cooperation against theft a test of incentives for water management in tunisia water theft carried out by manipulating water meters constrains volumetric pricing in semi arid regions cooperative management can reduce theft and improve incentives for efficient water use by inducing peer monitoring using a theoretical model we show that theft is more likely when prices are high punishments are weak and cooperatives are large we also show how cooperative membership and punishment levels are determined endogenously by constraints on monitoring we test the model on data from tunisia for the years 2001 2003 relying on instruments that proxy for unobservable monitoring costs the results confirm that well designed incentives can reduce theft and that constraints on monitoring costs affect institutional design

the regulation of non point source pollution and risk preferences an experimental approach many environmental problems notably arising from agriculture can be classified as non point source pollution problems in this paper we present results of an experimental study on the performance of three mechanisms designed to deal with such problems collective fining random fining and a tax subsidy scheme we find that the fining schemes induce under abatement a feature being enforced with experience we further elicit the participants risk attitude and show that the performance of collective fining is not affected by the subjects risk preferences under a system based on random fining the performance of the mechanism worsens in the presence of risk seeking subjects however coordination on over abatement under the tax subsidy can be alleviated if subjects are risk averse c 2011 elsevier b v all rights reserved

allowance price and distributional effects under a personal carbon trading scheme abstract personal carbon trading pct is a downstream cap and trade scheme to reduce carbon emissions from the household sector in comparison to an upstream carbon trading scheme pct is a progressive scheme in which the poorer consumers are mostly winners as their levels of emissions are generally lower this paper investigates the equilibrium price for allowances and distributional effects under a pct scheme first we propose an equilibrium model for pct from which we derive an equilibrium price for allowances second a consumer surplus analysis is conducted to examine the welfare changes caused by the pct scheme generally we find that the pct scheme is progressive and can provide a buffer between the energy and allowance price based on these results the implications are discussed and suggestions for a future study are provided

vertical targeting and leakage in carbon policy in this paper we examine the intersection between two important aspects of climate policy design the first is the point of regulation should it be placed on pollution sources carbon rich inputs or consumers this issue of upstream versus downstream regulation is one that we will refer to as vertical targeting the second aspect concerns the external effects of a local climate policy leakage occurs when par tial regulation results in an increase in emissions in unregulated parts of the economy this paper examines how regulators choice of upstream versus downstream environmental regulation affects emissions in other countries with lax environmental regulation these two elements of climate policy are closely related in many contexts the selection of the point of regulation in the vertical chain is influenced if not driven by concerns over extrajurisdictional impacts given the global nature of the pollutant regulators in any specific jurisdiction need to be mindful of how local limits will effect global emissions regions imposing greenhouse gas restrictions may consume more than they produce of carbon intensive goods such as gasoline or cement in such cases regulations imposed on consumers can reach upstream to producers located outside the regulated areas for example by raising the cost of consuming carbon intensive electricity in california regulators in that state hope to reduce the combustion of coal in other regions of the western united states it is important to recognize that vertical tar geting is but one mechanism through which regulators can combat leakage much academic research and legislation has focused on the legal and economic merits of border adjustments such as import tariffs based on carbon content

are policy platforms capitalized into equity prices evidence from the bush gore 2000 presidential election abstract this paper tests for the capitalization of policy platforms into equity prices using a sample of 70 firms favored under bush or gore platforms during the 2000 u s presidential election two sources of daily data during the six months leading up to the election are incorporated firm specific equity returns and the probability of a bush victory as implied by prices from the iowa electronic market for this group of politically sensitive firms the daily baseline estimates demonstrate that platforms are capitalized into equity prices under a bush administration relative to a counterfactual gore administration bush favored firms are worth 3 more and gore favored firms are worth 6 less implying a statistically significant differential return of 9 estimates based on weekly returns are even stronger suggesting a differential return of 16 the most sensitive sectors include tobacco worth 13 more under a favorable bush administration microsoft competitors worth 15 less under an unfavorable bush administration and alternative energy companies worth 16 less under an unfavorable bush administration a corresponding analysis of campaign contributions which allows for heterogeneity in the importance of policy platforms to the firms supports the baseline estimates

policy for the adoption of new environmental monitoring technologies to manage stock externalities abstract with the development of modern information technologies relying on nanotechnologies and remote sensing a number of systems can be envisaged that allow for monitoring of the negative externalities generated by producers consumers or travelers road pricing schemes or individual emission meters for automobiles are two examples we analyze a dynamic model of stock pollution when the regulator has incomplete information on emissions generated by heterogeneous agents our contribution is to explicitly study a decentralized policy for adoption of monitoring equipment over time we determine the second best tax rates the pattern of monitoring technology adoption and identify conditions for the voluntary diffusion of monitoring technologies over time simulations show the welfare gains compared to alternative policies

budget balancing incentive mechanisms abstract a p xepapadeas j environ econom management20 113 26 1991 developed a pollution abatement incentive mechanism that both reduces the information requirements of a regulator and is budget balancing drawing only on the social gains from pollution abatement to encourage firm compliance this paper demonstrates that contrary to xepapadeas the budget balancing system of random penalties cannot be used to induce compliance with the regulator s objectives if firms are risk neutral however the mechanism can be successfully applied if firms are sufficiently risk averse e rasmusen rand j econom 18 428 435 1987

