Rethinking the costs related to global warming: A survey of the issues

One approach to the economic analysis of global warming seeks to balance the costs of damage from or adaptation to it with the costs of mitigating it. The costs of adaptation and damage have been estimated using techniques of environmental evaluation, but are subject to a wide margin of uncertainty. The costs of mitigation, principally by reducing the emissions of CO₂, have been estimated using different kinds of economic models, some of the results of which have suggested that very little abatement of carbon emissions is justified before the costs of abatement exceed the benefits of it in terms of foregone damage and adaptation costs. The paper analyses the extent to which this conclusion is a function of the modelling assumptions and techniques used, rather than likely practical outcomes, with regard to the models' treatment of unemployed resources, revenue recycling, prior distortions in the economy due to the tax system and possible dynamic effects from the introduction of a carbon-energy tax. It concludes that, with different and arguably more appropriate treatment of the above issues, especially when the secondary benefits of reducing CO₂ emissions are also taken into account, it is not clear that even substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels will incur net costs, especially if there is the prospect of even moderate costs from global warming.     

Domestic and international strategic interactions in environment policy formation

Summary. In this paper, we establish the most possilbe general formulation of the technology governing carbon-gas emission, giving rise to global external diseconomies, and ty to explore into the strategic interactions,both domestic and international, when an individual country decides on the environmental policies. Through the comparison among emission taxes, quotas, and standard in the perfectly competitive private economies, we find that the first two policies are equivalent but they are different in effects by virtue of what we may call the tax-exemption effect of emission standards. Such a difference in the policy effect further affects the other country's welfare through the global externalities, amplified through whether the government can precommit to either the emission tax or the emission standard. Received: January 16, 2001; revised version: April 16, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The authors thank the valuable comments by an anonymous referee. Ministry of Education and Science for its financial support is also greatly acknowledged. Correspondence to:K. Kiyono     

Prizes for basic research: Human capital,economic might and the shadow of history

We study the distribution of basic scientific research across countries and time, and explain the process that resulted in the United States becoming the undisputed leader in basic research. Our study is based on the records of scientific awards, and on the data of global economic trends. We investigate the degree to which scale/threshold effects account for the number of prizes won. We constructed a stylized model, predicting a non-linear relationship with lagged relative GDP as an important explanatory variable of a country’s share of prizes. Our empirical research findings find support for these predictions and the presence of a “winner-takes-all” effect.      

Sources of gains from international portfolio diversification

This paper looks at the determinants of country and industry specific factors in international portfolio returns using a sample of forty eight countries and thirty nine industries over the last three decades. Country factors have remained relatively stable over the sample period while industry factors have significantly increased during the last decade and dropped again since 2000. The importance of industry and country factors is correlated with measures of economic and financial international integration and development. We find that financial market globalization is the main driving force behind the changes in relative magnitude of the different shocks. Country factors are smaller for countries integrated in world financial markets and have declined as the degree of financial integration and the number of countries pursuing financial liberalization has increased. Higher international financial integration within an industry increases the importance of industry factors in explaining returns. Economic integration of production also helps in explaining returns. Countries with a more specialized production activity have higher country shocks.     

Global sourcing strategy and sustainable competitive advantage

Global sourcing strategy has been one of the most hotly debated management trends in the last 20 years. In its early years, global sourcing was examined mostly from “in-house” development and procurement perspectives; and in the last several years, research focus has shifted to “outsourcing” activities. Along with this shift from internal to external focus on global sourcing, many researchers and business practitioners have applied a core competency argument to justify increased levels of outsourcing activities on a global basis. Although the beneficial aspects of outsourcing are assumed in most cases, no consensus exists in reality as to the effect of outsourcing. Furthermore, the increased instability of the exchange rate environment in the last several years has also led to increased difficulties in managing globally scattered operations that were once fashionable in the 1980s-90s under the rubric of global strategy. In this article, the authors explore potential limitations and negative consequences of outsourcing strategy on a global scale.     

