environmental regulation and u s economic growth in this article we quantify the costs of pollution controls by reporting the results of simulations of the growth of the u s economy with and without regulation for this purpose we have constructed a detailed model of the economy that includes the determinants of long term growth we have also analyzed the interaction between industries in order to capture the full repercussions of environmental regulations however we have not attempted to assess the benefits resulting from a cleaner environment we find that pollution abatement has emerged as a major claimant on the resources of the u s economy the cost of emission controls is more than 10 of the total cost of government purchases of goods and services

technical change external economies and the porter hypothesis abstract michael porter introduces the idea that environmental regulations may benefit affected firms this paper derives results consistent with porter s hypothesis by employing a general equilibrium framework with a large number of agents external economies of scale in production and discrete changes in technology the model shows that endogenous technical change makes porter s hypothesis feasible however a policy that produces results consistent with porter s hypothesis is not necessarily optimal

the unbalanced uruguay round outcome the new areas in future wto negotiations the uruguay round involved a grand north south bargain the north reduced import barriers particularly in textiles and agriculture the south adopted new domestic regulations in such areas as services and intellectual property changes that would lead to increased purchases from the north in mercantilist economics apples for apples imports for imports in real economics apples for oranges the authors argue that while the north s reduction of import barriers benefits both the north and the south the new domestic regulations adopted by countries of the south could prove costly to those countries to begin with the regulations will be expensive to implement and while the cost side of their impact is secured by a legal obligation in the case of intellectual property rights for example the cost is higher prices for patented goods the benefits side is not so secured

total factor carbon emission performance of the chinese transportation industry a bootstrapped non radial malmquist index analysis this paper proposes a non radial malmquist co2 emission performance index nmcpi for measuring dynamic changes in total factor co2 emission performance over time this index enables the consideration of non radial slacks in the conventional malmquist co2 emission index mcpi the nmcpi is calculated based on a non radial directional distance function derived by several data envelopment analysis dea models furthermore nmcpi could be decomposed into an efficiency change ec index and technological change tc index a bootstrapping approach is conducted to introduce statistical inferences into the nmcpi and its decompositions based on the proposed indices the dynamic co2 emission performance change and its decompositions of the chinese regional transportation industry from 2002 to 2010 are investigated the empirical results demonstrate that the total factor carbon emission performance of the transportation industry as a whole decreased by 32 8 over the period and this reduction was primarily caused by technological decline

nonstationarity in job search theory generally structural job search models are taken to be stationary in this paper models are examined in which every exogenous variable can cause nonstationarity for instance because its value is dependent on unemployment duration a general differential equation that describes the evolution of the reservation wage over time is derived as an empirical illustration a nonstationary structural model is estimated that focuses on the consequences of a downward shift in the level of benefits it appears that the elasticity of duration with respect to the level of benefits after the shift is much larger than the elasticity with respect to the level before the shift this paper examines the movement of a job seeking individual s reservation wage over time in a general nonstationary job search model also results concerning comparative dynamics of the reservation wage and the distribution of the duration of unemployment are derived as an empirical illustration a nonstationary structural model is estimated the nonstationarity originates from the decrease in the level of benefits when unemployment duration equals two years from the results some detailed policy recommendations can be deduced as one is able to distinguish the effect of a change in the level of benefits in the first two years of unemployment from the effect of a change in the level after that period recently the use of job search models for the analysis of unemployment duration has become widespread the reduced form approach in empirical studies see e g lancaster 1979 in which only the hazard of the duration distribution is estimated is gradually being replaced by a more structural approach the latter way of modelling is characterized by the explicit use in empirical analysis of the reservation wage equation as stated by the theory e g yoon 1981 lancaster and chesher 1983 lynch 1983 narendranathan and nickell 1985 and van den berg 1988 use the complete theoretical framework of job search theory to make inferences about search behaviour however the structural models used in these studies are stationary this implies that variables like unemployment benefits or the rate of arrival of job offers are assumed to be constant over the spell of unemployment which is often at variance with reality what is more various reduced form empirical studies indicate a significant durationdependence of the re employment probability which is generally interpreted as evidence in favour of the presence of nonstationarity see e g blau and robins 1986 kooreman and ridder 1983 lancaster 1979 and narendranathan nickell and stern 1985 consequently there is a need to model reservation wage movements over time based on a nonstationary theoretical framework

taxing variable cost environmental regulation as industrial policy abstract conventional wisdom has it that a country that enacts strict environmental regulations will place its firms at a competitive disadvantage this view has been challenged recently some commentators argue that stricter regulation will enhance domestic competitiveness strict regulations induce innovation we evaluate this argument in a strategic trade model in very special cases a strengthening of regulation may result in a shift of profits from foreign to domestic firms this is not a general result however environmental regulation should of course be imposed to control externalities but it is unlikely that it will serve to generate industrial advantage

