Lies,damned lies and statistics: the accuracy of survey responses

That survey research is error prone is not a new idea and different varieties of non-sampling error have been investigated in the literature as well as consideration being given in many statistics textbooks to the issue of sampling error. The paper here considers research upon corporate environmental reporting. It compares information provided by corporate environmental reports with information that survey respondents claim their organization’s environmental report contains. This enables the accuracy of the claims to be assessed. Consideration is given to two different industries the Water industry and the Energy industry. Errors due to inaccurate reporting by survey respondents are shown to be relatively infrequent and respondents appear just about as likely to claim they report information that they do not, in fact, report as to fail to indicate that they report information that is, in fact, actually reported.     

Optimal Timing of Climate Change Policy: Interaction Between Carbon Taxes and Innovation Externalities

This paper addresses the impact of endogenous technology through research and development (R&D) on the timing of climate change policy. We develop a model with a stock pollutant (carbon dioxide) and abatement technological change through R&D, and we use the model to study the interaction between carbon taxes and innovation externalities. Our analysis shows that the timing of optimal emission reduction policy strongly depends on the set of policy instruments available. When climate-specific R&D targeting instruments are available, policy has to use these to step up early innovation. When these instruments are not available, policy has to steer innovation through creating demand for emission saving technologies. That is, carbon taxes should be high compared to the Pigouvian levels when the abatement industry is developing. Finally, we calibrate the model in order to explore the magnitude of the theoretical findings within the context of climate change policy.      

中国汽车产业的外向发展与节能减排

中国汽车产业的产销量一直呈现良好的上升趋势。但在金融危机下,受国内外环境和政策的影响,中国汽车产业产销量的增速有所放缓,汽车的价格受市场竞争程度和供求状况等因素的影响出现了波动。为了保证中国汽车产业的平衡发展,更好地实现可持续发展,需要加快汽车产业节能减排的步伐。     

西北半干旱地区既有城市道路海绵化 改造模式探索——以西宁为例

西宁属于西北高海拔半干旱地区,具有年均降雨量 少、蒸发量高的气候特征。城市道路是城市径流雨水产流的主 要组成部分。西宁现状城市道路均采用传统快排方式,存在雨 水利用不佳、污染城市末端水系生态环境等问题。根据城市道 路等级、下垫面及现状植被生长情况,分析西宁海绵城市建设 试点区道路改造项目的特点,定制城市道路海绵化改造的技术 路线,分类探讨解决西北半干旱地区城市道路初期雨水的径流 污染控制及雨水利用问题。根据已完成海绵化改造的8条道路 的经验,提炼西宁城市道路海绵化改造模式,以期为西北半干 旱地区城市道路海绵化改造提供解决思路。     

博弈论在治理河流水污染中的应用

针对我国日益严重的河流水污染状况，本文通过对污染源企业和政府之间的关系进行博弈分析，建立监督博弈模型，并以此分析政府对污染源企业的监管力度及经济上的处罚力度。     

环境审计刍议

环境审计是环境管理和现代审计的交叉学科,是世界范围内的新生事物。本文讨论了环境审计的基本内涵、环境审计的层次和类型、环境审计的程序,以及我国开展环境审计的现实意义和作用。     

The effects of air quality regulations on the location decisions of pollution-intensive manufacturing plants

This research examines the effects of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) on the location decisions of pollution-intensive manufacturing plants. We develop a panel data set to analyze plant births of polluting manufacturers over time as a function county-level attainment status of the federal standard for ozone pollution. We find that more stringent county-level environmental regulations impact pollution-intensive capital flows through deterring new plant births. We also find that the impact of stricter regulations varies by pollution-intensity of manufacturers, with results suggesting that federal guidelines have a greater impact on high pollution intensive manufacturers than more moderate polluters.      

Linking forestry, sustainability and aesthetics

In forest planning, little research has been devoted towards examining how visual-impact assessment can improve the public acceptance of forest activities and augment forest sustainability. The objective of the present work is to review the methods of aesthetic assessment of forest landscapes, which will help the implementation of visual-impact assessment in sustainable forestry. From the numerous techniques of landscape evaluation that have been devised in recent years, the expert approach techniques have dominated in environmental management practices and the perception-based approach in research. The non-market economic valuation techniques are essentially trade-off methods and not aesthetic assessments by themselves. Revealed preference methods, such as hedonic-price, use actual market choices of individuals to get their preferences towards non-market attributes, and stated preference methods, such as contingent valuation method, rely on surveys to get directly the individual's willingness to pay for the non-market attributes. Psychophysical preference modelling is a popular quantitative holistic technique of landscape evaluation and if used in combination with indirect aesthetic evaluation methods might create new standards and protocols for techniques of objectively estimating public perception of aesthetic quality and thus to enhance social sustainability in forest space.     

Entry Facilitation by Environmental Groups

We consider a model of vertical product differentiation where consumers care about the environmental damage their consumption causes. An environmental group is capable of increasing consumers’ environmental concern via a costly campaign. We show that the prospect of such a campaign can induce entry by a firm that is able to employ a cleaner technology than the one used by the incumbent. We further demonstrate that the subsequent competition can lead to an adverse effect on aggregate pollution, i.e. the decline in average industry pollution per product is offset by the increase in aggregate production.      

公众参与如何影响企业绿色技术创新——基于中介效应和空间效应的分析

绿色技术创新是破解资源环境约束的根本之计,公众参与作为一种“软约束”对绿色技术创新的作用日益凸显。本文基于公众弥补“政府失灵”和“市场失灵”的独特优势,系统探讨了公众参与对绿色技术创新的影响以及传导机制,并立足于创新对象的不同,利用固定效应模型、中介效应模型及空间计量模型对其进行了实证检验。结果表明：（1）公众参与能够显著地提升绿色工艺创新,而对绿色产品创新的作用并不明显;（2）公众参与依赖于政府环境规制迫使企业污染成本内部化,进而间接影响绿色工艺创新;（3）区域异质性方面,经济较发达地区公众参与对绿色工艺创新的作用更为明显;政府环境规制在公众参与度较高的地区对绿色工艺创新或产品创新的正向促进效果更为明显;（4）空间效应方面,本地公众参与不仅会提升本地绿色工艺创新,同时这种正向效应也会辐射到经济差距较小的周边地区。本文的研究有利于厘清公众参与对绿色技术创新的影响效应,明确其作用路径,为“三方共治”治理体系的有效实施提供参考。