policy implications of potential conflicts between short term and long term efficiency in co2 emissions abatement abstract this paper shows that under certain conditions including path dependence and lock in policies and measures leading to a cost effective ghg emissions mitigation in the short term may not allow reaching long term emissions targets at the lowest possible cost that is they might not be cost effective in the long term the reason is that in a situation where currently expensive technologies have a large potential for cost reductions through learning effects and r d investments the implementation of incentive based mitigation policies such as taxes or tradable permits will encourage the adoption and diffusion of currently low cost abatement technologies but might not be enough to make attractive the diffusion of expensive ones which is a necessary condition for these technologies to realise their cost reduction potential through the aforementioned effects a simple model and a numerical simulation are provided to show this possible conflict between static and dynamic efficiency which points out to the need to combine different instruments some aiming at short term cost efficiency such as incentive based environmental policy and others at encouraging dynamic cost reductions such as technology innovation policy

global demographic trends and social security reform how sustainable are the current social security systems in the developed economies given the projected demographic trends the most recent literature has answered this question through dynamic general equilibrium models in a closed economy framework this paper provides a new quantitative benchmark of analysis for this question represented by a two region model south and north of the world economy where capital flows across regions the timing and the extent of the demographic transition and the associated economic forces shaping capital accumulation and equilibrium factor prices are very different in the two regions thus the projected paths of interest rate and wage rate in the north diverge substantially between closed and open economy we perform a wide range of policy experiments under both scenarios our main conclusion is that if one is interested in quantifying the path of the fiscal variables e g the value of the payroll tax needed to keep the social security system viable or to finance a transition towards a fully funded system then these two benchmarks yield similar results however if the focus is on quantifying the path of factor prices aggregate variables and ultimately welfare then the two approaches can diverge significantly

using contests to allocate pollution rights in this paper we advocate a new initial allocation mechanism for a tradable pollution permit market we outline a permit allocation contest pac that distributes permits to firms based on their rank relative to other firms this ranking is achieved by ordering firms based on an observable external action where the external action is an activity or characteristic of the firm that is independent of their choice of emissions in the tradable permit market we argue that this mechanism has a number of benefits over auctioning and grandfathering using this mechanism efficiently distributes permits allows for the attainment of a secondary policy objective and has the potential to be more politically appealing than existing alternatives

output based allocations and revenue recycling implications for the new zealand emissions trading scheme abstract the new zealand emissions trading scheme nz ets is more comprehensive in its coverage of emissions than schemes introduced or proposed to date in any other country in that it includes agricultural greenhouse gases which account for half of new zealand s total emissions but motivated by concerns for the international competitiveness of emissions intensive trade exposed industrial and agricultural activities current legislation provides for substantial ongoing free allocations to such activities linked to their output here we use a computable general equilibrium model to analyse the impacts of output based allocation given the possibility of recycling net revenues to reduce prior distorting taxes unlike previous modelling studies of alternative nz ets designs we allow for a more realistic modelling both of capital and labour supply we find that as suggested by theoretical results interactions between the ets and existing taxes are important given any level of output based allocation the negative macroeconomic impacts can be reduced by recycling net revenues as efficiently as possible less obviously we find that there may be an optimal non zero level of output based allocation this optimal level increases as the carbon price and or factor supply elasticities increase but decreases if revenues are recycled with greater efficiency

firm incentives to promote technological change in pollution control reply abstract the process of technological change in pollution control is broken into three basic steps innovation diffusion and optimal agency response firm incentives to promote these steps are then examined under five regulatory regimes direct controls emission subsidies emission taxes free marketable permits and auctioned marketable permits on a relative basis emission taxes and auctioned permits provide the highest firm incentives to promote technological change at times free permits generate lower incentives direct controls which are common regulatory tools usually provide the lowest relative firm incentives to promote technological change