equilibrium heterogeneous agent models as measurement tools some monte carlo evidence abstract this paper discusses a series of monte carlo experiments designed to evaluate the empirical properties of heterogeneous agent macroeconomic models in the presence of sampling variability the calibration procedure leads to the welfare analysis being conducted with the wrong parameters the ability of the calibrated model to correctly predict the long run welfare changes induced by a set of policy experiments is assessed the results show that for the policy reforms with sizable welfare effects i e more than 0 2 the model always predicts the right sign of the welfare effects however the welfare effects can be evaluated with the wrong sign when they are small and when the sample size is fairly limited quantitatively the maximum errors made in evaluating a policy change are very small for some reforms in the order of 0 02 percentage points but bigger for others in the order of 0 6 percentage points finally having access to better data in terms of larger samples does lead to substantial increases in the precision of the welfare effects estimates though the rate of convergence can be slow

governance pressures and performance outcomes of sustainable supply chain management an empirical analysis of uk manufacturing industry although sustainable supply chain management sscm has recently received increasing attention among uk manufacturing firms there is a concern as to whether sscm practices are being implemented because they are profitable or only because of governance coercive pressure thus the aims of this paper are twofold first determining the role of governance in the adoption of sscm practices second investigating whether sscm practices can be both environmentally beneficial and commercially viable in light of these issues this paper develops and empirically assesses an integrated model of governance pressures sscm practices performance data was collected from 146 uk manufacturing managers and analysed using the structural equation modelling method exogenous driving forces of governance were found to be precursors to the successful implementation of sscm practices the empirical results further suggest that while the implementation of sustainable supply chain management has a positive effect on environmental performance it does not necessarily lead to improved economic performance as only sustainable procurement was found to have a positive effect on economic performance this paper contributes to the literature by highlighting the role of governance in sscm adoption and performance gains in environmental protection while economic performance is partially compromised the results also provide useful insights for both managers seeking to adopt sustainable practices and policy makers seeking to further promote sustainable supply chain

voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions contrasting the carbon disclosure project and corporate reports as global warming continues to attract growing levels of attention various stakeholders states general public investors and lobbyists have put climate change on corporate agendas and expect firms to disclose relevant greenhouse gas ghg information in this paper we investigate the consistency of the ghg information voluntarily disclosed by french listed firms through two different communication channels corporate reports cr and the carbon disclosure project cdp more precisely we contrast the amounts of ghg emissions reported and the methodological explanations provided named traceability in each channel consistent with a stakeholder theory perspective we find that ghg amounts are significantly lower in the cr than in the cdp we also find that firms increase the cr figures traceability when there is a discrepancy between disclosures in the two channels we suggest that the aim of this greater traceability is to enhance information credibility across the different channels used

social cost of environmental quality regulations a general equilibrium analysis the use of cost benefit analysis by federal regulatory agencies has expanded greatly in scope and sophistication unfortunately agencies continue to employ private cost rather than social cost to evaluate environmental quality regulations furthermore general equilibrium impacts and intertemporal effects of regulations are typically not included in the evaluation in this paper we estimate the social cost of environmental quality regulations mandated by the clean air and clean water acts we construct an econometric general equilibrium model of the united states to demonstrate that social cost estimates diverge sharply from private cost estimates we also demonstrate that general equilibrium impacts are significant and pervasive and that intertemporal effects of the regulations heretofore ignored are significant

industrial eco efficiency in china a provincial quantification using three stage data envelopment analysis abstract the coordinated development of industrialization and the ecological environment is vital to achieve ecological civilization in china integratively considering the economy energy and resources and environment this study aims to measure the industrial eco efficiency of 30 provinces autonomous regions and municipalities in china between 2005 and 2013 a three stage data envelopment analysis dea modeling approach is adopted to eliminate interference of the external environment and statistical noise with industrial eco efficiency measurement the results show that regional industrial eco efficiency in china is affected by the factors of the environmental regulation technological innovation level of economic development and industrial structure after eliminating the impacts of external environment and statistical noise china s national average industrial eco efficiency declines by 30 between 2005 and 2013 the industrial eco efficiency of the 30 provinces increases but at different rates of growth the variation of overall regional industrial eco efficiency is primarily caused by scale efficiency furthermore all the 30 provinces are classified into four groups to interpret the causes of variation and differences of regional industrial eco efficiency in general the management and technology level and the economy of scale of industries should be improved simultaneously even though specific opportunities for industrial eco efficiency improvement vary across provinces in china

