Policy options for afforestation in Flanders

This paper analyses current and alternative afforestation policy instruments in Flanders. First we select forest sites that maximize net social benefits given a constraint on the total area of new forests and then we select policy instruments that yield this optimal combination of sites. For each policy option, we calculate the associated costs for landowners and government as well as net social benefits for society. Our empirical illustration shows that the welfare gain is considerable if the afforestation subsidy is conditioned on an objective criterion rather than a case-by-case approach. Our results also show that it is worthwhile to consider alternative policy instruments, such as auctions, not previously used in Belgian legislation.     

Assessing Voluntary Programs to Improve Environmental Quality

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the use of voluntaryapproaches (VAs) to environmental protection, which has spurned agrowing literature on the relative merits of voluntary vs. mandatoryapproaches. This paper draws on that literature to discuss both thetheoretical and empirical issues that arise in the evaluation orassessment of a particular VA. We consider both the environmentaleffectiveness and the efficiency of this policy approach. Our aim is toaid policymakers in evaluating a specific program or in thinking aboutthe use and design of a VA. We identify some key features that arelikely to increase both the effectiveness and the efficiency of VAs.     

Nonlinear IV unit root tests in panels with cross-sectional dependency

We propose a unit root test for panels with cross-sectional dependency. We allow general dependency structure among the innovations that generate data for each of the cross-sectional units. Each unit may have different sample size, and therefore unbalanced panels are also permitted in our framework. Yet, the test is asymptotically normal, and does not require any tabulation of the critical values. Our test is based on nonlinear IV estimation of the usual augmented Dickey–Fuller type regression for each cross-sectional unit, using as instruments nonlinear transformations of the lagged levels. The actual test statistic is simply defined as a standardized sum of individual IV t-ratios. We show in the paper that such a standardized sum of individual IV t-ratios has limit normal distribution as long as the panels have large individual time series observations and are asymptotically balanced in a very weak sense. We may have the number of cross-sectional units arbitrarily small or large. In particular, the usual sequential asymptotics, upon which most of the available asymptotic theories for panel unit root models heavily rely, are not required. Finite sample performance of our test is examined via a set of simulations, and compared with those of other commonly used panel unit root tests. Our test generally performs better than the existing tests in terms of both finite sample sizes and powers. We apply our nonlinear IV method to test for the purchasing power parity hypothesis in panels.     

金融工具会计准则交易税制设计的思考

为了规范金融工具的确认和计量,反映金融工具对金融机构财务状况和经营成果所带来的真实影响,揭示其潜在风险,提高金融机构的会计信息的质量,新颁布的金融工具会计准则采用公允价值计量,并将损益纳入当期损益。本文分析了此举对我国税制所产生的影响,并对金融工具交易的税制设计提出了设想。     

Evidence on the efficacy of interest-rate risk disclosures by commercial banks

This paper documents evidence on the efficacy of maturity-gap disclosures of commercial banks in indicating their net interest income that is exposed to interest-rate risk. For the large sample of banks that filed call reports from 1990 to 1997, a period that includes a wide range of interest rate movements, we find that (i) one-year maturity gap measures are significantly related to the one-year- and three-years-ahead change in net interest income, (ii) fixed-rate and variable-rate instruments differ in explanatory ability, and (iii) the one-to-five-year aggregate gap measures also have some power in explaining three-year-ahead changes in net interest income. These findings hold after controlling for the ex post growth in assets as well as the amount of rate-sensitive assets and liabilities (a competing set of explanatory variables). Because the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s [Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), (1997). Disclosure of accounting policies for derivative financial instruments and derivative commodity instruments and disclosure of qualitative and quantitative information about market risk inherent in derivative financial instruments, other financial instruments, and derivative commodity instruments. Release Nos. 33-7386; 3438223; IC-22487; FR-48; International Series No. 1047; File No. S7-35-95 (January 31, 1997), Washington, DC] tabular disclosures are finer than maturity-gap data, our findings mitigate concerns about the usefulness of the SEC's market-risk-disclosure requirements. Furthermore, they suggest contrary to the claims of certain banks that the omission of prepayment and early withdrawal risk from gap measures does not totally compromise the ability of gap data to indicate interest-risk exposures.     

