Renminbi＇s Potential to Become a Global Currency

This paper is a tentative endeavor to delineate the potential of the renminbi to become a global currency. It first analyzes the critical economic, financial and policy attributes that are required to support a currency to gain an international role. It then examines whether China has the potential to acquire these attributes. The paper concludes by offering some provisional observations on the implications for Asia and the global economy, should the renminbi evolve into a world currency in the coming decades.     

全球气候治理政策工具的比较分析——基于国别间关系的考察角度

目前应对气候变化的国际谈判处于典型的囚徒困境状态,为更有效地开展全球气候治理,作者依据能否保障全球减排目标实现、公平性、排放的静态配置效率和促进减排技术进步的动态效率等四条标准,比较了国际社会提出的三种气候治理政策工具,即行业技术标准、全球排放税和可交易排放许可。分析表明,行业技术标准类政策工具在四个评价标准方面均不如另外两类工具;而全球排放税的政策工具在排放的静态配置效率方面较行业技术标准类有优势,在其他评价方面的优势也不突出。在可交易排放许可政策工具之下,如果把历史排放纳入全球排放许可范畴并在国别间公平划分,且将所有国家都纳入到该治理工具的适用范围内,则该工具既能有效克服国别间的碳泄漏问题,体现国别间公平性原则,又能促进排放的静态配置效率达到最优,有效促进减排技术的进步,其综合优势最为突出。在可交易排放许可框架下,实行碳关税或其他边境调节措施有违世界贸易组织的原则。     

Parameter identification and global sensitivity analysis of Xin’anjiang model using meta-modeling approach

Parameter identification, model calibration, and uncertainty quantification are important steps in the model-building process, and are necessary for obtaining credible results and valuable information. Sensitivity analysis of hydrological model is a key step in model uncertainty quantification, which can identify the dominant parameters, reduce the model calibration uncertainty, and enhance the model optimization efficiency. There are, however, some shortcomings in classical approaches, including the long duration of time and high computation cost required to quantitatively assess the sensitivity of a multiple-parameter hydrological model. For this reason, a two-step statistical evaluation framework using global techniques is presented. It is based on (1) a screening method (Morris) for qualitative ranking of parameters, and (2) a variance-based method integrated with a meta-model for quantitative sensitivity analysis, i.e., the Sobol method integrated with the response surface model (RSMSobol). First, the Morris screening method was used to qualitatively identify the parameters’ sensitivity, and then ten parameters were selected to quantify the sensitivity indices. Subsequently, the RSMSobol method was used to quantify the sensitivity, i.e., the first-order and total sensitivity indices based on the response surface model (RSM) were calculated. The RSMSobol method can not only quantify the sensitivity, but also reduce the computational cost, with good accuracy compared to the classical approaches. This approach will be effective and reliable in the global sensitivity analysis of a complex large-scale distributed hydrological model.     

Global modelling revisited

Reasons for the great impact of World Dynamics and Limits to Growth include their addressing the correct audience (the public), and the ability of systems dynamics clearly to handle and communicate information on complex and often little understood areas. Modelling projects should usually be global or national (not regional), draw heavily on mental and not just written and numerical databases, and have time horizons of perhaps 100 years. Sadly, critics of Worlds 2 and 3 have yet to come to grips with the fundamental messages presented there, although these messages are becoming increasingly vital.     

An enduring need: multilateralism in the twenty-first century

That the global economy has been hugely successful over thepast 50 years is unquestionable. A major underpinning of thatsuccess has been the open multilateral system, which has enabledthe emergence of a truly international financial system, reciprocalreduction of trade barriers, and the emergence of many previouslypoor countries into the status of ‘emerging markets’or even ‘developed’. The open multilateral system,however, is increasingly under-appreciated and taken for granted.Preferential trading arrangements have proliferated, and withthem the possibility of discriminatory arrangements for capitalflows. The absence of an international regime for capital flowspermits this development and poses a threat to the system, asdo all of the issues on which countries' governments assert‘their’ interests, and ignore their interests inthe overall health of the system. It is to be hoped that thebenefits of multilateralism are more greatly appreciated, andthat the current trend toward increasing regionalism and departuresfrom the post-war system is reversed.     

Spatial Evolution of Social Norms in a Common-Pool Resource Game

We study the conditions for the emergence of cooperation in a spatial common-pool resource (CPR) game. We consider three types of agents: cooperators, defectors and enforcers. The role of enforcers is to punish defectors for overharvesting the resource. Agents are located on a circle and they only observe the actions of their two nearest neighbors. Their payoffs are determined by both local and global interactions and they modify their actions by imitating the strategy in their neighborhood with the highest average payoffs on average. Using theoretical and numerical analysis, we find a large diversity of equilibria to be the outcome of the game. In particular, we find conditions for the occurrence of equilibria in which the three strategies coexist. We also derive the stability of these equilibria. Finally, we show that introducing resource dynamics in the system favors the occurrence of cooperative equilibria.