labor market matching with precautionary savings and aggregate fluctuations we analyze a bewley huggett aiyagari incomplete markets model with labor market frictions consumers are subject to idiosyncratic employment shocks against which they cannot insure directly the labor market has a diamond mortensen pissarides structure firms enter by posting vacancies and match with workers bilaterally with match probabilities given by an aggregate matching function wages are determined through nash bargaining we also consider aggregate productivity shocks and a complete set of contingent claims conditional on this risk we use the model to evaluate a tax financed unemployment insurance scheme higher insurance is beneficial for consumption smoothing but because it raises workers outside option value it discourages firm entry we find that the latter effect is more potent for welfare outcomes we tabulate the effects quantitatively for different kinds of consumers we also demonstrate that productivity changes in the model in steady state as well as stochastic ones generate rather limited unemployment effects unless workers are close to indifferent between working and not working thus recent findings are corroborated in our more general setting

exploring the applications of carbon footprinting towards sustainability at a uk university reporting and decision making abstract campus greening is often the first step universities take towards sustainability in order to infer the current level of environmental performance and the progress being made it is imperative that universities measure and report their campus greening efforts this paper shows that sustainability reporting can be a simple task and is of significant value for directing sustainable campus operations to do this environmentally extended input output analysis was used to derive the carbon footprint for the university of leeds being driven by financial data which is readily available to universities the assessment is easy to conduct and maintain through time environmentally extended input output analysis provides complete coverage of the campus system and thus accounts for the majority of emissions sources accordingly it enables comparisons of environmental performance to be made between institutions the reliability of comparisons falters when organisational boundaries vary between carbon footprints and thus in the interest of methodological consistency a framework should be established that defines universal organisational boundaries which universities must adhere to interviews with university procurement staff showed that carbon footprints can provide a screening assessment which identifies emissions hotspots in supply chains such as assessment is currently lacking and provides evidence of win win situations where emissions and costs can be reduced simultaneously although carbon footprinting considers only the environmental dimension of the triple bottom line it is recommended that universities intensify its application for the institutions themselves the results will be of significant practical value for directing initiatives such as sustainable procurement and for enhancing stakeholder engagement with the sustainability agenda whilst an increased application will help build much needed momentum for sustainability reporting overall

competition policy and intellectual property rights in developing countries c ompetition policy is a broad term covering all aspects of government actions that affect the conditions under which firms compete in a particular market the term competition law refers to legislation judicial decisions and regulations specifically aimed at avoiding the concentration and abuse of market power however many regulations stipulate exemptions from competition disciplines for purposes of achieving various social goals competition policy is therefore complex in its intentions and effects competition law has emerged as an issue for the wto largely because exporting firms in the high income developed economies argue that anticompetitive practices of competitors in foreign markets hinder their ability to penetrate those markets such practices may be largely private in nature and could be facilitated by the absence or weak enforcement of local competition laws these issues have prompted a number of proposals for negotiating a limited agreement on multilateral principles and disciplines in competition law within the world trade organisation wto however the debate is contentious and no consensus has emerged on whether and how to address competition law and regulations within the wto we argue in this paper that developing countries would gain if a wto agreement were reached that recognised the principle that competition law should promote open competition emphasised international cooperation in competition

reexamining the expected effect of available resources and firm size on firm environmental orientation an empirical study of uk firms an emergent body of literature examined why some firms apply some environmental initiatives while other firms do not take responsibility for their natural environment thus firm environmental orientation responsiveness and performance are linked in the literature to several variables unfortunately the relationship between firm environmental orientation and either available resources or firm size showed mixed results and inconclusive evidence therefore the aim of this paper is to show empirically how available resources and firm size can explain differences in firm environmental responsiveness and environmental performance econometric results of environmental responsiveness using the logistic regression model demonstrated that firm size does appear to add something unique in explaining differences in environmental responsiveness while available resource can be safely dropped from the model however econometric analysis of environmental performance using the maximum likelihood random effects model showed strong evidence that available resources and firm size are significant predictors of firm environmental performance

exploring the determinants and long term performance outcomes of corporate carbon strategies abstract so far research has insufficiently addressed the long term effectiveness of business responses to climate change in delivering actual outcomes the aim of this article is therefore to analyze the determinants of such strategies and their influence on firms financial and carbon performance over time it is argued that corporate carbon strategies have three main objectives carbon governance carbon reduction and carbon competitiveness to assess the complex interactions between these strategic objectives their determinants and outcomes an integrative structural equation model is developed and empirically tested data are sourced from a global sample of 45 leading enterprises from the steel cement and automotive sector including some of the largest ghg emitters in the world in order to account for the long term impacts of strategies the firm level change in financial and carbon performance is calculated by comparing two different points in time namely 2008 and 2013 the results provide empirical evidence for the positive effect of institutional and stakeholder pressure on emission reduction activities proof for a positive impact of carbon pressure on organizational capabilities and corporate competitiveness in the context of climate change cannot be established surprisingly the results also indicate no relationship between carbon reduction activities and long term improvements in carbon performance however such measures are linked to long term financial gains advancements in carbon performance in turn are not found to be associated with economic benefits