experimental evidence on dynamic pollution tax policies abstract this paper uses laboratory experiments to provide primary empirical evidence on dynamic pollution tax policies in particular we investigate a setting where a regulator with incomplete information uses a pollution tax mechanism with a simple endogenous tax rate adjustment rule to cost effectively meet a pollution standard this mechanism provides the opportunity for firms to strategically abate in order to reduce future tax rates the experiments vary important policy design features such as the type of tax ambient or emissions the initial tax rate and the tax rate adjustment speed we find that in equilibrium the pollution standard is met on average for each of these settings the observed long run tax rates vary considerably across policy designs which can be explained with a theory that allows for a mix of strategic and myopic firms along with the recognition that the incentives generated by the policy design can influence whether an agent plays myopically or strategically

an equilibrium model of consumer energy choice using a personal carbon trading scheme based on allowance price abstract changes in consumer behavior due to a personal carbon trading pct scheme are theoretically attractive yet untested in practice in this paper simulations on the basis of an equilibrium model are used to examine the effects of carbon allowance prices on energy use choice under a particular pct scheme it is shown that the equilibrium price of allowances would emerge under the pct scheme considered here further analyses indicate that the quantity of energy consumption under pct is a nonlinear function of the allowance price with a sharp kink at the point of equilibrium when the allowance price is below the equilibrium price consumers would prefer higher carbon energy in contrast when the allowance price is above the equilibrium price consumers would choose lower carbon energy however when the allowance price equals the equilibrium value consumers would purchase lower carbon energy and higher carbon energy simultaneously furthermore it is shown that the initial allowance allocation could also affect energy use choice on the basis of these results one of the main implications is that the allowance price should exceed the breakeven price to stimulate consumers to switch to green energy and progressively live a low carbon lifestyle

capital gains tax and equity values empirical test of stock price reaction to the introduction and reduction of capital gains tax exemption abstract this paper evaluates the differential effect on stock prices of the introduction in canada of 500 000 capital gains tax exemption and the reduction of this limit to 100 000 two years later using the seemingly unrelated regression methodology and controlling for thin trading and heteroscedasticity the empirical evidence indicates that the changes in capital gains tax laws had a differential effect on low dividend yield and high dividend yield stocks on both occasions while the evidence indicates that the stock market anticipated the 1985 capital gains tax law changes the significant market reaction to the 1987 reduction of the exemption occurred a day before and after the reading of the tax reform proposals in parliament thus it can be inferred from the results that despite the presence of tax sheltering opportunities in canada changes in capital gains tax laws affect equity values

a theory of collective reputations with applications to the persistence of corruption and to firm quality the paper is a first attempt at modelling the idea of group reputation as an aggregate of individual reputations a member s current incentives are affected by his past behaviour and because his track record is observed only with noise by the group s past behaviour as well the paper thus studies the joint dynamics of individual and collective reputations and derives the existence of stereotypes from history dependence rather than from a multiplicity of equilibria or from the existence of a common trait as is usually done in the literature it shows that new members of an organization may suffer from an original sin of their elders long after the latter are gone and it derives necessary and sufficient conditions under which group reputations can be rebuilt last the paper applies the theory to analyse when a large firm can maintain a reputation for quality 1 collective reputations collective reputations play an important role in economics and the social sciences countries ethnic racial or religious groups are known to be hard working honest corrupt hospitable or belligerent some firms enjoy substantial rents from their reputations for producing high quality products some departments are reported to treat their faculty or students fairly the paper is a first attempt at modelling the idea of group reputation as an aggregate of individual reputations a member s current incentives are affected by her past behaviour and because her track record is observed only with noise by the group s past behaviour as well the paper studies the joint dynamics of individual and collective reputations in a model in which current generations are progressively replaced by new ones and derives the existence of stereotypes from history dependence rather than from a multiplicity of equilibria or from the existence of a common trait as is usually done in the literature see section 2 for a detailed comparison with the literature it shows that new members of an organization may suffer from an original sin of their elders long after the latter are gone and it derives necessary and sufficient conditions under which group reputations can be rebuilt last the paper applies the theory to analyse when a large firm can maintain a reputation for quality let us spell out the building blocks of our theory in more detail a a group s reputation is only as good as that of its members each member is characterized by individual traits such as talent diligence or honesty past individual behaviour conveys information about these traits and generates individual reputations

investment ramifications of distortionary tax subsidies abstract this paper examines the investment effects of tax subsidies for which some assets and not others are eligible distortionary tax subsidies concentrate investments in tax favored assets thereby reducing the expected pre tax profitability of investment and reducing payoffs to bondholders in the event of default anticipation of asset substitution encourages lenders to require covenants in debt contracts which only imperfectly address asset substitution and distort investment the result is that borrowing is made more expensive which in turn discourages investment borrowing rates can react so strongly that aggregate investment may rise very little or even fall in response to higher tax subsidies debt issued by u s firms in risk of default after the 2002 introduction of bonus depreciation for u s equipment investment contained many more covenants than in other periods a pattern that reversed when bonus depreciation was discontinued after 2004 furthermore firms at risk of default borrowed less and were more apt to lease capital than were other firms during the bonus depreciation period

the effect of the investment tax credit on the value of the firm abstract a change in the tax law that increases investment incentives for new assets may result in excess returns on new investment causing firm value to increase alternatively because the investment incentives apply only to new investments the value of existing assets that compete with these investments may decline in general investment incentives have a theoretically ambiguous effect on firm value cross sectional tests examine the changes in firm value to repeated changes of the investment tax credit changes in firm value are found to be positively related to the expected receipt of investment tax credits no evidence is found to support a relationship between expected changes in the value of a firm s existing assets and changes in firm value