structural reform of social security governments around the world have enacted or are currently considering fundamental structural reforms of their social security pension programs the key feature in these reforms is a shift from a pure pay as you go tax financed system in which taxes on current workers are primarily distributed to current retirees to a mixed system that combines pay as you go benefits with investment based personal retirement accounts this paper discusses how such a mixed system could work in practice and how the transition to such a change could be achieved it then analyzes the economic gains that would result from shifting to a mixed system i turn next to the three problems that critics raise about any investment based plan administrative costs risk and income distribution finally i comment on some of the ad hoc proposals for dealing with the financial problem of social security without shifting to an investment based system

unemployment insurance and unemployment accounts the best of both worlds unemployment accounts are mandatory individual savings accounts that can be used only during unemployment or retirement unlike unemployment insurance unemployment accounts solve the moral hazard problem but provide no public insurance to workers i study a hybrid system that borrows from concepts of both unemployment insurance and unemployment accounts in which workers are mandated to save when employed and can withdraw from the account when unemployed once the account is exhausted the unemployed worker receives unemployment benefits this hybrid policy provides insurance to workers more efficiently than an unemployment insurance system because it provides government benefits selectively as a consequence young workers can reduce their precautionary savings and better smooth their consumption over the life cycle calibrating the model to the us economy i find that relative to an optimal unemployment insurance system the optimal hybrid policy leads to a welfare gain of 2 4 measured as consumption equivalent variation jel classification e24 e61 j64 j65

emissions trading and transaction costs analyzing the flaws in the discussion abstract although emissions trading lowers the costs of climate change mitigation transaction costs e g to find a trading partner may reduce its cost effectiveness some economists claim that transaction costs for joint implementation ji and clean development mechanism cdm projects will be higher than for international emissions trading iet transfers arguing that projects require advance approval whereas permit transfers can be automatically registered and checked annually however this article demonstrates the incompleteness of their views by both analyzing empirical data and discussing the theoretical conditions under which transaction costs decrease for ji and cdm and increase for iet

the impact of the potential duration of unemployment benefits on the duration of unemployment abstract this paper examines the impact of the potential duration of unemployment insurance ui benefits on unemployment in the united states first we use a large sample of household heads to examine differences in the unemployment spell distributions of ui recipients and nonrecipients sharp increases in the escape rate from unemployment both through recalls and new job acceptances are apparent for ui recipients around the time of benefits exhaustion such increases are not apparent at similar points of spell duration for nonrecipients second our analysis of accurate administrative data from 12 states indicates that a one week increase in potential benefit duration increases the average duration of the unemployment spells of ui recipients by 0 16 to 0 20 weeks

auctions or grandfathering the political economy of tradable emission permits despite the prevalence of grandfathered permits we still observe that a hybrid policy in which a fraction of initial emission permits is distributed through auctions is adopted in some cases we also observe that some polluting industries support auctioned permits and that most environmental groups support grandfathered permits this paper attempts to explain these phenomena from the perspective of political economy and investigates the conditions under which grandfathering auctions or a hybrid instrument will be the equilibrium policy by constructing a two stage lobbying game in which the type of policy instrument auction grandfathering or a hybrid instrument is determined in the first stage and then the number of permits is decided in the second stage we highlight the strategic interaction of the lobbying activities between the two stages in explaining the behavior of the lobbying groups

analyzing co2 emissions flows in the world economy using global emission chains and global emission trees abstract because of the increasing international trade monitoring tools are required that quantify and analyze co2 emissions at a global level this paper contributes to this literature by adopting a consumer oriented approach and using two tools based on multi regional input output tables i e the global emissions chains gecs and the global emissions trees gets the gec is proposed with an industry level perspective so as to provide detailed information about the extent to which the final demand of an industry of a country drives indirect co2 emissions by any industry of any other country the get is defined as a simplified graphical structure of the gec which includes only the industries providing the highest contribution of co2 emissions the tools are described and new indices are developed with the aim of conducting multiple analyses with different purposes applications are given with specific emphasis to the different analyses that can be carried out in particular the gec and the get of a specific italian industry are presented and comparisons with gecs and gets of different countries are discussed how to use the tools to develop more effective decarbonization strategies at both country and global levels is also described