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

assessing whether corporate social responsibility influence corporate value abstractthis study used the corporate social responsibility csr index to gauge the corporate value and social responsibility performance of corporations in taiwan we investigated whether csr influences corporate value and whether the extent of that influence varies with corporate value or time the results indicate that the influence of csr on corporate value does not change with time csr exerts a positive influence on company value and this influence does not change over time however the extent of the influence significantly varies with corporate value when the corporate value of a company is not high investing in csr would only increase costs and fail to effectively increase corporate value in contrast if the corporate value of the company is high investments in csr in this circumstance would instead promote the effective increase of corporate value

it pays to be green a premature conclusion it has been claimed that good environmental performance can improve firms economic performance however because of e g data limitations the methods applied in most previous quantitative empirical studies on effects of environmental performance on economic performance of firms suffer from several shortcomings we discuss these shortcomings and conclude that previously applied methods are unsatisfactory as support for a conclusion that it pays for firms to be green then we illustrate the consequences of these shortcomings by performing several regression analyses of the effect of environmental performance on economic performance using a panel data set of norwegian plants a pooled regression where observable firm characteristics like e g size or industry are controlled for confirms a positive effect of environmental performance on economic performance however the estimated positive effect could be due to omitted unobserved variables like management or technology when the regression model controls for unobserved plant heterogeneity the effect is generally no longer statistically significant hence although greener plants tend to perform economically better the analysis provides little support for the claim that it is because they are greener these empirical findings further indicate that a conclusion that it pays to be green is premature

model of efficient and sustainable improvements in a lean production system through processes of environmental innovation abstract globalization has changed the world as well as how a customer judges the value of a product which has created a new business focus different approaches have been oriented on this direction such as the lean manufacturing system and the concept of sustainability however these two notions are not easy to implement simultaneously besides several authors have declared doubts with respect to reaching this target difficulty persists in identifying the tools required and quantifying the improvements achieved this research develops a general approach based on environmental innovation to help firms harmonize efficiency and sustainability the goal is to add extra value to the product which provides the potential to enhance competitiveness in the 21st century globalized market a case study demonstrates that the costs the incomes the social responsibility and the sustainability can be improved when environmental innovation is applied transforming the traditional production system into a lean system

humps and bumps in lifetime consumption in this article we argue that the life cycle model that allows demographics to affect household preferences and relaxes the assumption of certainty equivalence can generate hump shaped consumption profiles over age that are very similar to those observed in household level data sources and in particular match the differences in shape across different education groups liquidity constraints or myopia are not required to explain the empirical features of observed life cycle patterns

the trade distorting effect of state trading enterprises in importing countries abstract this paper focuses on the potential trade distorting effect of state trading enterprises an issue that is likely to receive greater attention than hitherto in the context of the current agricultural negotiations in the wto although state trading enterprises can arise in both exporting and importing countries the emphasis here is on the importing country case our results show that state trading enterprises do distort trade though the nature of the distortion i e whether it is equivalent to an import tariff or import subsidy depends on the nature of exclusive rights bestowed by government on the state enterprise we also consider state trading enterprises in both developed and developing economies the main difference being the nature of the government s pay off function the theoretical framework allows us to derive the tariff equivalent effects for various types of stes the results suggesting that the trade distorting effect is likely to vary considerably dependent on the type of ste that arises in particular circumstances

the role of unemployment insurance in an economy with liquidity constraints and moral hazard the potential welfare benefits of unemployment insurance along with the optimal replacement ratio are studied using a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model to provide a role for unemployment insurance agents in our economy face exogenous idiosyncratic employment shocks and are unable to borrow or insure themselves through private markets in the absence of moral hazard replacement ratios as high as 65 are optimal and the welfare benefits of unemployment insurance are quite large however if there is moral hazard and the replacement ratio is not set optimally but is instead set to an empirically plausible value the economy can be much worse off than it would be without unemployment insurance

optimal unemployment insurance with human capital depreciation and duration dependence this paper studies the effect of human capital depreciation and duration dependence on the design of an optimal unemployment insurance ui scheme our results partially confirm those obtained in most previous studies benefits should decrease with unemployment duration the optimal program also generates two main novel features which are not present in stationary models first if human capital depreciates rapidly enough during unemployment ui transfers are bounded below by a minimal assistance level that arises endogenously in the efficient program second we study the optimality of imposing a history contingent wage tax after reemployment our numerical simulations based on the spanish and us economies show that the wage tax should decrease with the length of worker s previous unemployment spell and become a wage subsidy for long term unemployed workers as a by product of our study we develop a systematic approach suitable for studying recursively a wide range of dynamic moral hazard problems and other models with similar characteristics

