Trade-offs in sulfur emission trading in Europe

How to implement emission trading is one question in the current negotiations on a new sulfur protocol in Europe. Whereas the current protocol stipulates a 30 percent uniform reduction, national emission ceilings included in the proposed new protocol imply differentiated reductions. In addition, emission and fuel standards are proposed. This paper examines the costs and environmental impacts of emission trading. Emission trading combined with regulations is a new element in the paper. Calculations using the RAINS (Regional Acidification INformation and Simulation) model suggest that overlaying emission trading on regulations not only reduces the cost savings but has beneficial impacts as well: ecosystem protection is not changed and significant decreases in environmental benefits for countries are largely avoided. Emission trading can also be used to decrease emissions and increase ecosystem protection. If combined with existing legislation, emission trading minimizes losses in expected environmental benefits for some countries, and most countries gain. However, the initial distribution of emission ceilings has to be used so that some countries are not confronted with higher costs. Trade-offs appear to exist between the use of emission trading to achieve cost savings on the one hand, and ecosystem protection and distributional equity on the other.     

Carbon Trading with Imperfectly Observable Emissions

The Kyoto Protocol foresees emission trading but does not yet specify verification of (uncertain) emissions. This paper analyses a setting in which parties can meet their emission targets by reducing emissions, by investing in monitoring (reducing uncertainty of emissions) or by (bilaterally) trading permits. We derive the optimality conditions and carry out various numerical simulations. Our applications suggest that including uncertainty could increase compliance costs for the USA, Japan and the European Union. Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union might be able to gain from trading due to higher permit prices. Emissions trading could also lower aggregate uncertainty on emissions.     

The short run efficacy of monetary policy under floating exchange rates reconsidered

This paper disputes the argument that the short-run effectiveness of monetary policy in stabilizing domestic output under floating rates is necessarily reduced if elasticities of demand for imports and exports with respect to the current exchange rate are low and capital flows depend on the exchange rate. It is shown that the relative efficacy of monetary changes is determined by the interest rate elasticity of international interest payments and receipts and the effect of exchange rate variations on the demand for money in addition to the exchange rate elasticities of trade and capital flows.     

Hinterland transportation in Europe: Combined transport versus road transport

The dominance of road for hinterland services could be challenged by using rail-road or waterway-road transport because of costs, congestion and growing environmental constraints. A common dynamic that is very favorable to the development of combined transport is shared among the actors of the transport chain but with different starting positions considering the ports of the Northern Range.But combined transport must still demonstrate that it can compete with road transport. Road transport and combined transport are not directly comparable because they do not offer the same physical transport service. The organizational patterns of road and combined transport are investigated. The example of hinterland services to and from the port of Le Havre to the Paris region is a particularly interesting case because of the very short distance. It is shown that the competitiveness of combined transport in terms of price varies greatly according to the way road transport it competes with is organized and that the commercial policy of combined transport operators plays a key role for explaining this competitiveness. Additional services such as additional dwelling times and specific custom advantages are paramount of importance to encourage the shift from road transport to combined transport.     

Regionale welvaartsverschillen en regionale politiek

Rede, uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van buitengewoon hoogleraar in het regionaal en sociaal-economisch onderzoekingswerk aan de Nederlandsche Economische Hoogeschool te Rotterdam op 12 november 1959.     

The efficiency of top agents: An analysis through service strategy in tennis

We consider the question whether top tennis players in a top tournament (Wimbledon) employ an optimal (efficient) service strategy. While we show that top players do not, in general, follow an optimal strategy, our principal result is that the estimated inefficiencies are not large: the inefficiency regarding winning a point on service is on average 1.1% for men and 2.0% for women, implying that–by adopting an efficient service strategy–players can (on average) increase the probability of winning a match by 2.4%-points for men and 3.2%-points for women. While the inefficiencies may seem small, the financial consequences for the efficient player at Wimbledon can be substantial: the expected paycheck could rise by 18.7% for men and even by 32.8% for women. We use these findings to shed some light on the question of whether economic agents are successful optimizers.     

Researching cognition and technology: how we learn across the lifespan

This article addresses how we learn technology across the lifespan. After outlining findings of research into how children, adolescents, teens and adults learn technology, we address theoretical shifts from sociocultural to technocultural theories of cognition and reorientations from mediated to cyborgenic learning. The balance of the article describes effective methods for researching cognition and technology. In the process of outlining key findings from research, we emphasize the links among methods and theories employed, data produced and conclusions drawn. Our goal is to sketch a lifelong learning context for undertaking studies of cognition and technology, and to provide a methodological and theoretical analysis for researchers venturing into this dynamic and volatile field. In summary, we provide a far-ranging agenda for researching cognition and technology.

Some Difficulties in Sacconi's View about Corporate Ethics

Lorenzo Sacconi's The Social Contract of the Firm (Berlin, Springer, 2000) is a major contribution to the normative theory of the firm. It contains a full-fledged contractarian explanation of the role of Corporate Codes of Ethics. Sacconi proposes a game-theoretical model of the normative structure of the firm, including explicit and implicit contracts binding the members of the organisation, and the so-called constitutional contract: the hypothetical agreement that sets the basic co-operative structure in which the organisation consists. While Sacconi's theory is sound and full of suggestions, it is doubtful whether it completely grasps the nature of organisational ethics. In presenting organisations as the product of an agreement among self-interested individuals, the model does not account for the social and systemic embeddedness of business institutions. This paper points to several shortcomings of Sacconi's view, and explores alternative understandings of a contractarian morality as applied to business ethics.     

Stakeholder’s Preference and Rational Compliance: A Comment on Sacconi’s “CSR as a Model for Extended Corporate Governance II: Compliance, Reputation and Reciprocity”

Lorenzo Sacconi’s recent re-statement of his social contract account of business ethics is a major contribution to our understanding of the normative nature of CSR as the expression of a fair multi-party agreement supported by the economic rationality of each participant. However, at one crucial point in his theory, Sacconi introduces the concept of stakeholders’ conformist preferences – their disposition to punish the firm if it defects from the agreement, refusing to abide by its own explicit CSR policies and norms. We take issue with him over this concept: we show that the assumption of conformist preferences is a moral premise, and it arguably weakens the normativity of the theory as a whole. As an alternative, we propose an evolutionary game theoretic approach. We draw upon recent applications of evolutionary game theory to moral philosophy (Skyrms, Danielson), and we use a computer simulation of the trust game. According to this approach, the failure of the logic of reputation, which is the problem conformist preferences were introduced to solve, is overcome through the dynamics of interaction.