managing local commons theoretical issues in incentive design local commons encompass a wide range of resources whose shared feature is the need for some form of collective management in what follows we shall be concerned mainly with the problems of implementing a collective management plan whatever the mechanisms invoked many recent contributions to the literature have stressed that relatively informal collective management of common property resources can in the right circumstances avoid the severe resource degradation predicted by the tragedy of the commons nevertheless both empirical and theoretical arguments suggest that cooperative behavior may be only partial and the incentives of short term self interest only partially held in check under what circumstances then can more formal implementation mechanisms make good the deficiency and given that formal incentives are typically stronger than informal ones are there any reasons why informal incentives might nevertheless sometimes be preferred

voluntary threat approaches to reduce ambient water pollution this article considers the regulation of nonpoint source water pollution through the use of a voluntary threat approach which allows a polluter group to meet a standard voluntarily but imposes an ambient tax upon noncompliance in particular we develop an endogenous voluntary threat approach that can be parameterized to induce compliance as a unique subgame perfect nash equilibrium and eliminate zero abatement equilibria experimental evidence on the proposed approach as well as the exogenous approach of segerson and wu 2006 suggests that the severity of the threatened tax and the opportunity for communication are critical in determining policy outcomes

performance of the ambient tax does the nature of the damage matter the ambient tax is often considered as an efficient instrument to achieve a first best outcome of ambient pollution when the regulator cannot observe individual emissions or when monitoring costs are prohibitive while this view is supported to a large extent by experimental findings there remains several hurdles that hinder the implementation of the ambient tax in the field one of these hurdles is the nature of the damage experimental findings suggest that the efficiency of the ambient tax is higher under external damage i e if ambient pollution affects non polluters spraggon in j public econ 84 427 456 2002 than under internal damage i e if ambient pollution affects polluters themselves cochard et al in environ resour econ 30 393 422 2005 but this result rests on very different experimental settings therefore we designed a new experiment that allows to compare external and internal damage within a common setting our main finding is that the ambient tax is equally efficient under internal and external damage

economic and emissions implications of load based source based and first seller emissions trading programs under california ab32 in response to assembly bill 32 the state of california considered three types of carbon emissions trading programs for the electric power sector load based source based and first seller they differed in terms of their point of regulation and in whether in state to out of state and out of state to in state electricity sales are regulated in this paper we formulate a market equilibrium model for each of the three approaches considering power markets transmission limitations and emissions trading and making the simplifying assumption of pure bilateral markets we analyze the properties of their solutions and show the equivalence of load based first seller and source based approaches when in state to out of state sales are regulated under the cap a numeric example illustrates the emissions and economic implications of the models in the simulated cases leakage eliminates most of the emissions reductions that the regulations attempt to impose furthermore contract reshuffling occurs to such an extent that all the apparent emissions reductions resulting from changes in sources of imported power are illusory in reality the three systems would not be equivalent because there will also be pool type markets and the three systems provide different incentives for participating in those markets however the equivalence results under our simplifying assumptions show that load based trading has no inherent advantage compared to other systems in terms of costs to consumers contrary to claims elsewhere

should generational accounts replace public budgets and deficits the author assesses the concept of generational accounts and the specific accounts constructed by alan auerbach jagadeesh gokhale and laurence kotlikoff 1991 although these accounts support the assertion of present orientation in fiscal policy they rest on numerous assumptions based on judgments that are open to question these involve the treatment of the public budget constraint the benefits from public exhaustive expenditures economic and population projections the discount rate and fiscal incidence alternative and equally reasonable assumptions could yield radically different conclusions the author concludes that the auerbach gokhale and kotlikoff accounts should not replace the annual public budget as they argue

the impact of u s tax reform on foreign direct investment in the united states abstract this study empirically examines how taxes shape foreign direct investment and finds that increased taxes spur inward foreign investment this finding conforms with theories that recognize that foreign investor response is critically shaped by the tax provisions faced by the foreign investor in his home country and by the effects of tax reform on pre tax asset returns we demonstrate that average tax rates may better proxy tax effects than do effective tax rates our findings are more robust than previous results since we utilize the entire 1980s tax history consider a fuller set of industry distinctions and estimate the tax responsiveness in the context of exchange rate fluctuations

upstream vs downstream co2 trading a comparison for the electricity context in electricity downstream co2 regulation requires retail suppliers to buy energy from a mix of sources so that their weighted emissions satisfy a standard it has been argued that such load based regulation would solve emissions leakage cost consumers less and provide more incentive for energy efficiency than traditional source based cap and trade programs because pure load based trading complicates spot power markets variants geac and co2rc that separate emissions attributes from energy have been proposed when all generators and consumers come under such a system these load based programs are equivalent to source based trading in which emissions allowances are allocated by various rules and have no necessary cost advantage the geac and co2rc systems are equivalent to giving allowances free to generators and requiring consumers either to subsidize generation or buy back excess allowances respectively as avoided energy costs under source based and pure load based trading are equal the latter provides no additional incentive for energy efficiency the speculative benefits of load based systems are unjustified in light of their additional administrative complexity and cost the threat that they pose to the competitiveness and efficiency of electricity spot markets and the complications that would arise when transition to a federal cap and trade system occurs