environmental regulation a value theoretic and class based analysis following a value theoretic and class based approach it is argued in this paper that ecological problems are inseparably linked to the process of extracting surplus value in capitalism and owing to their adverse impacts instigate struggles over the appropriation of nature these struggles fought within and outside the state by competing agents shape environmental regulation in particular taxes permits command and control measures and subsidies affect prices profits and rents and have class and other social implications evidence of current environmental regulation shows that it takes places under the great influence of capitalist concerns

the disclosure of industrial greenhouse gas emissions a critical assessment of corporate sustainability reports abstract the european body of research on corporate environmental performance has not yet reached maturity that is mainly due to the limited access researchers have to raw environmental performance data in conjunction with an often sterile approach to developing proxies and indicators for this type of corporate performance moreover annual sustainability reports are often neglected in spite of their capacity to produce a compelling longitudinal research perspective the present article offers a critical reading of the last decade s sustainability reports from the top five largest european oil and gas companies on account of their significant contribution to global warming the sample companies i e bp total shell bg group and eni have been scrutinized for their ability to provide high quality environmental disclosures at group level given the sophistication of emissions data collection and estimation tools such as the greenhouse gas ghg protocol it comes as a surprise that these five industry leaders have issued reports containing unexplained figures and methodological inconsistencies finally the reader is persuaded that empirical research in the field of corporate environmental performance should mostly be about creating a context for discussing a firm s commitment to sustainability rather than modelling irrelevant cross sectional data to find similarities between incomparable cases

the cost of regulation osha epa and the productivity slowdown the slowdown in productivity growth in the u s economy during the 1970 s has been a matter of great concern to policymakers associated as it is with inflation unemployment and declining real wage growth this paper examines the impact on productivity growth of government regulation specifically worker health and safety regulation by the occupational safety and health administration osha and environmental regulation by the environmental protection agency epa looking at data for 450 manufacturing industries between 1958 and 1978 the study finds a large negative relationship between such regulation and productivity growth using these results about 30 percent of the decline in productivity growth in manufacturing during the 1970 s may be attributed to such regulation several previous studies have looked at the contribution of regulation to the productivity slowdown many of these have inferred that the contribution must be small on the basis of the relatively small amount spent on complying with such regulations edward denison 1979 estimates that only about 16 percent of the productivity slowdown in the 1972 75 period was due to regulation 35 percentage points out of a slowdown of 2 17 percentage points paul portney 1981 notes that little of gnp is spent on pollution control under 2 percent concluding that therefore pollution regulations could have little effect on productivity growth norsworthy et al 1979 also find a small impact of pollution abatement capital expenditures on productivity growth studies based on econometric estimation of the regulation productivity relationship have found a wide range of results gregory christainsen and robert haveman 1981 find regulation reduced labor productivity growth by 27 percentage points using time series data and measures of total federal regulation robert crandall 1981 finds a strong relationship between pollution abatement capital and productivity growth but this relationship disappears when a measure of energy intensity is included robin siegel 1979 observes a significant contribution 5 percentage points from pollution control expenditures to the productivity slowdown for 1965 73 but not for later years finally frank gollop and mark roberts 1983 examine data for a set of electric utilities and find that regulation of emissions had a large impact on total factor productivity growth lowering it for regulated firms by 59 percentage points many other factors might help to explain the productivity slowdown including the rise in energy prices the long and severe recession and declines in research and development expenditures there have been a variety of studies examining the contributions of each factor to the slowdown they generally conclude that many factors contributed to the slowdown but that a sizable fraction of the slowdown remains unexplained by the estimated contributions of all the factors considered

extended producer responsibility instruments and innovation in eco design an exploration through a simulation model abstract this paper presents an agent based simulation model that models both economical and physical relations between firms recyclers and consumers this framework allows an investigation into the connection between physical environmental variables waste flows virgin material flows and economic decisions of agents in the product chain i e firms innovation strategies consumers choices and development of recycling activities the paper highlights the value of using agent based modeling as an operational tool to investigate the effect of waste prevention policy on economic and technological decisions of agents we focus on three types of extended producer responsibility epr instruments which are recycling fees tax subsidy and norms the simulation results show that the impact of each instrument depends on the policy design in particular on the level of stringency and on the reward system which is implemented we show that only tax subsidy systems and stringent norms can lead to radical innovations and to significant changes in product designs in the case of tax subsidy the impact relies more on an innovation effect while in the case of norm it mainly relies on a selection effect

