Corporate Ethics Initiatives As Social Control

Efforts to institutionalize ethics in corporations have been discussed without first addressing the desirability of norm conformity or the possibility that the means used to elicit conformity will be coercive. This article presents a theoretical context, grounded in models of social control, within which ethics initiatives may be evaluated. Ethics initiatives are discussed in relation to variables that already exert control in the workplace, such as environmental controls, organizational controls, and personal controls.     

Effluent fees and market structure

This paper explores the efficiency properties of a system of effluent fees in a mixed economy in which polluting agents take a variety of organizational forms: private monopoly, the managerial firm, regulated firms, and public bureaus. The analysis, including some crude empirical estimates, suggests that the welfare gains from pollution control are likely to dwarf in magnitude the potential losses from the various imperfections in the economy. The tentative conclusion is that the case for a system of fees that is invariant with respect to organizational form is not seriously compromised by likely deviations from competitive behavior.     

Alcoholic beverage legislation: Harmonizing EEC laws

This article outlines the range of non-tariff obstacles to intra-EEC trade in alcoholic beverages. It describes the response of EEC institutions vizàviz harmonization of laws and European Court jurisprudence. The implications of the now famous ‘Cassis de Dijon’ court ruling are discussed and the paper concludes with tentative suggestions on the direction of future EEC efforts to create a common market for alcoholic beverages.     

Inflation, government transfers, and optimal central bank independence

The problem of monetary policy delegation is formulated as a two-stage non-cooperative game between the government and the central bank. The solution to this policy game determines the optimal combination of central bank conservatism and independence. The results show that the optimal institutional design always requires some degree of central bank independence and that there is substitutability between central bank independence and conservatism. The results also show that partial central bank independence can be optimal and that there are circumstances under which it is optimal for the government to appoint a liberal central banker.     

Self-Selecting Agri-environmental Policieswith an Application to the Don Watershed

We consider a model of regulation for nonpoint source water pollution through non-linear taxation/subsidization of agricultural production. Farmers are heterogenous along two dimensions, their ability to transform inputs into final production and the available area they possess. Asymmetric information and participation of farmers to the regulation scheme put constraints on the optimal policy that we characterize. We show that a positive relationship between size of land and ability may exacerbate adverse selection effects. We calibrate the model using data on a French watershed and we simulate the optimal second-best policy and characterize the allocation of the abatement effort among the producers.Authorship is equally assigned among the different authors.     

Bioenergie – Beitrag zum heutigen und zukünftigen Energiesystem

The introduction and establishment of renewable energies is still discussed intensively with the focus on climate-neutral coverage of the global energy demand. In this regard it is a valid option to use biomass as a feedstock. Already today biomass contributes significantly to cover the energy demand in the global energy system. Therefore, the present and future global bioenergy potentials are investigated in the following and compared to the respective biomass use. The results show, amongst others, that the share of biomass for heat, electricity and fuel production will increase worldwide until 2030, although the availability of biomass for energy production is likely to decline in the future.