effective tax rates and tobin s q abstract this paper clarifies the relation between the average and marginal effective tax rates using the notion of the change in tobin s average q the equation connecting the effective rates shows that corporate taxation can be represented by a mixture of two extreme tax rules one being a distorting pure corporate tax and the other a nondistorting cash flow tax the paper proposes new measures representing this feature

gradual incorporation of information pharmaceutical stocks and the evolution of president clinton s health care reform abstract we examine the effect of the evolution of president clinton s health care reform proposal over january 1992 october 1993 on pharmaceutical stock prices we identify a 52 3 percent decline in market adjusted prices which we then associate with health care reform applying a new technique isotonic regression we find most of the decline occurred gradually much of the decline occurred as the clinton plan adopted strategies to contain health care costs including managed competition and implicit regulation indirect evidence suggests that the wealth lost by pharmaceutical companies may have been largely an anticipated transfer our results are relevant to understanding the likely effects of the clinton plan and more recent proposals many other policy changes are marked by gradual public revelation of information which may not be completely observable by a researcher our approach may uncover information about the anticipated effects of policies unavailable from a traditional event study

optimal fuel power and load based emissions trades for electric power supply chain equilibrium this paper proposes a model to determine equilibrium fuel power and emissions trades in an electric power supply chain fuel generation transmission distribution consumption framework with a load based lb emissions trading program the model represents the oligopolistic gaming behavior of generation companies gencos and load serving entities lses and equilibrium conditions for fuel power and emissions allowance markets which are integrated through endogenous prices the model is solved by using a practical heuristic method based on the fisher burmeister nonlinear complementarity function ncp and smoothing technique an application to a four node system with three gencos and lses is also presented to illustrate the effects of emission allowances trading renewable energy generation and network congestion on equilibrium solutions

efficiency of nonpoint source pollution instruments an experimental study in nonpoint source pollution problems the regulator does not observe each polluter s individual emission which prevents him from using the conventional policy instruments therefore new instruments have been designed to regulate this type of pollution in an experiment we compare the efficiency of some of these instruments an input based tax an ambient tax subsidy an ambient tax and a group fine we assume that polluters themselves are affected by environmental damages a control session without any regulation is also carried out in order to study the status quo situation our experimental data show that the input tax and the ambient tax are very efficient and reliable and the group fine is fairly efficient and reliable these instruments improve social welfare with respect to the status quo on the contrary the ambient tax subsidy decreases social welfare with respect to the status quo and its effect is very unreliable

common pool resource appropriation under costly cooperation abstract in addition to the usual fixed costs we introduce variable costs in a community s effort to cooperate in extracting from a common pool resource using a standard supervision mechanism these variable costs are shown to be an increasing function of individual members incentives to default the model explains why we frequently observe communities that all cooperate and have relatively similar resource endowments and yet achieve very different levels of extraction

investment tax incentives prices and the supply of capital goods using data on the prices of capital goods this paper shows that much of the benefit of investment tax incentives does not go to investing firms but rather to capital suppliers through higher prices the reduction in the cost of capital from a 10 percent investment tax credit increases equipment prices 3 5 7 0 percent this lasts several years and is largest for assets with large order backlogs low import competition or with a large fraction of buyers able to use investment subsidies capital goods workers wages rise too instrumental variables estimates of the short run supply elasticity are around 1 and can explain the traditionally small estimates of investment demand elasticities in absolute value the demand elasticity implied here exceeds 1

capitalization of capital gains taxes evidence from stock price reactions to the 1997 rate reduction abstract we empirically document that stock prices moved inversely with dividend yields during the may 1997 week when the white house and congress agreed on a budget accord that included a reduction in the capital gains tax rate the findings are consistent with equity prices capitalizing expected capital gains taxes two scenarios are possible first to the extent returns are expected to be taxed as capital gains a reduction in the expected capital gains tax rate enhances market value second to the extent individuals hold a stock a reduction in the expected personal capital gains tax rate increases market value

carbon pricing and system linking lessons from the new zealand emissions trading scheme abstract textbook theory of linking carbon systems suggests linking reduces marginal abatement costs contrasting theoretical work and policy analyses suggests that linking or at least unfettered linking may not always be beneficial the new zealand emissions trading scheme nz ets is unique in that until 2013 it allowed unlimited use of kyoto allowances nz ets thus provides an ideal context to explore the effect of linking and linking restrictions on carbon pricing of small systems using data on importation and exportation of allowances we provide the first empirical analysis of the determinants of allowance prices in the early phase of the nz ets our results indicate that imports of offsets rather than fundamentals have been the major price determinant moreover the pricing of new zealand units nzus can be placed into three distinct periods delineated by two structural breaks in the first period the system is largely autarkic in the second period as international offset prices drop below the nzu price the system becomes a price taker in the final period following policy interventions the system regains some independence the case of the nz ets shows that small trading systems need to impose or have the option to impose quantitative import restriction so as to reap the benefits lower abatement cost but not the drawbacks importation of distortions and market integrity issues of linking