liquidity and insurance for the unemployed we study the optimal design of unemployment insurance for workers sampling job opportunities over time we focus on the optimal timing of benefits and the desirability of allowing workers to freely access a riskless asset when workers have constant absolute risk aversion preferences it is optimal to use a very simple policy a constant benefit during unemployment a constant tax during employment that does not depend on the duration of the spell and free access to savings using a riskless asset away from this benchmark for constant relative risk aversion preferences the welfare gains of more elaborate policies are minuscule our results highlight two largely distinct roles for policy toward the unemployed a ensuring workers have sufficient liquidity to smooth their consumption and b providing unemployment benefits that serve as insurance against the uncertain duration of unemployment spells

macro economic and development indexes and iso14001 certificates a cross national analysis abstract environmental management systems emss implemented according to the iso14001 standard have been examined by many authors especially focussing on its impact at the firm level however only a few papers have investigated the impact of iso14001 from a country perspective this paper aims to contribute to bridging this gap the aim is to study the relation between iso14001 growth and the trend in selected macro economic and development indexes by applying the growth mixture model to a panel of 73 countries for the period 1999 2012 we assess the following hypotheses a the increase in numbers of iso14001 certifications corresponds to an increase in economic indexes b the increase in iso14001 corresponds to an increase in development indexes c the trends of iso14001 adoption and macro economic indexes confirm the relationship described by the environmental kuznets curve the results confirm a positive relation among the trends of some variables such as iso14001 and gross domestic product gdp iso14001 and industry value added while no significant results were found when observing the relation between iso14001 and the selected development indexes in addition using the industry added value as the variable to measure economic development our results support the theory of the environmental kuznets curve

optimal unemployment insurance this paper considers the design of an optimal unemployment insurance system the problem is modeled as a repeated principalagent problem involving a risk averse agent the unemployed worker and a risk neutral principal which cannot monitor the agent s search effort the optimal long term contract subject to the associated incentive constraints is characterized this contract involves a replacement ratio that decreases throughout the unemployment spell and a wage tax after reemployment that under some mild regularity conditions increases with the lenght of the unemployment spell some numerical results are presented that suggest that the gains from switching to this optimal unemployment insurance scheme could be quite large the performance of this optimal contract is also compared to alternative liquidity provision mechanisms

public preferences for carbon tax attributes the impacts of climate change are already visible throughout the world recognizing the threats posed by climate change the durban platform the 17th session of the conference of parties cop 17 underscores that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation and ambitious action by all countries a crucial starting point for the design of effective and publicly acceptable policies is to explore public preferences for climate policy instruments using a choice experiment this study investigates public preferences for carbon tax attributes in a developing country context the results account for heterogeneity in preferences and show that turkish people prefer a carbon tax with a progressive cost distribution rather than one with a regressive cost distribution the private cost has a negative effect on the probability of choosing the tax earmarking carbon tax revenues increases the public acceptability of the tax moreover there is a preference for a carbon tax that promotes public awareness of climate change

renewable energy and employment in germany abstract the positive impacts of an increasing share of renewable energy on the mitigation of climate change as well as on the decrease of the dependency of energy imports are indisputable however one persistent problem for the german economy has been its high level of unemployment in the recent past therefore any policy strategy will be measured also by its net impact on the labor market the paper describes the results of a study that models this impact and is novel within three respects firstly an input output vector for the renewable energy sector was developed based on the results of more than 1000 interviews with an extensive questionnaire secondly gross and net effect of two different policy scenarios for germany until 2030 were calculated and thirdly the approach varies from earlier studies by its explicit modeling of export and foreign trade effects

reviewing the business case for corporate social responsibility new evidence and analysis this study complements previous empirical research on the business case for corporate social responsibility csr by employing hitherto unused data on corporate social performance csp and proposing statistical analyses to account for bi directional causality between social and financial performance by allowing for differences in the importance of single components of csp between industries the data in this study overcome certain limitations of the databases used in earlier studies the econometrics employed offer a rigorous way of addressing the problem of endogeneity due to simultaneous causality although the study s results provide no evidence that there is a generic or universal business case for csr they indicate that there is a strong link between single stakeholder related issues of csr and financial performance however the analysis does not establish causality within these relationships

a free lunch in the commons we derive conditions under which raising costs through a regulatory constraint or a fully expropriated tax can increase the profits arising from a common pool resource the basic model assumes a fixed number of identical agents with linear costs selling in a single period at an exogenous price a necessary and sufficient condition for a cost increase to be profitable is that aggregate output from the resource be locally convex in aggregate effort we also show that cost increases can be profitable even if price is endogenous agents are heterogeneous entry is costless or agents are playing a markov perfect equilibrium of a dynamic game we also discuss more general welfare implications of the result along with its relation to existing results for a cournot oligopoly