An institutional analysis of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels

The adoption of sophisticated supply chain innovations by trading partners in global channels of distribution is often limited by the institutional context of the international transaction. In particular, the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements of institutional environments around the world can enhance or inhibit the ability of trading partners to craft the contractual, ownership, and social elements of institutional arrangements required by an innovation. Because supply chain innovations often require costly, new investments and activity sets, firms may be reluctant to participate in an innovation unless a new institutional arrangement can be crafted to provide adequate safeguards and guarantees. A conceptual model is developed to explain the role of institutions in the successful deployment of supply chain innovations in global marketing channels.     

Is globalization a road to duopoly?

In global markets, the market shares of the two or three biggest firms sum up more than 90 percent and firms do marketing efforts. However, the classical neo-walrasiano theoretical framework only is able to justify these stylized facts with particular firms’ cost structures, being one reason the presumption that there are no information costs. Towards the rationalization of those stylized facts, I study the evolution of the market structure in a model of price advertising with a variable that controls the degree of openness of regional markets. The main result of the model is that in equilibrium the structure of a global market is the duopoly.     

Have labour practices and human rights disclosures enhanced corporate accountability? The case of the GRI framework

This paper critically evaluates Transnational Corporations’ (TNCs) claimed adherence to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s ‘labour’ and ‘human rights’ reporting guidelines and examines how successful the GRI has been in enhancing comparability and transparency. We found limited evidence of TNCs discharging their accountability to their workforce and, rather, we found evidence to suggest that disclosure was motivated more by enhancing their legitimacy. TNCs failed to adhere to the guidelines, which meant that material information items were often missing, rendering comparability of information meaningless. Instead, TNCs reported large volumes of generic/anecdotal information without acknowledging the impediments they faced in practice.     

“一带一路”典型区土地利用变化热点区判别与其影响因素

目的 土地利用与覆盖变化是监测区域变化的重要方法,而发生剧烈变化的热点区域更是研究的重要部分,有效识别热点区并分析其影响因素可以为保护土地生态环境、有效利用土地资源提供科学支撑。方法 文章利用欧洲航天局（ESA）气候变化倡议的长期时间序列土地覆盖数据集（CCI-LC）对“一带一路”典型区土地利用与覆盖变化进行分析,根据变化面积、相对变化速率及其聚集程度建立了热点区域的识别方法,并分析了影响因素。结果 （1）根据土地覆盖变化结果表明,1992—2020年“一带一路”典型区内总共有5.46%的面积发生了变化,建设用地净增加面积最多,为24.61万km²,相对变化速率在2000—2010年最高,为76.94%。（2）热点识别结果表明,2000—2010年土地覆盖变化最剧烈,不同时期的热点区域内主要的转型特征不同,1992—2000年主要表现为耕地的增加,2000—2010年主要表现为林地和建设用地面积扩张,2010—2020年主要表现为建设用地面积增多和林地的砍伐与恢复。（3）热点区域集中分布在0~200m的海拔范围内,热点区域内的像元数量随海拔升高不断减少。（4）热带多雨气候区域内热点占比最大,而其他气候类型对热点区域内的像元数量的影响较小。（5）社会经济因素对于热点区域内的像元数量有着显著的影响,其中城市人口数量和国内生产总值最重要,两者结合可以解释全部热点的86.46%。结论 研究探明的热点区域和影响因素可以为“一带一路”典型区土地利用格局演变、区域土地利用规划和土地资源可持续利用提供决策支持。     

世界经济失衡背景中的人民币汇率制度改革

人民币升值的真正原因在于,从对外经济往来层面上来看,美国在贸易逆差扩大背景下对中国愈演愈烈的人民币升值的"攻势";从国内宏观经济层面来看,"外汇占款"带来流动性过剩压力。宏观经济的客观因素以及中国政府的主观因素决定了人民币汇率升值过程只能是渐进的,而不是一步到位的,尽管渐进策略会进一步强化人民币升值的预期。对不同经济主体而言,人民币升值的利益效应不同,因此很难简单概括其总体效应。近期来看,人民币汇率升幅已经达到了一定的水平,与人民币升值相关的越来越强烈的负面效应以及金融突发事件效应,应该引起政府的密切关注。