Relative standards: A positive and normative analysis

The paper considers relative standards which limit the level of emissions per unit of output. The representative firm is characterized by a cost function describing the actual production process, a separate abatement technology, and the fact that (gross) emissions are proportional to output. At first, the implications of a relative standard and of its marginal change for a single firm are examined. It is shown that the standard cannot be replaced by a corresponding tax. Afterwards a positive analysis is performed for an industry consisting of identical firms under perfect competition. Comparative statics are used to analyze the impacts of changes in the relative standard in a short-run and long-run equilibrium. It turns out that the standard always possesses a price effect. Moreover the relevant factors which govern price, quantity, and profit changes are revealed. Then the paper characterizes the optimal standard for the same framework. A main result is that the first-best allocation can never be obtained by means of a relative standard, even if firms are identical. The influence of the demand and supply side on an optimal standard can be demonstrated since the underlying model is simple and transparent. The resulting market price is compared to social marginal costs. Finally the investigation is extended to monopoly and symmetric oligopoly.     

Adaptation and Mitigation in Global Pollution Problems: Economic Impacts of Productivity, Sensitivity, and Adaptive Capacity

This paper studies the influence of productivity, pollution sensitivity, and adaptive capacity on optimal mitigation and adaptation in a two-country global pollution model. We investigate the effects of changes of these parameters on the allocation of emissions, adaptation expenditures, and welfare. In our analysis we distinguish between cooperative and non-cooperative behavior. Our findings imply that unilateral improvements in productivity and adaptive capacity have strategic significance and do not necessarily lead to mutual welfare improvements. They raise the emissions not only in the country where the technological improvement takes place, but also globally. An improvement in global welfare is guaranteed only under cooperative behavior with respect to emission and adaptation choices.     

Budget Incidence Reconsidered

The paper develops a theoretical framework for analyzing budget incidence. The welfare gain of consuming a public good is determined by the benefit approach. On this basis the incidence of taxation, benefits and net benefits is investigated. Measures of progression are proposed. It is shown that the joint incidence of governmental taxation and expenditure can be related to residual progression and the income elasticity of the marginal willingness to pay for the public good. An example demonstrates that progressive taxation can be overcompensated by a distribution of benefits which favors the rich.     

Sequential Generalized Lorenz Dominance and Transfer Principles*

In an important contribution in 1987, Atkinson and Bourguignon proposed dominance criteria which allow us to compare income distributions for heterogeneous populations. They are defined by the unanimous preference of the dominating distribution by a set of welfare functions which satisfy some conditions on the derivatives of utility‐of‐income functions. This paper contributes to an understanding of some of the orderings considered. In particular it provides a characterization of the sequential generalized Lorenz ordering by transfer principles. The axiomatization illuminates the criterion.     

Pigouvian Taxes Under Imperfect Competition If Consumption Depends on Emissions

The paper considers environmental regulation of a consumption good and an externality which influence demand and costs in a nonseparable way. Under monopoly two instruments are always required for first-best. The Pigouvian tax is more complicated than anticipated.     

Environmental Emissions and Production Economics: Implications of the Materials Balance

In modeling emissions, the literature has usually specified an explicit emission function, or treated emissions as a production input. We examine the validity of these approaches, taking into account the materials balance principle. We show that a technology can equivalently be described by (i) a production function with material and nonmaterial inputs and bounded marginal product of the material input, (ii) a well-behaved production function with emissions as an input, and (iii) a well-behaved emission function, if the materials balance is accounted for as an additional condition. We offer a forma derivation of common, but not rigorously established modeling approaches.     

A general approach to the evaluation of nonmarket goods

The paper considers the evaluation of a nonmarket good on the basis of a complete conditional demand system. It introduces two conditions allowing to identify a generally unique underlying preference ordering which can be employed for evaluation. The functional structure of the corresponding expenditure/indirect utility function and the demand system is described. The conditions proposed turn out to be equivalent to the property of base level independence in the equivalence scale literature. The approach is operational.     

HOW DO EUROPEANS EVALUATE INCOME DISTRIBUTIONS? AN ASSESSMENT BASED ON HAPPINESS SURVEYS

The purpose of this paper is to measure the evaluation of income inequality by European citizens. Starting from the concept of a social welfare function defined on income distributions the paper estimates the degree and nature of inequality aversion of Europeans. It uses subjective well-being (SWB) as an empirical measure of welfare and estimates how SWB is related to average income and measures of income inequality (from an appropriate class). The estimated relationship is used to determine those inequality measures which qualify as proper representations of people's inequality aversion.     

Globalisation—New Demands on Public Enterprises

The globalisation of the economy and society reduces the economic policy capabilities of the state with its public enterprises considerably, but at the same time it triggers fundamental pressure on the government to compensate for the negative economic, political and social effects of the globalisation process. Using a system-theoretic framework, requirements for the public economy can be developed reaching from a social coordination function to an evolutionary-based industrial policy function of public enterprises. These functions and instrumental targets have to be implemented in a system of an internationalised public economy based on an appropriate institutional foundation. This in turn means focusing on a mixed system of public and non-profit organisations combined with market type institutions. By no means is an erosion of the public sector in the sense of radical privatisation strategies as propagated by the IMF and other prominent institutions implied. Rather a social need for public action must be considered mainly due to the public interest (Gemeinwohl). In this context, the socio-political competence of the public and nonprofit economy can be revitalised in an innovative way.