distributional and regional economic impact of energy taxes in belgium we analyse the macroeconomic and distributional effects of increased oil excises in belgium by combining a regional computable general equilibrium cge model with a microsimulation framework that exploits the rich detail of household level data the link between the cge model and the microlevel is top down feeding changes in commodity prices factor returns and employment by sector into a microsimulation model the results suggest that policymakers face an equity efficiency trade off driven by the choice of revenue recycling options when the additional revenue is used to raise welfare transfers to households the reform is beneficial for lower income groups but output levels decrease in all regions however when the energy tax revenue is used to lower distortionary labour taxes the tax shift is slightly regressive in this case national gdp is hardly affected but regional production levels diverge the impact of the environmental tax reform on income distribution depends strongly on changes in factor prices and welfare payments whereas sector composition is an important determinant for regional impact variation

optimal unemployment insurance with heterogeneous agents the framework of a general equilibrium heterogeneous agent model is used to study the optimal design of an unemployment insurance ui scheme and preferences for unemployment policy reforms in a first step the optimal defined benefit and defined replacement ratio ui systems are obtained in simulations then the question whether switching to such an optimal system from the status quo would be approved by a majority of the population is explored finally the transitional dynamics following a policy change are analysed accounting for this transition has an important influence on the support for a policy change

the potential of environmental regulation to change managerial perception environmental management competitiveness and financial performance abstract this research presents an overview of where the gaps in the literature exist in relation to the link between environmental regulation and proactive environmental management and competitiveness and incorporates them in a whole model different papers have highlighted only partial aspects of these relationships specifically this research evaluates the relationship between managerial perception and the different styles of environmental regulations command and control versus voluntary norms the mediator role of environmental management in the link between environmental regulations and competitiveness the effect of competitiveness on financial performance and the two way relationship between proactive environmental management and financial performance finally this paper uses statistical evidence to test and estimate causal relationships through a structural equation modelling of 208 firms affected by ippc law in spain there is a lack of systematic statistical evidence on this topic in the literature which mainly focuses on case studies the results show that when environmental regulation stems from command and control legislation its influence on managerial perception and proactive environmental management is not significant however when environmental regulation stems from voluntary norms its effects are positive moreover investment in proactive environmental management contributes to increasing the competitiveness of the firm cost and differentiation competitive advantage have a positive impact on financial performance finally the link between proactive environmental management and financial performance may follow different paths 1 neither direct nor single because it can depend on competitive advantage and 2 direct because there is a significant two way relationship between these variables proactive environmental management influences financial performance and financial performance influences proactive environmental management

an equilibrium model of health insurance provision and wage determination we investigate the effect of employer provided health insurance on job mobility rates and economic welfare using a search matching and bargaining framework in our model health insurance coverage decisions are made in a cooperative manner that recognizes the productivity effects of health insurance as well as its nonpecuniary value to the employee the resulting equilibrium is one in which not all employment matches are covered by health insurance wages at jobs providing health insurance are larger in a stochastic sense than those at jobs without health insurance and workers at jobs with health insurance are less likely to leave those jobs even after conditioning on the wage rate we estimate the model using the 1996 panel of the survey of income and program participation and find that the employer provided health insurance system does not lead to any serious inefficiencies in mobility decisions

the measurement of unemployment an empirical approach although the unemployment rate is one of the most widely cited and closely monitored economic statistics the definition and measurement of unemployment remain controversial an important issue is whether non employed persons who display a marginal attachment to the labor force for example those who are available for and desire work but are not searching for work should be classified as unemployed or non participants although this issue has been extensively debated it has never been tested empirically this paper carries out empirical tests of this and related hypotheses using a unique longitudinal data set from canada we find within the marginally attached a waiting group whose behavior indicates that they would be more appropriately classified as unemployed rather than out of the labor force the remainder of the marginally attached exhibit behavior between that of the unemployed and the balance of non participants suggesting that the desire for work among non searchers conveys substantial information about labor force attachment and future employment status our methods also apply to heterogeneity within the unemployed and we investigate behavioral variation linked to differences in job search methods and reasons for entry into unemployment although those using passive job search do exhibit behavior somewhat distinct from active searchers our results reject the practice of classifying passive job searchers as out of the labor force overall our results indicate that the non employed are very heterogeneous so that any single division into unemployment and out of the labor force is unlikely to fully capture the variety of degrees of labor force attachment this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

unemployment insurance and capital accumulation abstract in this paper i examine a model economy with production search and unemployment insurance the introduction of capital into the economy of wang and williamson j monetary econom 49 7 2001 1337 generates the result that optimal replacement ratios are always zero the result arises from the decline in aggregate activity caused by unemployment insurance both capital and labor inputs to production fall when benefits rise unlike most of the literature i compute explicitly the cost of the transition path agents are made better off by switching to a steady state with no unemployment insurance but the welfare gain is approximately cut in half only the very poor and unemployed suffer welfare losses along the transition path i then briefly investigate the implications of negative replacement ratios

