Enforcing Emissions Trading when Emissions Permits are Bankable

We propose enforcement strategies for emissions trading programs with bankable emissions permits that guarantee complete compliance with minimal enforcement costs. Our strategies emphasize imperfect monitoring supported by a high unit penalty for reporting violations, and tying this penalty directly to equilibrium permit prices. This approach is quite different from several existing enforcement strategies that emphasize high unit penalties for emissions in excess of permit holdings. Our analysis suggests that a high penalty for excess emissions cannot be used to conserve monitoring effort, and that it may actually increase the amount of monitoring necessary to maintain compliance.The authors are grateful to Anthony Heyes and three anonymous referees for their valuable comments. Partial support for this research was provided by the Cooperative State Research Extension, Education Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station under Project No. MAS00871.     

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。     

The Economics and Bioeconomics of Folk and Scientific Classification

Synopsis This paper is the product of a collaboration between a biologist (Ghiselin 1997) who works on the philosophy of classification and an economist (Landa 1981, 1994) who works on the ‘Economics of Identity’: how and why people classify people based on identity in the context of a theory of ethnic trading networks. In developing the ‘bioeconomics’ (the synthesis of economics with biology) of classification, we crossed a number of disciplinary boundaries—anthropology, economics, sociology, biology, and cognitive psychology including evolutionary psychology’s ‘fast and frugal’ heuristics. Using a bioeconomics approach, we argue that folk classifications—the classifications used by ordinary persons—have much in common with scientific classifications: underlying both is the need for economy of information processing in the brain, for the efficient organization of knowledge, and for efficiency of information acquisition and transmission of information to others. Both evolve as a result of trial and error, but in science there is relatively more foresight, understanding, and planning.     

Matching and anonymity

This work introduces a set-theoretic foundation of deterministic bilateral matching processes and studies their properties. In particular, it formalizes a link between matching and informational constraints by developing a notion of anonymity that is based on the agents’ matching histories. It also explains why and how various matching processes generate different degrees of “informational isolation” in the economy. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach to modeling matching frameworks by discussing the classical turnpike model of Townsend.This research is supported in part by the NSF grants EIA-0075506, SES-0128039, DMS-0437210, and ACI-0325846. We thank two anonymous referees for constructive comments that improved the exposition of the paper. We also thank the participants in seminars at the University of Aarhus, Purdue University, University of Texas at Austin, and at the XI Meeting on Real Analysis and Measure Theory in 2004, the spring 2004 Midwest Economic Theory Meeting, the summer 2004 North American and European Econometric Society meetings.     

Climate Change Taxes and Energy Efficiency in Japan

In 2003 Japan proposed a Climate Change Tax to reduce its CO₂ emissions to the level required by the Kyoto Protocol. If implemented, the tax would be levied on fossil fuel use and the revenue distributed to encourage the purchase of energy efficient equipment. Analysis using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model shows that this policy is unlikely to bring Japan into compliance with its Kyoto target unless the subsidy encourages improvement in energy intensity well beyond Japan’s recent historical experience. Similar demand-management programs in the US, where there has been extensive experience, have not been nearly as effective as they would need to be to achieve energy efficiency goals of the proposal. The Tax proposal also calls for limits on international emission trading. We find that this limit substantially affects costs of compliance. The welfare loss with full emissions trading is 1/6 that when Japan meets its target though domestic actions only, the carbon price is lower, and there is a smaller loss of energy-intensive exports. Japan can achieve substantial savings from emissions trading even under cases where, for example, the full amount of the Russian allowance is not available in international markets.     

控制火电厂二氧化硫排放的有效途径——排污权交易

目前,我国工业二氧化硫排放量中有42%是火电厂排放的,因此高效控制火电厂的二氧化硫排放是提高空气质量的主要途径。美国利用排污权交易治理火电厂的二氧化硫排放取得了巨大的成功,不仅二氧化硫排放量大幅下降,而且排污权交易也被证明是成本最低的方法。借鉴美国的经验,可以为我国治理火电厂二氧化硫排放提供高效途径。     

经济周期性波动与适度调节

改革以来,经济周期性波动的变化特征说明了我国经济的稳定性与抗风险能力增强;经济波动的根源是生产与消费的矛盾,矛盾激化到一定程度,经济运行就表现较大幅度的波动;市场条件与生产条件相背离是生产与消费矛盾激化的市场表现;生产条件短期是难以改变的,而市场条件的改变又是相对迅速的,宏观调控的重要作用就是要适时地调整并改变市场条件,使之与生产条件相适应;需要注意的是,这种调整应该适时适度,否则,反而会进一步加剧经济的较大幅度波动。     

论排污权交易

排污权交易是一种采用经济手段进行环境保护的手段,越来越多地受到了国际及国内社会的重视。本文对排污权交易进行了系统地介绍,论述了排污权交易的含义、性质、目的、特征,并在此基础上论述了排污权交易法律关系的构成。最后,对我国的排污权交易制度建立的障碍进行了分析,提出了构建我国排污权交易制度的若干设想。     

“一带一路”倡议下中国口岸出入境货运量的时空格局演变探究

口岸作为国家指定的对外开放门户,承担着国与国之间货物运输和人员往来的重要功能。"一带一路"倡议的实施促进了我国口岸的发展,带动了口岸经济与区域经济的发展,反过来进一步加强了与"一带一路"沿线国家的合作。本文利用口岸运行指标中的出入境货运量数据,借助探索性空间数据分析方法,对我国2011—2017年31个省(区、市)的口岸出入境货运量的时空格局进行分析。结果表明:"一带一路"倡议提出后,尤其是2015年后,我国口岸出入境货运总量呈现快速增长态势且存在显著的空间正相关性;三类口岸(水运、陆运和空运口岸)中,水运口岸存在更显著的、更强的空间相关性;各类口岸出入境货运量中,东部沿海地区水运呈现正向空间集聚现象,西部沿边地区陆运呈现极化现象。此外,本文对全国31个省(区、市)的地区货运总量也进行了空间动态分析,发现也存在空间相关性,且集聚效应在"一带一路"倡议提出后不断增强。在此基础上,为了更好地服务于"一带一路"建设,本文提出了提升各类口岸运输能力的相关对策建议。     

竞争力、市场微观结构与证券交易所变革

纽约证券交易所和纳斯达克实施的重大并购行动标志着全球证券交易所新一轮并购浪潮的兴起,证券交易所之间的竞争再度趋于白热化.交易所之间的竞争已演变为市场微观结构的竞争.本文对纽约证券交易所和纳斯达克的交易成本进行了比较,无论是上市成本还是交易成本,新兴的纳斯达克都比传统的纽约证交所更胜一筹.因而本文认为有效降低交易成本应是提高交易所核心竞争力的关键所在,而改进交易机制、拓展产品服务以及调整组织架构,可以作为降低交易成本、提高交易所竞争力的具体竞争策略.