Maxium Victim Benefit: A Fair Division Process in Transboundary Pollution Problems

We introduce a side-payment scheme, maximum victim benefit, that promotes stable international environmental agreements. In developing this scheme, we incorporate the equity position that victims of pollution should benefit from pollution control. The result is a scheme which picks a unique element in the core; it maximizes the benefits to the victims of pollution and ensures that polluters are willing to join the scheme.     

Transboundary Pollution and the Welfare Effects of Technology Transfer

We examine the welfare effects of a transfer of pollution abatement technology in a two-country model. In each country, one industry discharges pollution as a byproduct of output, and the sum of domestic and cross-border pollution decreases the productivity of the other industry. We show the effects of technology transfer on the terms of trade, pollution levels, and welfare. Technology transfer decreases the pollution affecting each country under certain conditions. We derive and interpret the conditions under which technology transfer enriches the donor and the recipient. The results essentially depend on the trade pattern and the fraction of cross-border pollution.     

Transboundary Externalities in the Environmental Transition Hypothesis

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is a hypothesis which implies that it is possible to grow out of environmental degradation. Most theoretical models of the EKC relation have not accounted for transboundary and intergenerational externalities nor have empirical studies provided evidence that validates an inverted U shaped relation between environmental degradation and economic growth for pollution problems where the effects are far-displaced or are long-delayed.This paper integrates the theory of transboundary externalities into the most common theoretical framework applied to the EKC hypothesis. It shows that where a significant proportion of the environmental impacts of economic activity occurs outside the territories in which those activities take place, the de-linking of growth and environmental degradation is less likely to happen. This proposition is demonstrated by assuming that decisionmakers have a Nash-type non cooperative strategic behavior.     

Transboundary Pollution in the Black Sea: Comparison of Institutional Arrangements

This paper analyses the transboundary pollution between Romania and Ukraine, coastal states along the Black Sea, and studies the welfare consequences of institutional arrangements for controlling this problem. To achieve this goal, we use a dynamic and strategic framework. We compare in terms of total welfare for two countries a first-best case with three different institutional arrangements: the non-cooperative game of countries, the uniform emission policy and the constant emission policy as proposed by the Black Sea Commission. Our findings indicate that the non-cooperative game provides a better level of total welfare than the other rules.     

OPEC's Response to International Climate Agreements

This paper studies a game between a group of countries that have agreed to participate in an international climate agreement (the signatories) and OPEC. The purpose of the signatories is to design carbon taxes that maximize their total net income, given a goal on global carbon emissions. As a response to the climate agreement, OPEC imposes an oil tax on its member states that maximizes OPEC's profits. Within a numerical model we find the subgame-perfect equilibrium of a game in which each player chooses when to fix his decision variables. It is shown that in equilibrium the group of signatories chooses to be the leader and OPEC chooses to be the follower. It is demonstrated, however, that for both agents the order of move is of minor (numerical) importance. Hence, the players have limited incentives for strategic behaviour.     

环境壁垒在处理跨界污染问题中的运用

由于缺乏能够有力约束各国政府的组织存在,而各国仅从自身利益最大化来考虑污染排放,故如何让各国自愿并积极地参与环境保护协议以解决跨界污染一直是环境经济主要研究的问题之一。另外,环境壁垒一直被认为是新贸易保护主义所采取的一种贸易保护政策的新形式,其阻碍了贸易自由化的发展。然而,本文从另一角度重新审视环境壁垒,通过把它引入跨界污染博弈中形成关联博弈,最终得出环境壁垒有助于解决国家间的跨界污染问题的结论。     

International Cooperation Behind the Veil of Uncertainty – The Case of Transboundary Acidification

The complexities of international environmental problems are only poorly understood. Hence, decision makers have to negotiate about abatement measures even though they do not know the 'true' model of the ecological system and have only a rough idea about the costs and benefits of their action. It will be analysed to what extent this kind of 'model uncertainty' – where players do not only have incomplete information about the payoff functions of the other players, but also about their own payoff function – affects the prospects of international cooperation. Using a simple game-theoretic model, it is shown how countries can use the veil of uncertainty to hide their distributional interests. The arguments are based on a deviation from the common prior assumption, which seems particularly questionable in a setting comprising various countries with different cultural and scientific backgrounds. Finally the model will prove useful to quantitatively and qualitatively illustrate the central role of model uncertainty in the negotiations of the first Sulphur Protocol signed to combat transboundary acidification.     