a review of recent multi region input output models used for consumption based emission and resource accounting abstract the interest in consumption based emission and resource accounting has grown significantly many studies juxtapose consumer emissions carbon footprint and producer territorial emissions of greenhouse gases in order to demonstrate the effects of trade on the national emission budget to this end a respectable number of studies have been undertaken worldwide in order to estimate emissions embedded in international trade of numerous countries and world regions input output approaches and increasingly multi region input output mrio models are commonly chosen as they provide an appropriate methodological framework for complete carbon footprint estimates at the national and supra national level with increasing processing capabilities of computers and a wider availability of economic accounts environmental accounts and trade data such models are now being implemented on a wide scale after a brief overview of salient single region input output studies i provide an in depth review of the most recent multi region input output models used for the purpose of consumption based environmental accounting the main methodological features and important results are described for around twenty studies covering the years 2007 to 2009 this is followed by a detailed review of studies dealing with uncertainty in mrio analysis an area which has not received a lot of attention so far i conclude that further research is mainly needed in two areas a improvements in data availability and quality and b improvements in the accuracy of mrio modelling

rethinking social insurance economics 1 social insurance programs have become the most important the most expensive and often the most controversial aspect of government domestic policy not only in the united states but also in many other countries including developing and industrialized nations in the united states these programs include social security retirement disability and survivor insurance unemployment insurance and medicare insurance for those age 65 and older together these programs accounted for 37 percent of federal government spending and more than 7 percent of gdp in 2003 these ratios have increased rapidly in the past and are projected to increase even faster in the future because of the more rapid aging of the population i will discuss how the major forms of social

the missing piece in policy analysis social security reform this lecture discusses the economic losses that result from an unfunded social security retirement system and the potential gain from shifting to a funded system the social security payroll tax distorts labor supply and the form in which compensation is paid although each individual s benefits are linked to that individual s previous payroll tax payments the low equilibrium rate of return inherent in an unfunded system implies a net payroll tax that causes distortions the resulting deadweight loss is 1 of each year s gdp in perpetuity an amount equal to 20 of payroll tax revenue and a 50 increase in deadweight loss of the personal income tax also there is the loss of investment income resulting from forcing employees to accept the low implicit return of an unfunded program rather than the much higher return paid on private saving or in a funded social security program the present value of the annual losses from using an unfunded system exceeds the benefit to those who received windfall transfers when the program began and when it expanded shifting to a funded program cannot reverse the crowding out of capital that has already occurred recognizing the existing unfunded obligation only makes that piece of the national debt explicit but shifting to a funded program limits crowding out of capital formation to the amount that already occurred future increases in annual saving that result from economic growth are able to earn the higher rate of return on real capital the present value of these gains is equivalent to a perpetuity of more than 2 of gdp a year the combi nation of improved labor market incentives and higher real return on saving has a net present value gain of more than 15 trillion an amount equivalent to three percent of each future year s gdp forever this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

consumer and producer environmental responsibility comparing two approaches abstract two different indicators of environmental responsibility were independently proposed by rodrigues et al rodrigues j domingos t giljum s schneider f 2006 designing an indicator of environmental responsibility ecological economics 59 3 256 266 and lenzen et al lenzen m murray j sack f wiedmann t 2007 shared producer and consumer responsibility theory and practice ecological economics 61 27 42 these indicators are both supposed to reflect the indirect effects of consumer and producer behavior in the generation of environmental pressure in this paper we compare their mathematical properties and interpretation we conclude that they have different implications for environmental policy

consignment auctions of free emissions allowances abstract while the initial distribution of emissions allowances is usually thought to be independent of the emissions outcome free allocation can affect the efficiency and fairness of allowance trading inefficiency may result from thin allowance markets poor price discovery and regulatory or organizational complexities that hinder the recognition of opportunity costs concerns about fairness may result from intransparency in the process of transferring substantial allowance value we explore the role of consignment auctions in mitigating these concerns these revenue neutral auctions return the financial value of allowances to their original holders while revealing prices and directing allowances to their highest valued use they also can be used to support a minimum price when allowances are freely distributed which may facilitate program linkage consignment auctions have minimal administrative costs and do not necessarily involve government experience indicates that they can play an important role especially in new markets

