Resource Use When Demand is Interdependent Over Time*

Optimal consumption programmes are characterized for a naturally renewable, and a non-renewable, resource when a parameter determining instantaneous utility depends on cumulated past consumption. Unlike conventional results, optimal consumption may increase over time. Conditions for this are given. For both types of resource it is shown that a free good is not necessarily consumed to the limit of availability, even though non-satiation appears to hold. Each problem may be interpreted to be about the use of a poluting resource (like uranium), and it then reflects basic physical laws.     

Pollution Abatement Investment When Environmental Regulation Is Uncertain

In a dynamic model of a risk-neutral competitive firm that can lower its pollution emissions per unit of output by building up abatement capital stock, we examine the effect of a higher pollution tax rate on abatement investment both under full certainty and when the timing or the size of the tax increase is uncertain. We show that a higher pollution tax encourages abatement investment if it does not exceed a certain threshold rate. However, akin to the Diamond-Mirrlees tax anomaly, it is possible that a higher pollution tax rate results in more pollution. The magnitude uncertainty discourages abatement investment, but at the time of the actual tax increase the abatement investment path may shift either upward or downward. On the other hand, when the timing is uncertain, the abatement investment path always jumps upward, thus suggesting that the effect of magnitude uncertainty on the optimal investment path may be more pronounced than that of timing uncertainty. Further, we show that the ad hoc practice of raising the discount rate to account for the uncertainty leads to underinvestment in abatement capital. We show how the size of this underinvestment bias varies with the future tax increase. Finally, we show that a credible threat to accelerate the tax increase can induce more abatement investment.     

一种需求不确定下的回购策略设计

基于促销努力影响需求、零售商不允许缺货且可以二次订货的情况,本文建立了由一个供应商和一个零售商组成的二级供应链回购契约模型,论证了无论是单纯回购策略还是回购策略下努力成本共担都不能实现供应链的协调,并引入奖励与惩罚策略来达到协调作用。最后,通过算例对模型进行了分析。     

Domestic and Foreign Sales When Prices in Both Markets are Uncertain

This paper obtains comparative static results for a firm that sells a single output domestically and abroad when prices in both markets are uncertain. Results are obtained for both constant absolute risk aversion and for Ross decreasing absolute risk aversion, using a diagrammatic analysis which exploits the properties of expected marginal utility contours. The results depend crucially on whether foreign and domestic sales are net substitutes or complements. The model is more complex and yields fewer unambiguous results – particularly in the case of substitutes – than when there is price uncertainty in only one market.     

When is a Nation

The dominant perspective on nationalism in history and the social sciences is one that treats nations as modern constructs, the products of the new conditions that have changed the world since the Enlightenment and the French and American revolutions. But modernist views are decidedly ethnocentric; they are also as theoretically problematic and historically questionable as the perennialist perspective which they supplanted. An alternative 'ethno-symbolic' approach reveals the various forms of the nation in history, and seeks to supplement the rather linear historical question, 'when is the nation?', with the more recurrent and sociological problem of 'when is a nation?'. The latter question invites us to delineate different starting points and patterns of nation-formation in terms of ideal-type constructs, while an emphasis on the role of ethnic myths, memories, symbols and traditions helps us to explore the processes and routes by which nations are formed in different epochs and continents. By taking more subjective features into account, an 'ethno-symbolic' approach also reveals the tentative nature of such an exploration and the extent to which the category of the nation is subject to different, and often conflicting, interpretations by members, outsiders and analysts.     

Forensic Econometrics: Demand Estimation When Data are Missing

Often empirical researchers face many data constraints when estimating models of demand. These constraints can sometimes prevent adequate evaluation of policies. In this article, we discuss two such missing data problems that arise frequently: missing data on prices and missing information on the size of the potential market. We present some ways to overcome these limitations in the context of two recent research projects. Jacobi and Sovinsky (2018), which addresses how to incorporate unobserved price heterogeneity, and Hidalgo and Sovinsky (2018), which focuses on how to use modelling techniques to estimate missing market size. Our aim is to provide a starting point for thinking about ways to overcome common data issues.     

