How efficient are national environmental standards? A benefit-cost analysis of the United States experience

This paper summarizes the results of the first systematic, geographically-specific efficiency assessment of the U.S. experience with national environmental standards and with alternative approaches to establishing those standards. This ex-post evaluation assessed the net benefits that resulted from EPA's regulation of conventional air and water pollutants from the pulp and paper industry between 1973 and 1984. The paper compares the benefit-cost efficiencies of the three dominant regulatory approaches: technology, ambient, and benefits. Unlike previous studies, which assessed benefits and costs on a national basis, the study estimates both costs and benefits on a facility-by-facility basis. The analysis shows how the efficiency of national environmental regulations can vary dramatically at local levels. The authors conclude that the technology-based standards for water pollution management failed as an efficient environmental strategy. The costs clearly exceeded the benefits in the aggregate, as well as in the specific in most situations. Benefits exceeded costs at only 11 of the 68 mills investigated. The ambient based standards for air pollution management succeeded as an environmental strategy in the aggregate, but succeeded in the specific for only one-third of the mills (22 of 60 mills). The benefits-based standards for air pollution management also succeeded in the aggregate as well as in the specific for about one-half of the mills. Benefits exceeded costs at 29 of the 60 mills investigated. The results of the study point to two major conclusions. First, a regulatory policy that is based on some measure of environmental results, either ambient-based or benefits-based, will be more efficient than a policy that ignores environmental results. Second, truly efficient policies for reducing environmental risks require pollution mitigation decisions that take into account local conditions. These include not only the changes in local ambient conditions, but also the number of people who will benefit from pollution reduction decisions. This latter conclusion suggests that national environmental standards per se may be inefficient.Dr. Luken is currently Senior Environmental Advisor to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna, Austria. He is on leave from the U.S. EPA where he was Chief of the Economic Analysis and Research Branch of the Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation (OPPE). Mr. Clark is President of Environmental Economics Associates of Traverse City, Michigan. He was formerly Chief of EPA's Cost and Economic Impact Analysis Branch in OPPE. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.     

中国证券市场价格波动与宏观经济协同性的实证研究

理论上，证券市场常被称为国民经济的“晴雨表”。本文选取工业增加值、广义货币供应量（M2）、消费者景气指数和国房景气指数等宏观经济指标，深入考察了宏观经济与沪深两市股价走势之间的关系。结果表明，在样本期内股价指数波动与宏观经济变量之间不存在协整性特征，中国证券市场与国民经济之间尚未呈现出稳定的长期均衡关系，证券市场并未发挥“国民经济晴雨表”的功能。这也表明，中国证券市场的宏观协调效率还有待于进一步提高。     

我国西部生态环境建设绩效评价体系研究

“局部改善,整体恶化”是我国西部地区生态环境状况的真实概括。为了治理西部地区的生态环境,党中央于1999年6月确定了西部大开发战略,将能源开发同生态环境治理并举。6年来,中央财政性建设资金投向西部地区4600亿元,转移支付和专项补助5000多亿元。国家计划在10年间退耕还林2．2亿亩,投资3600亿元。由于生态环境建设的绩效是一个漫长的量变累积过程,通过确定我国西部地区生态环境状况四大特征,建立“常态、一般、差”三级评价指标体系,对西部地区生态环境建设的绩效做出客观评价,有利于坚定人们对西部地区生态环境建设的信心。     

基于公平与效率均衡的城乡和谐

已有的对城乡和谐发展问题的研究大多将注意力集中在城乡和谐发展的途径方面,却忽视了对城乡和谐衡量标准的研究.本文从公平与效率统一(均衡)的视角来解析城乡和谐的标准以及城乡和谐演进的机制,并构建了一个基于公平与效率均衡的城乡和谐发展模型.该模型揭示,城乡和谐是公平与效率均衡的函数,市场机制与政府制度的相互配合共同促进城乡和谐发展.     

收入差距、位置消费与社会稳定

适度、合理的收入差距,不仅是激励人们竞争,促进发展的重要务件,也是位置消费产生的基本条件;但过分悬殊的收入差距则不仅会影响人们的社会心理,不利于提高有效消费,而且可能产生畸形的位置消费行为,甚至会因此影响社会的稳定.在分析和研究目前收入分配问题时,应当从位置消费的新视角研究它们对社会稳定的影响.研究位置消费有利于我们从人们相互比较的满意度中观察改革的效果,权衡各项利弊得失,并及时地采取微调措施,尽可能地减少改革的摩擦和阻力.     

高校智力资本运作效率的数据包络分析

文章在综合分析高校智力资本的基本概念和主要内容的基础上，提出了用数据包络分析方法评价高校智力资本运作效率的基本思路与方法，并以8所高校在同一学科中的智力资本运作情况为算例，对数据包络分析的算法和所使用的计算工具作了说明。     

Giffen goods and market making

Summary. This paper shows that information effects per se are not responsible for the Giffen goods anomaly affecting traders demands in multi asset noisy, rational expectations equilibrium markets. The role that information plays in traders strategies also matters. In a market with risk averse, uninformed traders, informed agents have a dual trading motive: speculation and market making. The former entails using prices to assess the effect of error terms; the latter requires employing them to disentangle noise traders demands within aggregate orders. In a correlated environment this complicates the signal extraction problem and may generate upward sloping demand curves. Assuming (i) that competitive, risk neutral market makers price the assets or that (ii) uninformed traders risk tolerance coefficient grows unboundedly, removes the market making component from informed traders demands rendering them well behaved in prices.Received: 30 April 2002, Revised: 3 December 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: G100, G120, G140.Support from the Barcelona Economics Program of CREA and the Ente per gli Studi Monetari e Finanziari Luigi Einaudi, are gratefully acknowledged. I thank Anat Admati, Jordi Caballé, Giacinta Cestone, and Xavier Vives for useful suggestions. The comments provided by the Associate Editor and an anonymous referee greatly improved the papers exposition.     

Climate Change Taxes and Energy Efficiency in Japan

In 2003 Japan proposed a Climate Change Tax to reduce its CO₂ emissions to the level required by the Kyoto Protocol. If implemented, the tax would be levied on fossil fuel use and the revenue distributed to encourage the purchase of energy efficient equipment. Analysis using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model shows that this policy is unlikely to bring Japan into compliance with its Kyoto target unless the subsidy encourages improvement in energy intensity well beyond Japan’s recent historical experience. Similar demand-management programs in the US, where there has been extensive experience, have not been nearly as effective as they would need to be to achieve energy efficiency goals of the proposal. The Tax proposal also calls for limits on international emission trading. We find that this limit substantially affects costs of compliance. The welfare loss with full emissions trading is 1/6 that when Japan meets its target though domestic actions only, the carbon price is lower, and there is a smaller loss of energy-intensive exports. Japan can achieve substantial savings from emissions trading even under cases where, for example, the full amount of the Russian allowance is not available in international markets.     

嘉兴市产业结构与地区经济增长

该文通过实证研究，分析和度量嘉兴市不同产业对地区经济增长的作用，探讨各产业是以何种方式影响经济增长的，旨在为今后嘉兴市制定产业政策提供决策依据。     

加权Hardy空间上算子序列的收敛性

设D为复平面C中的开单位圆盘，φ：D→D解析，ψ：D→C，Cψ，φ是H^2（β）上的加权复合算子，S是加权移位算子，该文通过讨论算子序列{S^＊nCψ，φS^n}n=1^∞与{S^＊nCψ，φ^＊S^n}n=1^∞的收敛性来研究H^2（β）上加权复合算子Cψ，φ的渐近Toeplitz性．