Environmental Taxes and First-Mover Advantages

This paper studies whether governments prefer to be leaders or followers in environmental policies. To analyze this question I assume transboundary pollution and two countries that have to decide whether to set environmental taxes sequentially or simultaneously. When taxes are set sequentially an effect, denoted as the sequential setting effect, arises that raises the equilibrium taxes. I show that whether governments prefer to be leaders or followers in taxes depends on the degree to which environmental pollution spills over to trading partners. When this overspill is low enough, taxes are strategic complements and both the leader and the follower obtain greater welfare than under a simultaneous tax setting. However, the leader country obtains greater welfare than the follower. In this case, governments set taxes sequentially. When the degree to which environmental pollution spills over to trading partners is high enough, taxes are strategic substitutes and governments set taxes simultaneously. In this case, each government wants to avoid becoming the follower in taxes.     

Economic Growth and Transboundary Pollution in Europe: An Empirical Analysis

The existing empirical evidence suggests that environmental Kuznets curvesonly exist for pollutants with semi-local and medium term impacts.Ansuategi and Perrings (2000) have considered the behavioral basis for thecorrelation observed between different spatial incidence of environmentaldegradation and the relation between economic growth and environmentalquality. They show that self-interested planners following a Nash-typestrategy tend to address environmental effects sequentially: addressingthose with the most immediate costs first, and those whose costs aredisplaced in space later. This paper tests such behavioral basis in thecontext of sulphur dioxide emissions in Europe.     

On the Theory and Diplomacy of Environmental Treaty-Making

International cooperation can be looked at in two ways: as a process and as an outcome. This paper shows how the process of treaty-making can affect treaty outcomes and how treaty design can change the rules of the game of international cooperation.     

Uncertainty,Learning and International Environmental Policy Coordination

In this paper we construct a simple model of global warming which captures a number of key features of the global warming problem: (i) environmental damages are related to the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; (ii) the global commons nature of the problem means that these are strategic interactions between the emissions policies of the governments of individual nation states; (iii) there is uncertainty about the extent of the future damages that will be incurred by each country from any given level of concentration of greenhouse gases but there is the possibility that at a future date better information about the true extent of environmental damages may become available; an important aspect of the problem is the extent to which damages in different countries may be correlated. In the first part of the paper we consider a simple model with two symmetric countries and show that the value of perfect information is an increasing function of the correlation between damages in the two countries in both the cooperative and non-cooperative equilibria. However, while the value of perfect information is always non-negative in the cooperative equilibrium, in the non-cooperative equilibrium there is a critical value of the correlation coefficient below which the value of perfect information will be negative. In the second part of the paper we construct an empirical model of global warming distinguishing between OECD and non-OECD countries and show that in the non-cooperative equilibrium the value of perfect information for OECD countries is negative when the correlation coefficient between environmental damages for OECD and non-OECD countries is negative. The implications of these results for international agreements are discussed.     

Voluntary Environmental Agreements vs. Emission Taxes in Strategic Trade Models

The purpose of the paper is to narrow the gap between the widespread use of voluntary agreements and research on the rationale of such approaches. A topical example are voluntary agreements of many industries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions because of global warming. If the industry anticipates that taxes and fees will be introduced in the coming years, it seems rational to act in advance in order to mitigate the tax levels.The conventional approach in strategic trade and tax models was to look at a two-stage game where governments set taxes first and then firms react. In such a policy regime the government is concerned about the international competitiveness of its firms and sets taxes below marginal damages. In this paper, we consider a policy regime with a reversed timing. Firms commit themselves in the face of emission taxes to abatement efforts and to lower levels of the environmentally intensive output. Then the government introduces the tax. Under this timing of strategies the tax is equal to marginal damage. Firms waive profit and reduce output in order to use less of the polluting input. The reward for this behavior will be a less strict use of policy instruments and hence lower abatement costs in the near future.     

