Efficiency of Nonpoint Source Pollution Instruments: An Experimental Study

In nonpoint source pollution problems, the regulator does not observe each polluters individual emission, which prevents him from using the conventional policy instruments. Therefore, new instruments have been designed to regulate this type of pollution. In an experiment, we compare the efficiency of some of these instruments: an input-based tax, an ambient tax/subsidy, an ambient tax, and a group fine. We assume that polluters themselves are affected by environmental damages. A control session without any regulation is also carried out in order to study the status quo situation. Our experimental data show that the input tax and the ambient tax are very efficient and reliable, and the group fine is fairly efficient and reliable. These instruments improve social welfare with respect to the status quo. On the contrary, the ambient tax/subsidy decreases social welfare with respect to the status quo, and its effect is very unreliable.     

Efficiency Measurement in Network Industries: Application to the Swiss Railway Companies

The persistence of increasingly high government subsidies in Switzerland’s railroads has led the federal and cantonal authorities to discussing the possibility of high-powered incentive contracts such as those based on cost efficiency benchmarking. Railways are however, characterized by a high degree of unobserved heterogeneity that could bias the efficiency estimates. This paper examines the performance of several panel data models to measure cost efficiency in network industries. The unobserved firm-specific effects and the resulting biases are studied through a comparative study of several stochastic frontier models, applied to a panel of 50 railway companies operating over a 13-year period.* The authors wish to thank Michael Crew and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions. Aurelio Fetz provided an excellent assistance, which is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.This revised version was published in June 2005 with corrections in the author affiliations.     

Planung und Unternehmenserfolg: Stylized Facts aus der empirischen Controllingforschung im deutschsprachigen Raum von 1990–2007

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht, inwieweit die empirische Controllingforschung im deutschsprachigen Raum von 1990 bis 2007 belastbare Aussagen (“Stylized Facts”) zum Zusammenhang zwischen der Gestaltung der Planung als bedeutsamem Teil der Controllerarbeit und dem Controlling- bzw. Unternehmenserfolg erarbeitet hat. Insgesamt werden fünfzehn Studien analysiert, aus denen Stylized Facts zu Planungsintensit?t, Planungsrationalit?t, Planungsoffenheit, Planungsintegration und Planungsdauer sowie zu Opportunismus und Kompetenzgef?lle als soziale Gestaltungsfaktoren der Planung hergeleitet werden. Zum einen zeigen die Ergebnisse den Beitrag der empirischen Controllingforschung zum Verst?ndnis der Planung als Führungsteilfunktion. Zum anderen k?nnen verschiedenste Aussagen zur Gestaltung der Planung in handlungsleitender Form an die Unternehmenspraxis zurückgespielt werden.      

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Transferable quotas,enforcement costs and typical firms: An empirical application to the Norwegian trawler fleet

An alternative to traditional regulations of fisheries to avoid rent dissipation is the use of individual transferable quotas (ITQ _s ) where prices in the quota market provide the necessary information to owners of harvest rights to contract with each other. However, even under such a decentralized regime, information on the underlying technology of the fishing vessels is also necessary. First, since most fisheries consist of many interrelated production processes, in order to avoid rent dissipation by discarding wrong output mix etc., the structure of production in the multispecies fishery must be known to design a proper quota system. Second, an ITQ system may create incentives for misreporting by understating the actual catch. This may especially be the case where the expected degree of self-enforcement is low. The paper proposes a way to reduce the information requirements under regulation with asymmetric information by constructing a typical firm and comparing performance for the other vessels to this firm. Based on the typical firm, and if the industry is relatively homogenous, the performance and hence catch of any other firm in the industry can be predicted within a certain range. Further, the paper applies this idea to the Norwegian trawler fleet to assess the production structure in terms of jointness, input-output separability, and the supply and demand elasticities for the fishing firms. This information characterizes the fishery and thus how the quota system may be designed and how to construct a yardstick in order to reduce the enforcement cost under a decentralized regulation of ITQs.The authors would like to thank Trond Bjørndal, Røgnvaldur Hannesson, Ola Flaaten and two referees for useful comments and suggestions.     

Convertible Debt as Delayed Equity: Forced versus Voluntary Conversion and the Information Role of Call Policy

There is a common perception that many firms issue convertible debt as a form of delayed equity. The advantage of issuing equity in this delayed manner has been linked to the lower adverse selection properties of convertible debt as compared to equity; one can first issue convertibles and later call, forcing conversion, presumably preserving the initial advantage of the convertibles. However, this paper suggests that the benefits of callable convertible debt as delayed equity are preserved only if conversion is voluntary. This appears to be consistent with the empirical evidence. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G32, D82.     

A real options approach for evaluating the implementation of a risk-sensitive capital rule in banks

I evaluate a bank's incentives to implement a risk-sensitive regulatory capital rule. The decision making is analyzed within a real options framework where optimal policies are derived in terms of threshold levels of credit risk. I provide a numerical example for the implementation of internal ratings based models for credit risk (the IRB approach) under the new Basel Accord (Basel II).     

External shocks, U.S. monetary policy and macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets

Estimated structural VARs show that external shocks are an important source of macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets. Furthermore, U.S. monetary policy shocks affect interest rates and the exchange rate in a typical emerging market quickly and strongly. The price level and real output in a typical emerging market respond to U.S. monetary policy shocks by more than the price level and real output in the U.S. itself. These findings are consistent with the idea that “when the U.S. sneezes, emerging markets catch a cold.” At the same time, U.S. monetary policy shocks are not important for emerging markets relative to other kinds of external shocks.     

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