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

a theory of debt and equity diversity of securities and manager shareholder congruence this paper shows how the optimal financial structure of a firm complements incentive schemes to discipline managers and how the securities return streams determine the claim holders incentives to intervene in management the theory rationalizes 1 the multipucity of securities 2 the observed correlation between return streams and control rights of securities and 3 the partial congruence between managerial and equity holder preferences over policy choices and monetary rewards as well as the low level of interference of equity in management the theory also offers new prospects for a reappraisal of the earlier corporate finance literature

cooperative equilibria in finite horizon noncooperative supergames abstract it is well known that cooperative outcomes can be supported by noncooperative equilibrium strategy combinations in games that are infinitely repeated however the example of the repeated prisoner s dilemma has led people to conclude that such cooperative outcomes cannot be sustained if the game is repeated finitely often in this paper it is proved that the belief about finitely repeated games is false conditions are given that allow the existence of cooperative outcomes in finitely repeated games that are supported by subgame perfect noncooperative equilibrium strategies

intertemporal tax discontinuities we define an intertemporal tax discontinuity itd as a circumstance in which different tax rates are applied to gains realized at one point in time versus some other point in time we study the effects of itds on market behaviors at the time of disclosures of firm performance assuming that all investors who trade firm equities are subject to tax the results of our paper suggest that relative to an economy in which itds are absent itds may dampen trading volume and amplify price changes at the time of disclosure

sustaining quality in tourism destinations an economic model with an application sustaining quality in tourism destinations can be described as seeking to maintain a destination s reputation this is a strategy that has a dynamic dimension in the sense that the benefits from such a strategy are likely to accrue in the future the task of building reputation will necessitate some investment which implies that in equilibrium a high quality tourism experience will sell for a premium above its cost of production this premium can be seen as the return on the initial investment in reputation or as an important incentive in inducing a destination to maintain its reputation as a particular kind of quality destination without such a premium a destination may find that a fly by night strategy of quality reduction would be profit maximizing this is the type of moral hazard problem that is present when say a tourism destination faces the question of how to react to increases in tourist numbers with large numbers reputation may not be seen as important and the various providers have a str

a damage based tax mechanism for regulation of non point emissions in a recent paper segerson 1988 proposed a novel incentive mechanism for stochastic non point emissions based on ambient pollution concentrations in nature for specification of the mechanism when the damage function is nonlinear the regulator must know polluters cost and emission functions the mechanism also gives incentives to form coalitions among polluters which if they are formed render the mechanism inefficient in this paper we propose a revised mechanism which eliminates the need for knowledge of polluters cost and emission functions and reduces the probability of coalition forming a standards and pricing version of the revised mechanism with both properties mentioned is also developed

the regulation of non point source pollution under imperfect and asymmetric information abstract this paper develops a bayesian framework for discussing the role of information in the design of non point source pollution control mechanisms an ambient concentration tax is examined allowing for spatial transport among multiple zones imposition of the tax requires costly measurement of concentrations in selected zones and the selection of zones for measurement must be undertaken without perfect information regarding several parameters of the problem potentially crucial information issues discussed include a the impact of asymmetric priors regarding fate and transport b the cost of measuring ambient concentration and c the optimal acquisition of information regarding fate and transport

nonpoint source pollution taxes and excessive tax burden if a regulator is unable to measure firms individual emissions an ambient tax can be used to achieve the socially desired level of pollution with this tax each firm pays a unit tax on aggregate emissions in order for the tax to be effective firms must recognize that their decisions affect aggregate emissions when firms behave strategically with respect to the tax setting regulator under plausible circumstances their tax burden is lower under an ambient tax relative to the tax which charges firms on the basis of individual emissions firms may prefer the case where the regulator is unable to observe individual firm emissions even if this asymmetric information causes the regulator to tax each firm on the basis of aggregate emissions

environmental policy under imperfect information incentives and moral hazard abstract when net emissions of individual polluters cannot be efficiently monitored then emissions charges controls on emissions levels or subsidies for emissions reduction are not effective as environmental policy instruments this paper proposes instruments that can be applied in such limited information situations these instruments take the form of contracts between a pollution control agency and individual polluters the contracts include a combination of fines and subsidies that induces dischargers to follow optimal environmental policies in the absence of individual monitoring

group decision making theory and behavior under performance based water quality payments abstract two theoretical models explaining group allocation decisions under watershed level performance based payments are explored i reward and penalize individual contributors and ii reduce the problem with cost sharing and cooperative abatement under model i an optimal amount of pollution from individual contributors can be achieved with proper payment incentive and group allocation formula model ii represents a cost effective solution to pollution reduction where the group optimizes its return from group payments but does not necessarily achieve an optimal level of pollution field experiment observations support farmer behavior closer to model ii

carbon emission forensic in the energy sector is it worth the effort abstract climate policy has mostly focused on regulating power suppliers there is a growing interest in exploring regulating emissions from the demand side by incentivizing consumers to reduce their energy consumptions or to purchase power from cleaner sources through tracking carbon content of power flow in the transmission network this paper analyzes market outcomes under two approaches producer based and demand based carbon taxes we formulate each approach as a market equilibrium model for the consumer based approach the analysis assumes that a utility procuring electricity on behalf of consumers is subject to the carbon tax for the producer based approach the producers are subject to the carbon tax and therefore pay for their emissions we show that the two approaches are equivalent when the program s coverage is complete however when the coverage is incomplete the consumer based carbon tax is less effective in pricing carbon emissions owing to the fact that sales to unregulated regions are not subject to the carbon tax given that the transaction cost of implementing consumer based tax is likely to be high benefit of tracking power flows in order to estimate carbon content or footprint might not be justified even with a full coverage program

