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.      

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.     

室内空气污染及防治对策

文章通过对室内空气污染物成因的分析,指出目前室内空气主要污染物为甲醛、苯系物、氨和氡。     

基于可持续发展的河流污染价值补偿机制研究

本文依据环境经济学物质平衡理论的概念框架,以污染者付费原则的环境经济政策为指导,研究上游河流水污染引发下游污染事件所造成的经济损失成本和事故技术等级关联系数,进而提出以公平和可持续的价值补偿标准为基础的经济补偿模型及其运作机制,为环境会计的相关计量提供参考。     

对我国生态环境保护的初步探讨

中国是世界上最大的发展中国家,由于现代工农业生产而造成了严重的环境污染,尤其是大量使用农用化学品所导致的生态失调与环境破坏,已严重威胁到人类生存环境及生活健康。今后社会发展必须大力提倡与推广无公害、无污染的清洁生产,全面实现生产的"零污染"与废物的"零排放"、保护环境与追求生态和谐的发展目标。     

建立绿色会计核算体系初探

目前我国正处在经济高速增长期。年GDP增长率9％-11％，同时又造成了严重的环境污染，土地大规模沙化，空气质量下降，长江、黄河等七大水系都遭受到了前所未有的污染。因此，对环境破坏进行成因分析，建立绿色会计体系，计价、计量自然环境。才能达到遏制环境污染的目的。     

Piercing the Veil of Uncertainty in Transboundary Pollution Agreements

This paper addresses the question of how uncertainty in costs and benefits affects the difficulty of reaching a voluntary agreement among sovereign states. A measure of difficulty is constructed related to side-payments necessary to make an agreement a Pareto-improving move. Using a simple model, it is shown that uncertainty actually makes agreement easier.JEL classifications: Q5, H4, D7, D8An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Risk and Uncertainty in Environmental and Resource Economics, Wageningen, The Netherlands, June 2002.     

Post OPA-90 Vessel Oil Transfer Spill Prevention: The Effectiveness of Coast Guard Enforcement

Although oil spills from tanker accidents receive the most publicity, most vessel spills are not the result of accidents but of oil transfer activities. We investigate determinants of the size of vessel oil transfer spills as well as the effectiveness of Coast Guard enforcement activities in reducing their size. Vessel out-of-water and in-water oil transfer spillage functions are estimated utilizing tobit regression and detailed data on individual vessel oil transfer spills as well as Coast Guard safety/environmental enforcement activity data for the 1991–1995 period. Our estimation results suggest that Coast Guard hull but not machinery inspections are effective in reducing both out-of-water and in-water spills; patrols by air, but not by boat, are effective in reducing out-of-water spills; but neither is effective in reducing in-water spills. The results also show that the type of vessel (oil- and non-oil-cargo), vessel characteristics, vessel operations, weather/visibility conditions, and waterway type are determinants of post OPA-90 vessel oil transfer spills.     

Hedonic models and air pollution: Twenty-five years and counting

This paper reports a meta analysis of how effectively hedonic property models have detected the influence of air pollution on housing prices. Probit estimates are reported describing how data, model specification, and local property market conditions in cities represented in thirty-seven studies influence the ability of hedonic models to uncover negative, statistically significant relationships between housing prices and air pollution measures.Partial support for this research was provided by the Russell Sage Foundation. Thanks are due David Cordray, Heidi Hartman, and Larry Hedges of the Foundation's Meta-Analysis Panel for constructive comments, to Ray Palmquist for suggestions and assistance in assembling the results from his studies, to Rick Freeman and Tom Tietenberg and two anonymous referees for comments on the research, and to Barbara Scott for constructive editing of earlier drafts of this paper.     

博弈论在治理河流水污染中的应用

针对我国日益严重的河流水污染状况，本文通过对污染源企业和政府之间的关系进行博弈分析，建立监督博弈模型，并以此分析政府对污染源企业的监管力度及经济上的处罚力度。