我国套期保值会计发展背景、现状与对策分析

套期保值会计发展的成果主要表现为金融工具会计准则和套期保值会计准则的制定和不断完善。我国套期保值会计理论研究起步晚,主要集中在国内外金融工具准则、套期保值会计准则的解读及对比研究以及套期保值会计理论和套期保值会计准则应用研究等方面。实践中存在套期准则可操作性差,容易导致主观随意、盈余操纵和企业风险意识低、专业人才缺乏等问题。需要结合我国企业风险管理实践,修改现有套期会计准则,颁布操作指南,加强专业人才的培育,不断推进我国套期保值会计的发展。     

Sustainability and externalities: Is the internalization of externalities a sufficient condition for sustainability?

In an important contribution in Ecological Economics, van de Bergh (2010) correctly concludes that sustainability does not imply zero externalities. However, he continues with the Delphic statement "(Delphic statements were uttered by the renowned oracle of ancient Greece at Delphi. They were phrased in such a way as to be self-fulfilling because alternative interpretations covered every possibility.)" "Without externalities the problem of sustainability vanishes". If this statement refers to an impossible economic process that produces no externalities then he is right. However, it might be interpreted as stating that whenever environmental policy internalizes environmental externalities then sustainability will be ensured. In this note, I assert that in the real world where externalities prevail, their internalization or neutralization in the traditional way cannot lead to sustainability. Only if internalization takes a very specific form that results in the inviolable preservation of environmental rights of future generations in pure biological terms can sustainability be ensured. After revised the original commentary I resubmit it. The issues raised by the editor have been carefully considered.     

What to do with mushroom pickers in my forest? Policy tools from the landowners’ perspective

Wild mushroom picking is a growing recreational and commercial activity. In Spain, wild mushrooms legally belong to the landowner, who seldom benefits from trade in mushrooms or from their recreational value. Cultural aspects (tradition, picker-related harms) and economic aspects (costly forestry works, income opportunities) constitute elements of the debate on how to deal with mushroom picking. Through a survey of private forest owners in Catalonia (north-eastern Spain), this paper examines their experiences with mushroom pickers, the factors shaping their related policy preferences and their willingness to engage in mushroom reserves.The results show broad support for introducing mushroom picking norms. A regulation would allow outsider pickers to enter private land, but only under certain conditions, i.e. to comply with socio-ecological rules of the area. Among respondents who support the regulation, active land owners who report instances of picker-related harm (both tangible and intangible) tend to support the establishment of a fee system which could be reinvested into forest management. That is also the position of the respondents who perceive mushrooms as a private right, i.e. they believe to have a legitimate right to exclude outsider pickers and, eventually, to raise revenues from that asset. On the contrary, forest owners who conceive mushroom picking as a free-access activity prefer neither to regulate it nor to charge fees. The option to establish a mushroom picking reserve depends on the landholder being a fee-supporter and perceiving instances of harm. Harm, instead, is mainly determined by the perception of congestion of pickers, which in turn is determined by the mushroom productivity of their forest, their level of privacy protection and their involvement to the primary sector. These findings help policymakers to better understand the logic and sensitivities of forest owners in view of designing mushroom picking policies that can effectively solve picker-landowner conflicts.     

金融创新与金融风险的“孪生性”辩证

金融是现代经济的核心。金融创新是金融市场的＂催化剂＂,它＂催生＂了各个子市场的形成和发展,不断推动金融市场的完善与成熟。在当前国际金融危机的大背景下,文章以金融衍生工具为＂链条＂,分析了金融工程学、金融创新和金融风险之间的逻辑关系：金融工程学是＂载体＂,金融创新是表现形式,金融风险是一种另类的潜含结果。同时,详细探讨了金融创新和金融风险之间的辩证关系：三者都是金融市场存在和发展的产物。澄清金融创新与金融风险之间内在的市场联系,对建立与我国经济发展相适应的成熟的金融市场具有重要的指导意义。     

Returns to women’s education using optimal IV selection

This paper investigates returns to women’s education by applying an optimal IV selection approach, post-Lasso IV estimation, which improves the first-stage predictive relationship between an endogenous regressor and instruments. Using the 2010 American Community Survey, we find that an extra year of education increases married women’s own income by $4,480 and spouse income by $8,822. Our findings indicate that 53% of the increase in women’s consumption by education is attributed to the marriage market, and thus, we conclude that the marriage market is the primary channel through which education improves women’s well-being. The results demonstrate the advantages of the post-Lasso approach: The resulting two-stage least squares estimator maintains efficiency without increasing finite sample bias and is less subject to the inconsistency problem when some instruments are invalid; This differs from the results using the instrument of birth quarters only, which is mostly applied in studies on returns to education.