regulating endangered species endangered species timothy swanson one important issue at the earth summit in rio de janeiro was the preservation of diverse biological resources or biodiversity to date the regulation of endangered species has been based on the premise that over exploitation is the principal problem this diagnosis has led to a wide range of attempts to destroy demand for wildlife by means of bans on trade and consumption of the products of endangered species this approach misses the fundamental cause of the problem terrestrial species compete for land land use primarily reflects human decisions about its allocation even over exploitation is the result of human allocation decisions species that are overexploited are those for which society chooses not to invest in their management species that survive are thus those in which humans chose to invest whilst extinction should be interpreted as disinvestment in species or their ancillary resources habitat management trade bans do not address this fundamental cause of extinction the paper sets out how demand should be constructively managed to encourage continuing investment in endangered species

ambient based pollution mechanisms a comparison of homogeneous and heterogeneous groups of emitters abstract over the last two decades ambient based tax mechanisms have been offered as a potential solution to the problem of nonpoint source water pollution previous theoretical analyses suggest that the performance of ambient based tax mechanisms does not depend on firm characteristics such as size whilst policy discussions advocate that such mechanisms are best suited for regulating relatively homogeneous firms using controlled laboratory experiments we provide empirical evidence that the distribution of firm sizes does have a significant impact on observed group decision making and further that heterogeneity has the potential to generate both some relatively desirable outcomes as well as some outcomes that are not attractive these results suggest that richer theoretical models that capture important strategic interactions and social preferences are needed to better describe laboratory behavior and by extension behavior in potential policy settings

regulation of non point emissions a variance based mechanism non point emission problems such as pesticide nitrate and phosphorus pollution of lakes and ground water are often characterised by a small number of polluters convex damage functions and stochastic emissions some regulatory mechanisms proposed in the literature for stochastic non point emissions implement the optimal abatement vector in dominant strategies ensuring that non nash conjectures cannot be rationalized however specification of these mechanisms requires firm level information and differentiated rates when the damage function is convex other mechanisms eliminate the need for firm level information and rate differentiation but only implement optimum in nash strategies where non nash conjectures that cause equilibrium to stray from optimum can be rationalized in this paper we propose a mechanism which eliminates the need for firm level information and rate differentiation while retaining implementation in dominant strategies

common property and collective action in economic development abstract a fundamental issue in many ldcs is the degree to which natural resource mismanagement is caused by common property arrangements this view has led to widespread attempts to privatize forests rangelands and water resources many of these efforts have failed to stop overuse and have contributed to inequality in resource distribution this paper seriously questions this approach and describes a number of reasons why common property may continue to be both efficient and equitable complementing and combining with private rights in a way consistent with the resource endowments of village economies a theoretical approach is outlined showing that the tragedy of the commons is an unsatisfactory model of common property an alternative model is presented together with a call for research into institutional alternatives in resource management

collusive equilibria in oligopolies with finite lives abstract it is generally accepted that collusive agreements cannot be sustained in oligopolies with finite lives in this paper it is shown that provided the number of competitors is neither too small nor too large the most restrictive output i e the monopoly output can be sustained as a perfect nash equilibrium if the number of firms is too small only sequences of the nash equilibria of the constituent market game can appear as perfect nash equilibria if the number of firms is too large the power of the cartel falls sharply

do epa defendants prefer republicans evidence from the 2000 election i introduction there is an extensive body of literature documenting the effects of political interference in bureaucratic agencies much of this deals with the enforcement of antitrust disputes as mediated by the federal trade commission a corresponding literature on the political control of the environmental bureaucracy does not exist however there is a perception that the aggressiveness of environmental protection agency epa enforcement could vary from one administration to the next 1 the present article aims to subject these anecdotal impressions to empirical tests it uses the change in the price of publicly quoted companies that have civil judicial litigation outstanding with the epa when a political event takes place such as a presidential election to assess the market s reaction to this event ii literature review the biggest problem in doing empirical studies of the effect of political and legislative changes on stock market valuations is the fact that these changes happen slowly over a period of months or years given the assumption of efficient markets stock markets should immediately reflect all available information including the possibility of political changes this is the reason why studies of the effect of legislation and political change on market valuations have generally found insignificant results as in binder 1985 cutler 1988 downs and tehranian 1988 and graddy et al 1992 2 this article uses a better measure of the probability of a political event the measure of the probability of the outcome of an election is obtained from the iowa electronic market iem only herron et al 1999 and knight forthcoming have used this data source for similar purpose before 3 the iem is a set of continuous double auction markets operated by the university of iowa henry b tippie school of business most of the existing literature in this field has used opinion poll data such as brander 1991 the disadvantages of this are well known they are usually conducted over several days and so do not represent the probability of the election of a candidate on a single day they do not represent probabilities of election but rather expected vote shares they are not usually released daily and finally they have wide margins of error especially long before an election when many people have not yet made up their minds who to support herron et al 1999 pp 58 59 these are also some of the reasons that economists are generally skeptical of surveys preferring to rely instead on revealed preferences the only other possibility is the use of bookmaker s odds as used by roberts 1990b this still has the disadvantage that odds are not quoted daily and so must be interpolated also the present study attempts to measure the importance of political control of the environmental bureaucracy the existing literature focused on a variety of other federal agencies and industries iii data and empirical model data the dependent variable used here is the abnormal daily returns to the stock market price of a company that has environmental litigation outstanding on the day of an election the idea is that if the market considers the company to be politically sensitive then the returns to the company s shares should respond to changes in the probability of a political event as reported by the iem the stock market data comes from the center for research in security prices cr sp 4 the article uses individual company returns as opposed to the construction of portfolios of stocks that are then combined with data on returns to the portfolio as used by roberts 1990b and herron et al 1999 the present paper uses interaction terms between the likelihood of political events and individual characteristics of the companies such as the industry that they are in and the number of times they have been sued before this is not possible when aggregate portfolio returns are used because that would not allow the isolation of disaggregated individual company effects