transaction costs and tradeable permits abstract tradeable permit systems are at the center of current interest and activity in market based reforms of environmental policy because these systems can offer significant advantages over conventional approaches to pollution control unfortunately claims made for their relative cost effectiveness have often been exaggerated transaction costs which may be significant in these markets reduce trading levels and increase abatement costs in some cases equilibrium permit allocations and hence aggregate control costs are sensitive to initial permit distributions providing an efficiency justification for politicians typical focus on initial allocations

taxes versus tradable discharge permits a review in the light of the u s and european experience the u s and west european environmental protection programs have incorporated different economic instruments for controlling pollution the u s has made extensive use of tradable permits of several forms but has never used direct pollution taxes the countries of the european community have long used an array of pollution taxes but have never used tradable permits a review and critique of these experiences and an analysis of the attributes of taxes and tradable permits seeks identify the strengths and weaknesses of each instrument and to provide guidelines for the successful implementation of each system

tradeable carbon permit auctions how and why to auction not grandfather abstract an auction of carbon permits is the best way to achieve domestic carbon caps designed to limit global climate change to minimize administrative costs permits would be required at the level of oil refineries natural gas pipe lines natural gas liquid sellers and coal processing plants to maximize liquidity in secondary markets permits would be fully tradable and bankable the government would conduct quarterly auctions a standard ascending clock auction in which price is gradually raised until there is no excess demand would provide reliable price discovery an auction is preferred to grandfathering giving companies permits based on historical output or emissions because it allows reduced tax distortions provides more flexibility in distribution of costs provides greater incentives for innovation and reduces the need for politically contentious arguments over the allocation of rents

the behavioral foundations of social politics evidence from surveys and a laboratory democracy the dominant theoretical approaches in the comparative political economy of the welfare state provide alternative accounts for why some governments spend more on social policies than others in the first poor voters seek to increase their current income by taxing the rich and social policy serves to redistribute income from the rich to the poor in the second account voters seek social insurance against future job loss and social policy serves as an insurance mechanism rather than a redistributive one both of these accounts share the assumption that voters can clearly distinguish between the redistributive and insurance elements of public policy and therefore that individual level characteristics income labor market risks systematically shape preferences over social policy our goal is to examine the soundness of that behavioral assumption we do so with a laboratory experiment that involves economic production voting on taxation and fiscal transfers we treat subjects with social policies that

the effect of trade between china and the uk on national and global carbon dioxide emissions we estimate the amount of carbon dioxide embodied in bi lateral trade between the uk and china in 2004 developing and applying the method of shui and harriss 2006 tile role of co2 embodiment in us china trade energy policy 34 4063 4068 the most recently available data on trade and co2 emissions have been updated and adjusted to calculate the co2 emissions embodied in the commodities traded between china and the uk it was found that through trade with china the uk reduced its co2 emissions by approximately 11 in 2004 compared with a non trade scenario in which the same type and volume of goods are produced in the uk in addition due to the greater carbon intensity and relatively less efficient production processes of chinese industry china uk trade resulted in an additional 117 mt of co2 to global co2 emissions in the same one year period compared with a non trade scenario in which the same type and volume of goods are produced in the uk this represents an additional 19 to the reported national co2 emissions of the uk 555 mt y in 2004 and 0 4 of global emissions these findings suggest that through international trade very significant environmental impacts can be shifted front one country to another and that international trade can but does not necessarily result in globally increased greenhouse gas emissions these results are additional to the environmental consequences of transporting goods which are not robustly quantified here c 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

