企业环境污染事故中的民事赔偿问题

近期的重大环境污染事件凸显出环境损害赔偿制度操作性差、赔偿范围狭窄、救济程序缺乏等困境。对于进入环境污染事件高发期的中国来说,加大惩罚力度,引入惩罚性赔偿措施已经迫在眉睫。随着企业环境风险意识的增强,环境责任保险制度也在不断发展之中。     

Retaliation: The form of 21st century employment discrimination

During the past decade, retaliation as a basis for employment discrimination claims has risen dramatically from fourth to second place (behind race), increasing by 46%. By definition, retaliation is the act of an employer, through a manager, inflicting an adverse action (such as discharge, discipline, or demotion) against an employee who has complained of discrimination. Retaliation claims open the possibility of punitive damages, examples of which are given in this article. Drawing 1361 cases from a 21-year database, we report the characteristics of retaliation claims and offer recommendations to prevent and manage such claims.     

环境污染与经济发展关系的定量分析——以新疆为例

本文在VAR模型估计的基础上,采用格兰杰因果分析方法来分析经济增长与环境污染之间的相互作用,并运用预测方差分解技术来进一步考察两者在解释对方变动时的相对重要性。结果表明,新疆的经济增长与某些污染物排放之间确实存在着显著的因果关系,但这种关系的滞后期是不同的,并且环境污染对经济增长的影响作用要弱些。     

浅谈空气污染指数及改善空气质量的途径

北方城市空气污染的首要污染物是可吸入颗粒物和二氧化硫,控制烟尘污染和风沙扬尘污染是改善空气质量最直接有效的途径。     

Wildlife Damage and Agriculture: A Dynamic Analysis of Compensation Schemes

We study the environmental and economic consequences of introducing a program to compensate peasants for damages caused by wildlife. We show that the widely held belief that compensation induces wildlife conservation may be erroneous. In a partially open economy, compensation can lower the wildlife stock and result in a net welfare loss for local people. In an open economy, compensation can trigger wildlife extinction and also reduce welfare. We identify the conditions leading to a reduction of the wildlife stock and discuss the implications for current and planned compensation programs in Africa and Asia.     

Pollution,energy use,GDP and trade: estimating the long-run relationship for Vietnam

Since the beginning of economic reform in the 1980s and, in particular, with its openness to international trade accelerating since the 1990s, the Vietnamese economy has registered significant growth. At the same time, energy consumption and the level of pollution in Vietnam has also increased. This article aims to focus on the link between openness to trade and pollution in Vietnam. Due to lack of data, very few existing studies have focused on Vietnam. Using annual data from1980 to 2011 and employing the bounds testing approach to cointegration, based on an autoregressive distributed lagged (ARDL) model, we find that there is a statistically significant long-run relationship amongst pollution, openness to trade, energy consumption and real national income in Vietnam. This conclusion continues to hold when the possibility of a structural break in the relationship is allowed for using the Gregory-Hansen approach to cointegration. Analysis of the cointegration relationship suggests that, in response to any exogenous shock to the system, adjustment back to the long-run equilibrium is very fast.     

Using Non Market Valuation to Inform the Choice Between Permits and Fees in Environmental Regulation

The purpose of this short note is to open an exploration regarding the use of non market valuation to help guide the selection of economically efficient pollution control instruments. As long as non market valuation techniques can correctly estimate the slope of the marginal benefit of abatement curve, this information along with engineering cost estimates of the unit costs or slope of the marginal abatement cost will provide useful information to policy makers in choosing between fees and permits. An illustrative review of the literature suggests that both stated and revealed preference methods have estimated slopes of marginal benefit functions for reducing several pollutants. To investigate the efficiency of permits versus fees, an illustrative review of corresponding marginal abatement costs is also made. For air pollutants affecting visibility, the slope of the marginal benefit curve is far greater than the slope of the marginal abatement costs, suggesting permits as the efficient instrument. For nitrates in groundwater used for drinking, the marginal benefit curve is flatter than the rather steep marginal abatement cost, suggesting fees/taxes would be a more efficient economic instrument. We hope this note stimulates more emphasis in non market valuation on estimating the slope of the marginal benefit function to enhance environmental economists ability to make policy recommendations regarding the choice of pollution instruments for specific pollutants.      

Pollution and informal economy

In this study, we investigate the relationship between the size of the informal economy and the level of environmental pollution/energy use. To this end, we first use different indicators of environmental pollution along with a measure of energy use intensity in a panel dataset consisting of 152 countries over the period 1999–2009 and empirically examine the relationship between pollution and the shadow economy. The estimation results show that there is an inverse-U relationship between the size of the informal economy and environmental pollution, that is, small and large sizes of the informal economy are associated with lower environmental pollution and medium levels of informality are associated with higher levels of environmental pollution. Next, we build a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model to suggest an economic mechanism for this observation. Our model identifies two channels through which informality might affect environmental pollution: The scale effect, whereby a larger (smaller) informal economy size is associated with a lower (higher) level of environmental pollution, and the deregulation effect, whereby a larger (smaller) informal economy is associated with higher (lower) pollution levels. As these two effects work in opposite directions, the changing relative strength of one with respect to the informal sector size creates the inverted-U relationship between pollution indicators and informality.     

我国引进外商直接投资中环境污染的原因及对策分析

自1979年开始,我国的外商直接投资规模年年攀升,外商直接投资为我国的经济增长做出了极大贡献,但同时也给我国带来了严重的环境污染问题。本文对此问题的现状和原因进行分析,提出了协调外资和环境的对策。     

Analysing pollution by way of vertically integrated coefficients, with an application to the water sector in Aragon

In this paper, we adopt Pasinetti's approach of vertically integratedsectors in order to disaggregate pollution into its most significantcomponents. Vertical integration allows us to obtain five components(and at least five measurement indices) corresponding to eachsector and each type of pollution. These indices overcome someof the deficiencies of the traditional Rasmussen-type coefficients.The empirical application is carried out by reference to thewater sector in Aragon, a region which lies in north-easternSpain, for five polluting factors, namely: water returns, biologicaloxygen demand at five days (BOD5), suspended solids (SS), nitratesand phosphates.