the impact of green innovation on energy intensity an empirical analysis for 14 industrial sectors in oecd countries abstract this paper analyses the impact of green innovation on energy intensity in a set of 14 industrial sectors in 17 oecd countries over the 1975 2005 period we create a stock of green patents for each industrial sector and estimate a translog cost function to measure the impact of green innovation on energy intensity next to other factors such as input substitution and autonomous technical change we find that green innovation has contributed to the decline in energy intensity in the majority of sectors the median elasticity of energy intensity with respect to green patenting is estimated at 0 03 in our sample hence a 1 increase in green patenting activities in a given sector is associated with a 0 03 decline in energy intensity the magnitude of the effect is robust across various specifications and is larger in more recent years a decomposition exercise shows that overall half of the decrease in energy intensity over the sample period is related to changes in input prices and half to changes in production technologies

voluntary global business initiatives and the international climate negotiations a case study of the greenhouse gas protocol abstract the past few years have witnessed the emergence of a plethora of transnational climate governance experiments they have been developed by a broad range of actors such as cities non profit organizations and private corporations several scholars have lately devoted particular attention to voluntary global business initiatives in the policy domain of climate change their studies have provided considerable insights into the role and function of such new modes of climate governance however the precise nature of the relationship between the various climate governance experiments and the international climate negotiations has not been analyzed in enough detail against this backdrop the present article explores the interplay of a business sector climate governance experiment i e the greenhouse gas protocol ghg protocol with the international climate regime on the one hand the article underscores that the ghg protocol has filled a regulatory gap in global climate policy making by providing the means for the corporate sector to comprehensively account and report their ghgs on the other hand it reveals that the application of the ghg protocol guidelines depends to a large extent on the existence of an overarching policy framework set up by nation states at the intergovernmental level only if private companies receive a clear political signal that stringent mandatory ghg emission controls and a global market based instrument are at least likely to be adopted will they put substantial efforts into the accurate measurement and management of their ghgs thus this article points to the limits of climate governance experimentation and suggests that business sector climate governance experiments need to be embedded in a coherent international regulatory setting which generates a clear stimulus for corporate action

competition competition policy and the gatt the authors argue that further moves to liberalize trade and to implement existing gatt rules and principles may have a greater impact on global competition than would the pursuit of harmonization of competition policy they also suggest that current gatt rules and case law provide scope for disputes to be brought before the gatt that relate to both the application and the nonapplication of existing domestic competition laws of gatt contracting parties this leads to de facto discrimination between domestic and foreign products little use has been made of the gatt in this connection perhaps existing indirect avenues for raising competition related disputes in the gatt should be pursued more actively this would help identify what specific government policies might be the subject of multilateral negotiations and explicitly incorporated into the gatt framework

international investment location decisions abstract in international location tournaments governments compete for foreign investment with tax and other short run incentives such tournaments can be won if agglomeration economies are sufficiently powerful to overcome investors desire to spread investments as a hedge against risk we focus on manufacturing investments by u s multinationals in the 1980s our econometric results suggest that agglomeration economies are indeed the dominant influence on investor calculations paradoxically short run incentives have limited apparent impact on location choice we conclude that high cost tournament play is unnecessary for countries with good infrastructure development specialized input suppliers and an expanding domestic market

exploring the role of it for environmental sustainability in china an empirical analysis national natural science foundation of china 71202059 fundamental research funds for the central universities china 2011221016 national social science foundation 10zd047

optimal unemployment insurance in ge a robust calibration approach abstract a simple monte carlo calibration approach is implemented in a ge model with uninsurable employment risk to quantitatively study the optimal replacement rate of a public unemployment insurance ui scheme the optimal ui sampling distribution is found to be bimodal

environmental value chain in green sme networks the threat of the abilene paradox abstract demand side policies are an important complement to subsidies in fostering green product service markets green public procurement gpp in particular presents valuable characteristics in terms of directionality volumes and measurability despite being widely analysed from a public perspective gpp development is still under explored from a corporate point of view to shed some light on the strategic attitude of firms towards gpp this paper discusses an exploratory research in the field of road construction an inductive analysis of direct observations and theoretical contributions suggests the potential for the so called abilene paradox to hamper gpp opportunities for small and medium enterprises in fact in times of crisis increased pressures to improve performance and reduce risk resistance to change and strategic myopia can easily impair inter organizational interactions and thus prevent potentially innovative networks from pressuring public investments in green supply chains the related policy suggestions represent a first attempt to enter the realm of systemic approaches to gpp