新能源成本不确定下能源最优开采研究

随着全球气候变暖和环境的恶化,低污染高效率的新能源成为各国能源政策的主要发展对象,因此新能源取代传统能源是大势所趋。针对未来新能源对传统能源的替代趋势,本文通过建立基于社会和企业总效益最大化的能源最优开采的动态模型,分析了新能源成本不确定性和社会风险偏好的差异对能源耗竭速度的影响,并提出了提高社会总收益的合理方案。分析表明：在替代品出现之前能源的开采量随着新能源替代品成本不确定性的增加而增加;而社会风险厌恶倾向于减少社会的最优开采,但是会增加竞争性企业的的开采量;对T时刻之前的能源开采征收额外的税收可以减缓能源耗竭速度,增加社会总收益。最后,本文提出了T时刻之前的能源开采征收额外的税收,或者是对T时刻之后的能源开采进行补贴来实现我国能源最优开采,提高能源利用效率的建议。     

When is it coevolution?

This paper evaluates the differences between Norgaard's and Winder et al.'s approach to socio-environmental coevolution. Winder et al. emphasize the evolutionary dynamics of coevolutionary change. These were omnipresent in Norgaard's work but they have not been adequately explored by other ecological economists. I argue that Winder et al.'s definition of coevolution is in essence the same as Norgaard's and that their real differences are, how they see coevolution applied and how far they are willing to draw a priori a line between evolutionary and non-evolutionary socio-environmental dynamics. My thesis is that at this stage a more open approach to evolutionary dynamics and coevolution a la Norgaard is a wiser strategy than Winder et al.'s narrower approach.     

When imperfect collusion is profitable

This paper studies cartel stability under the assumption that member firms can choose intermediate degrees of collusion as well as the joint-profit-maximizing solution in determining the quota to be produced by each firm. After showing that firms can increase the number of participants by decreasing the degree of collusion, I prove that individual members' profits are maximized when firms choose a (possibly low) degree of collusion such that all firms in the industry want to take part in the cartel. More precisely, if the number of firms in the industry is four or less, then all of them want to take part in the cartel even if the maximum degree of collusion is chosen (i.e., the monopoly output is produced); if the number of firms is greater than four, firms will still create an industry-wide cartel but they will produce a higher quantity than the monopoly output.     

When is a tax neutral?

A proportional income tax is said to be neutral if variations in the tax rate do not affect the optimal composition of the consumption commodities of a utility maximizing consumer. It is shown that neutrality obtains if and only if the indirect utility function of the consumer is groupwise homothetic. If the income tax rates on labor and property incomes are allowed to differ, then neutrality obtains if and only if the indirect utility function of the consumer is homothetically separable. If, in addition, it is required that the proportional income tax be neutral with respect to not only consumption commodities but also to leisure, then 'the indirect utility function must have the form: $\text{V = V(f(w)+H}{}^1\text{(p))}$, where w and p are the normalized prices of leisure and consumption respectively, and H¹(p) is homogeneous of degree one in p.     

Labour Hoarding, Price Rigidity and the Theory of Imperfect Competition under Uncertain Demand

It is shown that a monopolistic firm under uncertainty may be inclined to keep some of its output unsold when demand is low. This gives rise to changes in conventional results. Under uncertainty, a risk-neutral monopolistic firm produces more than in a deterministic environment and it refuses to sell its total output when demand is low, because the marginal revenue could become negative or lower than the cost of selling the product. Moreover, in this framework, prices are shown to be more rigid downwards than upwards. The model also provides a new explanation for labour hoarding.
JEL classification : D 24; D 42     

The Design of Pension Pay Out Options When the Health Status during Retirement Is Uncertain

This paper examines the optimal design of pension plans when the health status during retirement is uncertain. Assuming that the health status affects both life expectancy and the marginal utility of consumption, choice between a lump-sum payment and an annuity can be welfare-enhancing if the health status is not observable by pension plan providers. This result holds if the marginal utility of consumption and life expectancy are negatively correlated. On equity grounds, a lump-sum option can be justified even if the marginal utility of consumption is independent of life expectancy.