The politics of redistributive social insurance

This paper analyses the political support for a social insurance that includes elements of redistribution when there exists an imperfect private insurance alternative. Individuals differ both in their income and risk. The social insurance is compulsory and charges an income-related contribution with pooling of risks. The private insurance is voluntary and charges a contribution based on individual risks. However due to the adverse selection problem, private insurance companies provide only partial insurance. Adopting a non-expected utility model, we show that there is a general majority support for social insurance and that this support is increasing with risk aversion. We also show that a mixed insurance is politically impossible, regardless of the degree of redistribution of social insurance and the joint distribution of risk and income in the population. Lastly, we analyse how the political support for social insurance is affected by any change in its redistributive component and the possibility of using genetic tests.     

我国现行环境政策调整与出口产品“环境竞争力”的提升

加入WTO后,我国要在该组织框架下接受贸易自由化与环境保护两股潮流的双重挑战,应对发达国家层出不穷的绿色贸易壁垒。如何合理调整国内现行的一些与WTO规则相矛盾的环境政策,提升出口产品的环境竞争力,促进我国经济与社会的可持续发展,将是我国加入WTO后急需解决的新问题。本文在对环境竞争力概念进行分析的基础上,界定了影响环境竞争力的主要因素。从国际、国内两个方面论述了当前我国环境政策所面临的挑战,及其调整方向。进而,提出今后提高我国出口产品环境竞争力的对策建议。     

Environmental Policy in Open Economies and Monopolistic Competition

This paper analyses the implications of international trade for non-cooperative environmental policy in the case of local production externalities. A particular focus is on the potential effects of regulations on the variety of goods and the resulting international spillover caused by trade. A tougher domestic standard negatively affects the utility of the households abroad, since such a policy reduces their variety of imports (due to fewer domestic product inventions) or their consumption of each imported brand (due to higher import prices). Ignoring the negative spillover, non-cooperative governments implement inefficiently strict standards in equilibrium. In contrast to this clear-cut inefficiency result, the impact of international trade on the state of the environment is ambiguous.     

我国构建绿色税制问题探析

我国环境污染问题日益严重,令人担忧.绿色税制作为政府宏观调控的重要手段,在许多国家的环境保护过程中发挥了重要作用,如法国、美国等均建立了比较完善的绿色税制.目前,我国的税制框架中虽然包含了一些绿色税种,如资源税、消费税等,但在设计、征收与管理过程中仍然存在很多问题,政府和公众还没有充分认识到绿色税制在环境保护中的重要性,因此,树立新的税收观念,建立与完善我国绿色税制势在必行.     

Unemployment dynamics in an OLG economy with public pensions

Pension benefits in old age establish a disincentive to save in youth, thereby yielding lower levels of capital stock and the wage rate. As a result, the trade union has an incentive to change the composition of its two targets: employment and the wage rate. This paper develops a model that includes employment effects of public pensions via capital accumulation and union wage setting. Within this framework, we consider how contribution rates to the pension system influence the level and time path of the unemployment rate. It is demonstrated that (1) a higher contribution rate results in a lower unemployment rate, and (2) the economy with a high (low) contribution rate experiences monotone convergence towards (oscillatory convergence towards or a period-2 cycle around) the steady state. The author would like to thank an anonymous referee, Kazutoshi Miyazawa, and seminar participants at Osaka University for their useful comments and suggestions, and Masako Ikefuji and Hiroaki Yamagami for their research assistance. Financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (No.17730131), the Asahi Glass Foundation, the Japan Economic Research Foundation and the 21st Century COE Program (Osaka University) is gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are mine.     

淮河流域污染治理需要企业实施绿色营销

作为我国重要的农产区和传统工业生产基地,淮河流域污染严重,治理污染刻不容缓。由于淮河最主要的污染源来自工业企业,本文着重从工业企业这一微观角度出发,引入绿色营销的概念,分析了企业加强环保意识的重要性,并通过对企业实施绿色营销的博弈分析,指出绿色营销是企业保证可持续发展的必然选择。     

Double Dividend with Involuntary Unemployment: Efficiency and Intergenerational Equity

This paper analyzes the double dividend and distributional issues within an overlapping generations model framework with involuntary unemployment. We characterize the necessary conditions needed to obtain a double dividend, when the revenue of the environmental tax is recycled by a variation of the labor tax rate. We show that an employment dividend may occur without any efficiency dividend and that the young generation is not always harmed by the fiscal reform, even without any intergenerational transfers. Therefore, three dividends (environmental, efficiency and intergenerational equity) can occur simultaneously.     

构建贫困农村养老保障体系的对策研究——基于河北省涞水县的实证分析

本文通过对涞水县3个乡的12个村、362户居民的入户调查，了解了困扰涞水县贫困农民养老的问题所在，并就贫困农村养老保障进行了对策性探讨，旨在帮助贫困农民解决实际的养老问题，同时也为构建贫困农村养老保障体系提供参考。     

基于循环经济理念的珠江三角洲环境保护规划战略探讨

环境保护规划的可持续发展需要有先进理念的指导,应用循环经济理论框架来指导环境保护规划对区域可持续发展具有重要意义。本文通过分析循环经济的内涵、原则及其层次性,并结合我国珠江三角洲地区环境保护规划目标和对策进行了深入研究和探讨。分析得出,应用循环经济理念框架来指导环境保护规划是一种适宜的选择,与传统环境保护规划相比,基于循环经济理论框架指导下的区域环境保护规划更强调污染废气物排放减量化、企业生产清洁化、工业生态化以及区域固体废物的循环再利用。