ambient taxes when polluters have multiple choices economic research on environmental policy design has largely been concerned with the merits of emissions based economic incentives e g emissions charges emissions reduction subsidies transferable discharge permits ambient based tax subsidy schemes have drawn considerable interest in nonpoint pollution literature as alternatives to emissions based instruments expanding especially on segerson s seminal article this article examines the optimal design and budget balancing properties of ambient tax subsidy schemes under more realistic assumptions about the dimensions of firms choice sets than prior research

the aggregate and distributional effects of the tax reform act of 1986 on firm valuation the authors examine the aggregate and distributional effects of the tax reform act of 1986 on equity values of publicly traded corporations the results show that the effect of the act on the aggregate equity value of corporations was consistent with the present value of the projected added tax collection from the corporate sector the cross sectional variation in the magnitude and direction of the stock price response to the tax reform act of 1986 was a function of both the direct and indirect consequences of the act on the firms future cash flows copyright 1991 by university of chicago press

can we insure against political uncertainty evidence from the u s stock market i show that shares currently traded on u s stock markets can be used to hedge political uncertainty focusing on the 2000 u s presidential election i construct two presidential portfolios composed of selected stocks anticipated to fare differently under a bush versus a gore presidency to construct these portfolios i use data on campaign contributions by publicly traded corporations and identify the major contributors on each side using daily observations for the six months before the election took place i show that the excess returns of these portfolios with respect to overall market movements are significantly related to changes in electoral polls

a framework for evaluating collective action and informal institutional dynamics under a resource management policy of decentralization the decentralization of resource property rights has become an increasingly popular policy in many natural resource dependent communities of the developing world however the success of this policy approach depends on both collective action and institutionalization it is therefore important to evaluate collective action and institutionalization where the process of property rights decentralization is in progress this paper presents a modified version of the institutional analysis and development iad framework designed to analyze the decentralization of property rights and the collective action of community members to obtain these rights it describes a three phased framework for analyzing i the government property right decentralization policy ii the stock of capital assets in the community required to achieve property rights by initiating collective action and iii the development of an informal institution for effective property right distribution in the community finally to demonstrate its utility to collective action research we present a case study application of our modified framework to the fisheries property right decentralization policy of the bangladesh government and the subsequent collective action of a wetland dependent community

partisan impacts on the economy evidence from prediction markets and close elections analyses of the effects of election outcomes on the economy have been hampered by the problem that economic outcomes also influence elections we sidestep these problems by analyzing movements in economic indicators caused by clearly exogenous changes in expectations about the likely winner during election day analyzing high frequency financial fluctuations following the release of flawed exit poll data on election day 2004 and then during the vote count we find that markets anticipated higher equity prices interest rates and oil prices and a stronger dollar under a george w bush presidency than under john kerry a similar republican democrat differential was also observed for the 2000 bush gore contest prediction market based analyses of all presidential elections since 1880 also reveal a similar pattern of partisan impacts suggesting that electing a republican president raises equity valuations by 2 3 percent and that since ronald reagan republican presidents have tended to raise bond yields

team approaches in reducing nonpoint source pollution abstract it is technically difficult and costly to monitor nonpoint source pollution consequently most economic instruments directed towards reducing this type of pollution have focused on circumventing the monitoring problem by focusing on readily observable factors such instruments include taxes or tradable permits on inputs or other incentives to induce changes in farming practices one difficulty with such approaches is that the incentives may not be consistent with the primary objectives of the policies to reduce nutrient runoffs this paper seeks to identify under what conditions it would be beneficial to apply more direct incentives for reduced nutrient runoffs monitoring and enforcement are core issues in this connection it is still difficult to monitor individual farm field runoffs hence the incentive problems associated with multiple agents emitting to the same recipient need to be resolved

the incidence of regulatory rents in the motor carrier industry this article focuses on two questions in the debate over motor carrier regulation first did regulation create eliminate or have no effect on monopoly rents in the trucking industry second ifthere were rents what was their incidence were they received by owners oftrucking firms dissipated through higher costs or captured by the teamsters union data on share price responses to deregulation announcements reveal declines in expected profits of 8 19 of totalfirm value this suggests that regulation created monopoly profits and indicates that at least some of these rents accrued to owners of trucking firms firms responses to regulatory change are modelled as functions of company s operating characteristics and measures of unionization operating efficiency and service characteristics are shown to affect the impact of deregulation on share values

non point source regulation a self reporting mechanism abstract information feasible regulatory mechanisms that do not require the regulator to acquire firm level information have been proposed long ago for stochastic non point emission problems these mechanisms do not take polluter cooperation and firm entry exit incentives simultaneously into account nor are these issues addressed in an informationally efficient way in this paper we propose an informationally feasible self reporting mechanism that is robust to cooperation among polluters while giving participating firms correct abatement incentives as well as giving entry exit incentives that are correct to a first order approximation

