Does local government competition aggravate haze pollution? A new perspective of factor market distortion

Haze pollution has become a new threat to China's sustainable development, but it may be that local government behaviour can play an important role in the prevention and control of pollutants. A dynamic spatial autoregressive (SAR) model is used to study the relationship between local government competition and haze pollution. To further explore the indirect impact of factor market distortion on haze pollution and control potential endogeneity problems, a newly developed intermediary effect model that incorporates the characteristics of the generalized method of moments (GMM) is utilized to explore how factor market distortion indirectly affects haze pollution. The research results show that regional haze pollution in China is characterized by significant spatial correlation, and local government competition has a positive impact on haze pollution; that is, local government competition exacerbates haze pollution. In general, local government competition not only directly leads to an increase in haze pollution but also further intensifies it by distorting the local factor market, and the intermediary role of factor market distortion is approximately 7.04%. The results of the regional inspection found that competition among local governments in the eastern region did not lead to haze pollution, and distortion of the factor market did not exist as an intermediary effect. However, both direct and intermediary effects are significant in the central and western regions. Therefore, an official performance appraisal system that includes ecological constraints should be established to guide the benign transformation of local government competition, and an environmental management mechanism must be developed for joint prevention and control to reduce haze pollution. In addition, the free flow of factors and marketization are equally important.     

增信服务还是腐蚀效应:论金融科技等新兴产业发展过程中的风险信号

提出行业性风险暴发的"腐蚀效应"理论,即存在着一种特殊的行业风险暴发过程:行业中各个企业的倒闭是沿着企业的资质链从低到高的顺序发生的.该过程的存在得到了数据回归证实.对于科技金融等新兴行业,警惕和积极防范腐蚀效应,对防范行业性风险具有重要意义.对于客户信任高度依赖的新兴行业,如金融科技等,最容易出现腐蚀效应.因此,在一度高速膨胀的网络贷款领域出现腐蚀效应具有一定必然性."腐蚀效应"的存在也否定了当前把网络贷款行业大面积爆雷的原因归咎于其开展"增信服务"的普遍观点,真正引发风险的原因是网络贷款行业中的企业资质参差不齐和无序竞争造成的无谓成本的大幅增加.从政府对行业的管理视角来看,在促进行业发展时不忘记防范风险十分重要.这在实质上是对制度-制度接口的设计问题.因此应当以制度设计理论来指导防范风险政策的制定,才能取得更好的效果.     

Can stable environmental protection officials’ tenure reduce illegal emissions?

Based on the day-night PM_2.5 difference of the nearest atmospheric monitoring points to measure whether there is illegal emission, this paper explores the impact of environmental protection officials' tenure (EPLT) on illegal emissions. The results show that there is a positive correlation between EPLT and illegal emissions. Stable EPLT can reduce illegal emissions by increasing environmental information disclosure and environmental subsidies. It can increase illegal emissions by weakening public pollution reporting and media supervision, environmental law enforcement and promoting corruption. In addition, EPLT can increase illegal emissions as EPLT is less than 3.55 years, while EPLT can increase illegal emissions as EPLT exceeds 6.21 years. Further, when mayor's tenure and EPLT are both stable, the promotion effect of EPLT on illegal emission is stronger. Stable company director's tenure can also aggravate the promotion effect of EPLT on illegal emissions.     

Environmental Taxation and Vertical Cournot Oligopolies: How Eco-industries Matter

This article specifies what an optimal pollution tax should be when dealing with a vertical Cournot oligopoly. Polluting firms sell final goods to consumers and outsource their abatement activities to an environment industry. It is assumed that both markets are imperfectly competitive. Thus, the tax is a single instrument used to regulate three sorts of distortions, one negative externality and two restrictions in production. Consequently, the optimal tax rate is the result of a trade-off that depends on the firms’ market power along the vertical structure. A detailed analysis of Cournot-Nash equilibria in both markets is also performed. In this context, the efficiency of abatement activities plays a key-role. It gives a new understanding to the necessary conditions for the emergence of an eco-industrial sector.      

论青少年犯罪动向及对策

近几年,青少年犯罪案件呈突发性、偶发性,犯罪年龄降低,由单独型向团伙型发展的特点.其原因有家庭因素、学校因素、社会因素.预防和惩治青少年犯罪,需要全社会广泛参与,综合治理.     

Pollution Control in Open Economies: Implications of Within-period Interactions for Dynamic Game Equilibrium

This paper examines a two-country, dynamic game model of pollution control in the presence of economic interactions between countries within a period, as well as the environmental interaction between periods (i.e., a change in the stock of global pollution). These economic interactions emerge because of changes in the terms of trade of polluting goods or the market share of domestic polluting industries. It is shown that if within-period externalities exist, a noncooperative equilibrium may result in a smaller stock of global pollution in the steady state than does international cooperation. Moreover, the properties of equilibrium paths depend on the direction and size of such externalities. In addition, trigger strategy equilibria that achieve the outcome of the collusive solution are examined.     

钢筋混凝土现浇楼板裂缝成因分析及防治措施

文章对某工业厂房现浇楼板产生裂缝进行调查,分析了裂缝的特征和产生的原因,介绍了防治裂缝的措施以及修补裂缝的方法。     

Ambient Taxes Under m-Dimensional Choice Sets, Heterogeneous Expectations, and Risk-Aversion

We consider the design of ambient taxes forrisk-neutral and risk-averse polluters whenpolluters and the regulatory agency haveasymmetric information about environmentalrelationships and probabilities associatedwith random events. Unlike prior work, we showthat under these conditions, optimal ambienttaxes must be firm-specific, and accompaniedby additional incentives to influencepolluters' choices of abatement techniques.     

Prevention versus Treatment under Precautionary Regulation: A Case Study of Groundwater Contamination under Uncertainty

Policy discussions on agricultural pollution problems characterize prevention as more cost effective and precautionary than ex post treatment. We derive conditions under which treatment alone is more cost effective in situations involving multiple sources of emissions, multiple sites affected, and a commonly used precautionary approach to uncertainty. We also show that a greater degree of precaution can result in less reliance on prevention. An empirical case study indicates that treatment alone is the most cost-effective means of dealing with nitrate in most Maryland community water system wells. The use of leaching prevention measures is restricted to the most intensive poultry producing areas. The incremental cost of precaution is substantial.     

On modeling incentive systems which utilize pollution charges for pollution abatement

This paper examines a scheme of economic incentives for environmental protection, in which spatially differentiated pollution taxes are in use in compensating the pollution abatement costs. A simple mathematical model is described which determines an incentive system that encourages polluters to reduce the discharges to an acceptable level of ambient quality standards in a cost-effective manner. It is shown that the vector of pollution charges has to be proportional to the marginal abatement cost vector, but is smaller than the latter in magnitude. It is demonstrated that a necessary incentive effect may be achieved even if the total pollution charge is much lower (about three times) than the total abatement costs. It is also estimated how this charge incentive system reconciles conflicting criteria of cost-effectiveness and of equity. These conclusions are verified by numerical experiments with real data.