Economic Valuation of Health for Environmental Policy: Comparing Alternative Approaches. Introduction and Overview

Protecting human health is a primary goal of environmental policy and economic evaluation of health can help policy-makers judge the relative worth of alternative actions. Economists use two distinct approaches in normatively evaluating health. Whereas environmental economists use benefit-cost analysis supported by monetary valuation in terms of willingness-to-pay, health economists evaluate interventions based on cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis (CEA), using quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) or similar indexes. This paper provides background on the controversy about the relative merits of these approaches and introduces the remaining papers in the special issue. These papers (with one exception) were presented at a conference sponsored by the Department of Economics at the University of Central Florida with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although CEA might not lead to substantially different implications for environmental policy than benefit-cost analysis, and QALY may provide a benefit transfer tool to fill gaps in the morbidity valuation literature, the papers in this issue raise serious concerns about the suitability of QALY-based CEA for environmental regulatory analysis. QALY does not in general appropriately represent individual preferences for health and CEA is neither independent of income distribution nor adequate to assess efficiency.     

Self-enforcing international environmental agreements with a stock pollutant

In this paper the stability of an International Environmental Agreement (IEA) among N identical countries that emit a pollutant are studied using a two-stage game. In the first stage each country decides noncooperatively whether or not to join an IEA, and in the second stage signatories jointly against nonsignatories determine their emissions in a dynamic setting defined in continuous time. A numerical simulation shows that a bilateral coalition is the unique self-enforcing IEA independently of the gains coming from cooperation and the kind of strategies played by the agents (open-loop or feedback strategies). We have also studied the effects of a minimum participation clause finding that for this case a self-enforcing IEA just consists of the number of countries established in the clause.JEL Classification: C73, D62, Q28 Corresponding author : Santiago J. RubioThis paper is based on chapter four of Begoña Casinos Ph. Dissertation. Financial support from the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under grant BEC2000-1432 and Fundación BBVAis gratefully acknowledged. We also appreciate the helpful comments of three anonymous referees, whose suggestions improved the paper. Regarding any remaining inadequacies, the usual caveat applies.     

我国农村环境问题的经济分析及解决途径

本文分析了我国农村存在的环境问题,从经济学角度分析了农村环境问题产生的原因,并提出了农村环境问题的治理措施与途径:消除其公共物品性和外部性。     

Structural Decomposition Analysis of Physical Flows in the Economy

Many environmental problems can be attributedto the extraction and emissions of physicalsubstances. Increasing our understanding of theeconomic and technological driving forcesbehind these physical flows can contribute tosolving the environmental problems related tothem. The input-output framework is a usefulsetting in which to integrate detailedinformation about economic structure andphysical flows. In this article a specificmethod in input-output analysis is reviewed,namely Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA).It is based on comparative static analysis,which decomposes historical changes of a policyvariable into determinant effects. SDA has beenapplied, for example, to analyze the demand andtechnological driving forces of energy use,CO₂-emissions and various other pollutantsand resources. This article examines thetheoretical aspects of structuraldecomposition, in particular those concerningphysical flows and environmental issues.Furthermore, the article includes an extensivesurvey of empirical studies.     

在科学发展观下建立绿色税收体系

随着经济的发展，社会环境与经济发展矛盾日益尖锐，在科学发展观下建立绿色税收体系的提出正是为了顺应社会发展趋势，为缓解和解决这一矛盾提供有效的途径。     

西部经济开发与环境的关系及和谐模式

在经济高速增长的同时,环境保护与经济发展二者之间相互促进、相互制约,相互矛盾而又相互统一。在资源有限的前提下,如何达到经济发展与环境保护和谐的模式,本文通过分析西部开发对自然环境及经济环境的影响以及环境的改变对经济环境所产生的影响,得出经济发展与环境呈正相关的因果关系,通过对目前经济开发与环保之间现有模式的分析,构建了经济与环境并重和谐发展的模型。     

运用排污权交易改善晋江市垃圾治理现状

如何建设节约型社会是时下舆论讨论的热点问题之一,正确处理好经济发展与环境保护也是建设和谐社会的核心命题之一。本文通过分析晋江市工业垃圾治理模式如何由靠牺牲环境为代价的粗放型模式—模式Ⅰ,向封闭的、可循环的集约型模式—模式Ⅱ转变,证明经济发展与环境保护是完全可以协调统一的;同时,通过分析模式Ⅱ的不足,进一步引入排污权交易理论,结合晋江市的实际情况,创造性地提出了具有实用性和通用性的垃圾治理方式——模式Ⅲ。     

Can R&D-inducing green tariffs replace international environmental regulations?

This paper investigates the link between trade and environment by exploring the effects of green tariffs on innovation, location of production and the environment. It shows that tariffs levied on polluting goods could result in less world pollution than global harmonization of environmental standards by inducing more pollution-abatement R&D effort and generating lower unit emissions from production. Specifically, green tariffs reduce pollution by (1) shifting production to the region where environmental standards are respected, (2) inducing the firm in the clean country to engage in more abatement R&D by granting it a higher market power/share in its home market, (3) instigating green R&D investment by deterring delocation. When these outweigh the R&D-creating effect of environmental harmonization in the dirty country, green tariffs bring about a cleaner environment.     

我国制造业环境管制的实证研究

从制造业的角度出发,分析了政府对环境管制(ER)的两种形式:正式管制(FER)和非正式管制(I-ER),建立了环境管制均衡方程,并且采用面板数据的分析方法对理论假设进行了验证。研究表明,假设的影响制造业环境管制的主要因素:政府保护意愿、劳动密集程度、产业规模、经济外向度、产业国有化程度、科技吸收转化支出和劳动力素质的高低均产生了显著的影响。     

Consistency and optimality in a dynamic game of pollution control II: Monopoly

This paper continues a line of research begun in Batabyal (1995a). I model the interaction between a regulator and a monopolistic, polluting firm as a Stackelberg differential game in which the regulator leads. The firm creates pollution, which results in a stock externality. I analyze the intertemporal effects of alternate pollution control measures. The principal issue here concerns the dynamic inconsistency of the optimal solution. Inter alia, I compare the steady state levels of pollution under optimal and under dynamically consistent policies.