Transboundary air pollution and soil acidification: A dynamic analysis of an acid rain game between Finland and the USSR

Transboundary air pollution is analysed as a dynamic game between Finland and the nearby areas of the Soviet Union. Sulphur emissions are used as the environmental control variables and the acidities of the soils as the state variables. Acidification is consequently considered to be a stock pollutant having long-lasting harmful effects on the environment. The state dynamics consist of two relationships: first, of a sulphur transportation model between the regions and, second, of a model describing how the quality of the soil is affected by sulphur deposition. The countries are assumed to be interested in maximizing the net benefits from pollution control as measured by the impacts on the values of forest growth net of the abatement costs. Cooperative and noncooperative solutions of the game are compared to assess the benefits of bilateral cooperation. Using empirical estimates of abatement costs, acidification dynamics and impacts on forest growth it is shown that cooperation is beneficial to Finland but not to the Soviet Union. Consequently, Finland has to offer monetary compensation to induce her neighbor to invest in environmental protection.     

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。     

Production of Chlorofluorocarbons in Anticipation of the Montreal Protocol

Anticipation of an International Environmental Agreement provides an incentive for countries to change their production behavior prior to negotiations in order to gain a favorable bargaining position. Increased historical production figures at the time of negotiations may influence the magnitude of the baseline from which cutbacks will be specified. In this paper we empirically measure the magnitude of such strategic production behavior in the case of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer of 1987. Due to data limitations we specify a two player Nash–Cournot game between the United States and the rest of the world. We find evidence of asymmetric strategic behavior, which resulted in a net increase of aggregate world chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) production.     

Optimal Control of Upstream Pollution under Asymmetric Information

This paper derives optimal bribes to reduce upstream transfrontieremissions in the presence of asymmetric information on the polluter'sconcern for the environment. In a model in which the starting point forthe negotiations on emission reduction is a Cournot-Nash equilibrium, itis shown that transfers from the victim induce the polluting country toexaggerate its concern for the environment. As a consequence, in thesecond best solution, abatement of all but the least caring type isdistorted downward and optimal bribes may be such that more caring typesturn them down. These results are in sharp contrast to earlier policyproposals derived for a non-equilibrium starting point. They indicatethat under asymmetric information the binding incentive problem is toprevent the polluting country from claiming not to care about theenvironment and that optimal bribes from the victim should be restrictedto sufficiently environmentally concerned polluters.     

Analysis on the Environmental Pollution Problem of China

The paper introduces the basic environmental pollution situation of China and points out that environmental pollution is bottleneck of China＇s economy development. Then it puts forward the main environmental pollution problems of China. At last, it brings forward the countermeasures to environmental pollution.     

农村环境污染的网络治理研究

随着工业化和城镇化进程加快,农村环境污染问题日益凸显。如何有效治理农村环境问题已成为社会普遍关注的焦点。与科层治理模式和市场治理模式比较,网络治理具有的多元主体平等、协同治理的独特自在性更契合农村环境污染治理的内在要求。论文首先阐释了农村环境污染网络治理的内涵及框架设计,进而针对农村环境污染网络治理面临的价值目标异化、治理主体权力结构失衡、治理层级结构单一和运行机制形式化的困境进行解构。最后从培育合作治理理念、明确治理权责、构建以政府为主导的多元治理网络结构和建设网络化治理机制提出对策。     

农户对农业环境污染影响因素的认识程度实证分析

随着农村经济快速发展,农村环境污染也越来越严重,已经严重影响人民的身体健康.文章在分析国内外学者对农村环境污染问题研究的基础上,通过入户调查座谈,并运用Logistic模型实证检验了农户对农村环境污染影响因素的认知程度.农户环保意识不强,乡镇企业污染严重并是造成农村环境污染的最重要因素,农业生产污染是重要的原因之一.在此基础上提出了提高农民的环保意识、调整乡镇企业产业结构、增加农村环境保护的经费投入等政策建议.