such structures we are also able to gain insights about the circumstances affecting their adaptive properties.