Sharing the burden for climate change mitigation in the Canadian federation

Dividing the burden for greenhouse gas abatement among the provinces has proven challenging in Canada and contributes to Canada's failure to limit emissions. This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to compare a number of rules for sharing the burden of emission reductions among Canadian provinces. Because of the substantial heterogeneity among Canadian provinces, these different rules imply significantly different relative abatement effort among provinces, and also significantly different welfare implications. We compare these archetypal burden sharing rules to existing provincial emission reduction commitments and find that none of the standard burden sharing rules comes close to existing commitments.     

Should Welfare Administration be Centralized or Decentralized? Evidence from a Policy Experiment

The 2005 reform of the German welfare system introduced two competing organizational models for welfare administration. In most districts, a centralized organization was established where local welfare agencies are bound to central directives. At the same time, 69 districts were allowed to opt for a decentralized organization. We evaluate the relative success of both types in terms of integrating welfare recipients into employment. Compared to centralized organization, decentralized organization has a negative effect on employment chances of males. For women, no significant effect is found. These findings are robust to the inclusion of aspects of internal organization common to both types of agencies.     

Patterns and determinants of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden

This paper uses a unique dataset which gives a complete picture of the pattern of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden during the period 1997–2001. The importance of profitability, industrial market growth, tangible capital intensity, intangible capital intensity and economies of scale for entry and exit are investigated. A fixed effects panel data model is used, and it is shown that the inclusion of unobserved industry-specific effects explains many of the inter-industrial differences in entry and exit rates. For policymakers, this implies that it is difficult to formulate an entrepreneurship policy that can be expected to be equally successful across all industries. It is also shown that investments in intangible assets is one way to compete, while economies of scale tend to deter entry rates.     

The trade with developing countries

The classic view of the theory of foreign trade that unfettered international exchanges of goods enhance the economic welfare of all participating nations is gaining more and more ground in the discussions about development policy. Since past experience has shown capital aid alone to be incapable of lessening the prosperity differential between the North and the South, the “Aid by Trade“ strategy is now of increasing importance. There is however no panacea which would embrace the developing countries more closely in the international goods exchanges.     

Distributive Aspekte handelbarer Flächennutzungsrechte

Die Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie der Bundesregierung sieht langfristig eine neue Inanspruchnahme der Siedlungs- und Verkehrsflächen von 30 ha pro Tag vor. Bei einer Kontingentierung der Flächennutzung könnte die Nachfrage effizient mit handelbaren Nutzungsrechten geregelt werden. Welche verteilungspolitischen Implikationen sind mit diesem Instrument verbunden?Prof. Dr. Dirk Löhr, MBA, 40, ist Sprecher des Zentrums für Bodenschutz und Flächenhaushaltspolitik an der Fachhochschule Trier, Umwelt-Campus Birkenfeld.     

Verbraucherpolitische Konzeptionen und Programme in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Zusammenfassung Die Notwendigkeit einer expliziten Verbraucherpolitik ist in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in den letzten Jahren zunehmend anerkannt worden. Dies dokumentiert sich zum einen in einigen Ansätzen zur Institutionalisierung der Verbraucherpolitik, zum anderen in einer programmatischen Diskussion, an der inzwischen die wichtigsten gesellschaftlich relevanten Gruppen teilnehmen. Analysiert und vergleicht man die verbraucherpolitischen Vorhaben amtlicher Stellen sowie die von Arbeitgeberverbänden, Gewerkschaften und politischen Parteien entwickelten Konzeptionen, so zeigt sich ein uniformes Denkschema, das dem Paradigma Markt und Wettbewerb verhaftet ist. Unterschiede offenbaren sich lediglich in den jeweils präferierten Maßnahmen. Alle Konzeptionen folgen — wenn auch mit unterschiedlicher Gewichtung — den beiden handlungsanleitenden Argumentationsschemata »Ergänzung der Wettbewerbspolitik durch Verbraucherschutz und -information« sowie »Gegenmachtbildung und Interessenvertretung«. Der Gedanke an direktere Kommunikationsformen sowie an eine frühzeitige Einflußnahme der Konsumenten auf das Güterangebot findet sich in keinem der Programme.

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Conceptions of consumer policy in the Federal Republic of Germany

The necessity for an explicit public consumer policy has found increased acceptance during the last couple of years. This is reflected both in attempts to institutionalize consumer policy and in a programmatic discussion in which many relevant social groups are participating. The analysis of consumer oriented plans and models of governmental agencies, employers' associations, trade unions, and political parties reveals uniform thought, rooted in the paradigm of market and competition. Differences can be detected only in the recommended measures. Basically all concepts fall under one of the following categories of argumentation: Competition policy needs completion by consumer protection and consumer information or There is a need for consumer countervailing power and consumer lobbyism. The existing plans are characterized by mere auxiliary means to stimulate consumers' reactions. The considerations of a direct communication between producers and consumers and of an early influence by consumers on manufacturers' product decisions are, however, not included in any of the programmes.

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Christine Czerwonka und Günter Schöppe sind Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter am Institut für Markt und Plan der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, 6000 Frankfurt/Main, Senckenberganlage 31.     

Numeracy of Africans,Asians, and Europeans during the early modern period: new evidence from Cape Colony court registers

The lack of accurate measures of human capital formation often constrains investigations into the long‐run determinants of growth and comparative economic development, especially in the developing world. Using the reported ages of criminals in the Court of Justice records in the Cape Archives, this article documents for the first time numeracy levels and trends for inhabitants of the Cape Colony born between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth century: the native Khoesan, European settlers, and imported slaves from other African regions and Asia. This variety of origins allows us to compare contemporaneous levels of early modern development across three continents. By isolating those slaves born at the Cape, we also provide a glimpse into the dynamics of human capital transfer in a colonial setting. The Colony's relatively high level of human capital overall had implications for what was later to be the richest country on African soil, but the very unequal attainment of numeracy also foreshadowed extreme income inequality.     

Industrial Policy in the New Member Countries of the European Union: A Survey of Patterns and Initiatives Since 1990

The transitional recession in the new Central and East European members of the EU called for completely novel approaches to industrial policy in the nineties. A strong rejection of industrial policy could be observed only in some countries and during the first years of the transition process. Subsequently however, deteriorating competitiveness, soaring unemployment and the dramatic condition of key export sectors made the re-appearance of supply-side economic policy thinking inevitable in most Central East European Countries (CEECs), except for such small and open economies as Slovenia and Estonia. A wide variety of industrial policies implemented in the CEECs are compared in the study, with special emphasis on tools used in order to promote incoming foreign direct investment, technological development and the small and medium-sized enterprise sector. These elements of the industrial policy toolkit will keep their key role in most CEECs, albeit their industrial policies will gradually align themselves to the European mainstream.