the dynamic efficiency cost of not taxing housing traditional welfare cost estimates of tax subsidies for owner occupied housing are less than 0 5 of gnp in the united states and canada this paper argues that these static measures understate the true cost of the tax subsidy increasing the capital income tax makes untaxed housing more valuable delivering a windfall bonus to existing homeowners at the expense of future generations this intergenerational transfer has real efficiency effects in the presence of pre existing tax distortions when housing is in fixed supply the dynamic efficiency cost of preferential tax treatment for housing is as much as 2 2 of gnp or 120 billion dollars in 1990

majoritarian management of the commons yong j yoon this article analyzes usage of a common property resource the commons under collectivization as compared with more familiar privatization institutional arrangements particular emphasis is on majority decision rules when separate majority coalitions may authorize simultaneous usage of a common resource total value is dissipated but the interdependencies introduced by possible membership in differing coalitions to an extent reduce the incentives for exploitation the formal analysis is analogous to that familiar in cournot nash duopoly oligopoly models but with differing efficiency implications the argument has relevance for differential benefit public spending from general tax sources as well as other applications jel d7 h00 02 i introduction the operation and management of common property resources the commons have been exhaustively examined in economics and political science both in formal analyses and in practical application 1 however the full range of institutional alternatives has not been covered even at a level of stylized interaction models our purpose in this article is to fill in at least some of the gaps here and specifically to examine the predicted results that emerge when usage decisions are collectivized under majoritarian voting rules to our knowledge this analysis has not been undertaken we shall in section ii first summarize the classic analysis along with the familiar institutional reform suggested as a solution to the tragedy this solution privatization is analyzed under several institutional variants in section iii we then shift attention in section iv to arrangements under which usage of the commonly shared resource or facility is chosen by some predesignated collective decision rule specifically we concentrate analysis on the predicted results in several majority rule environments we analyze thoroughly the case in which different majority coalitions make usage decisions separately and simultaneously the analysis incorporates recognition on the part of any member of a specific majority of the prospect for membership in alternative majority coalitions we demonstrate that instead of full dissipation the level of usage that emerges in the limit is structurally analogous to the outcome in the cournot nash duopoly model even if the efficiency implications differ in the two settings ii the classic model summarized the familiar tragedy of the commons lends itself to stylized illustration an immobile but renewable resource exists a common pasture aquifer fishing ground and has economic value if used effectively through the application of units of complementary mobile resources that are themselves valued in their alternative market opportunities there are no assigned ownership rights to the immobile resource or facility free and open access may dissipate most or even all of the potential value consider figure 1 the productivity of mobile complementary resource units as applied elsewhere in the economy e g steers grazed on the open range beyond the commons is set at w a value assumed constant the quantity of such inputs applied on the commonly used facility is measured along the abscissa in figure 1 the marginal and average productivity curves for the units of applied complementary resource are shown as mp and ap total value is maximized when q sub m units are applied at which point marginal product values are equalized as between this usage and other opportunities the maximal value of the commonly used resource is the area under the mp curve above w if entry to usage is open and if the institutional structure is such as to allow for decentralized decisions on the part of many potential users rational choices made separately will generate a full behavioral equilibrium at q sup where average product per unit of the complementary resource is equalized as between the commons and other uses

trade tragedy and the commons we develop a theory of resource management where the degree to which coun tries escape the tragedy of the commons and hence the de facto property rights regime is endogenously determined three forces determine success or failure in resource management the regulator s enforcement power the extent of har vesting capacity and the ability of the resource to generate competitive returns without being extinguished the model can explain heterogeneity across coun tries and resources in the effectiveness of resource management and it predicts that changes in prices population and technology can cause transitions to better or worse management regimes jel p14 q21 q22 q23 q32 many of the world s major renewable resource stocks are in a state of decline this is true for capture fisheries for forests in developing countries and for many measures of the biosphere s health other renewable resources including many species of wildlife marine mammals and coral reefs are also under threat while poverty and government corruption are surely respon sible for some of this record particular emphasis is often placed on the potentially damaging role played by international trade this emphasis is not surprising given that natural resource products are a key export for much of the developing world and property rights over renewable resources are both difficult to define and poorly enforced but property rights are not an immutable country characteristic such as weather mineral deposits or topography they are instead market institutions developed to facilitate transactions and protect scarce resources consequently changes in prices technology and other effects of market integration may alter the de facto property rights regime and lead to impacts quite dif ferent from those predicted by existing analyses the purpose of this paper is to examine renew able resource use within a framework where the enforcement of property rights and hence the efficacy of resource management is endogenously determined we develop a theory where an existing government regulates the use of a renewable resource by a set of agents who have a right to harvest the resource could be a fishery forest stock aquifer etc and we assume it is local and therefore contained within one country the govern ment sets rules limiting harvests but agents may cheat on these allocations and risk punishment property rights are endogenous in this framework because the government must account for agents incentive to cheat as a result the effective protection for the resource or what we refer to as the de facto property rights regime may be far from perfect even though property rights would be perfectly enforced if there was no monitoring problem

the real effects of capital controls firm level evidence from a policy experiment abstract this paper evaluates the effects of capital controls on firm level stock returns and real investment using data from brazil on average there is a statistically significant drop in cumulative abnormal returns consistent with an increase in the cost of capital for brazilian firms following capital control announcements large firms and the largest exporting firms appear less negatively affected compared to external finance dependent firms and capital controls on equity inflows have a more negative announcement effect on equity returns than those on debt inflows overall the findings have implications for macro finance models that abstract from heterogeneity at the firm level to examine the optimality of capital control taxation