work incentive effects of taxing unemployment benefits before 1979 unemployment insurance ui benefits were not treated as taxable income in the united states several economists criticized this policy on the ground that not taxing ui benefits while taxing earned income allegedly encourages unemployed persons to conduct longer than socially optimal job searches since 1979 however ui benefits received by persons in higher income families have been subject to income tax this paper investigates whether the introduction of benefit taxation has had the predicted effect of reducing unemployment duration the study uses data on a sample of persons that filed for ui in 1978 or 1979 to examine whether high income claimants collected benefits for shorter periods after the tax change than they did before benefits became taxable as part of the empirical analysis the paper develops a generalization of the weibull distribution and applies a limited dependentvariable technique for this distribution similar to the tobit technique for the normal distribution despite some variation in the results from different model specifications the analysis presents persuasive evidence of a tax effect on unemployment duration the 1979 policy change is estimated to have reduced average compensated unemployment duration among the sampled high income claimants by about one week

impacts of alternative allowance allocation methods under a cap and trade program in power sector emission trading is considered to be a cost effective environmental economic instrument for pollution control however the policy design of an emission trading program has a decisive impact on its performance allowance allocation is one of the most important policy design issues in emission trading not only for equity but also for policy performance in this research an artificial market for sulfur dioxide so2 emission trading was constructed by applying an agent based model the performance of the jiangsu so2 emission trading market was examined under different allowance allocation methods and transaction costs the results showed that the market efficiency of emission trading would be affected by the allocation methods when the transaction costs are positive the auction allowance allocation method was more efficient and had the lowest total emission control costs than the other three allocation methods examined however the use of this method will require that power plants pay for all of their allowance and doing so will increase the production costs of power plants on the other hand output based allowance allocation is the second best method

emissions targets and the real business cycle intensity targets versus caps or taxes for reducing greenhouse gas emissions intensity targets are attracting interest as a flexible mechanism that would better allow for economic growth than emissions caps for the same expected emissions however the economic responses to unexpected productivity shocks differ using a real business cycle model we find that a cap dampens the effects of productivity shocks in the economy on all variables except for the shadow value of the emissions constraint an emissions tax leads to the same expected outcomes as a cap but with greater volatility certainty equivalent intensity targets maintain higher levels of labor capital and output than other policies with lower expected costs and no more volatility than with no policy

an agent based analysis of the german electricity market with transmission capacity constraints while some agent based models have been developed for analyzing the german electricity market there has been little research done on the emerging issue of intra german congestion and its effects on the bidding behavior of generator agents yet studies of other markets have shown that transmission grid constraints considerably affect strategic behavior in electricity markets in this paper the implications of transmission constraints on power markets are analyzed for the case of germany market splitting is applied in the case of congestion in the grid for this purpose the agent based modeling of electricity systems ames market package developed by sun and tesfatsion is modified to fit the german context including a detailed representation of the german high voltage grid and its interconnections implications of transmission constraints on prices and social welfare are analyzed for scenarios that include strategic behavior of market participants and high wind power generation it can be shown that strategic behavior and transmission constraints are inter related and may pose severe problems in the future german electricity market

mapping the international flows of ghg emissions within a more feasible consumption based framework abstract during the last two decades the scientific literature has focused on the allocation of emissions embodied in international trade by implementing accounting procedures based on consumer oriented perspective while the multi regional input output analysis has been accepted by the scientific community as an alternative to the ipcc accounting some concerns arise from the feasibility and the actual implementation of this methodology in this paper we apply a simplified framework recently introduced by caro et al 2014a called nci national carbon intensity method and estimate the total co2 emissions due to consumption in 175 countries during the period 2008 2012 with a focus on the mediterranean area we estimate co2 emissions embodied in trade assigning emission responsibility on the basis of each country s demand globally in 2012 8129 mt co2 emissions were related to goods produced in one country and consumed outside its boundaries a relevant example is the export from china to consumers located in the usa japan and germany a focus on the mediterranean area that resulted as a net importer of co2 embodied in traded goods identifies the export of emissions from italy and spain to france and from libya and algeria to italy as the dominant flows the nci method provides a realistic picture of emissions due to consumption that differs from high resolution multi regional input output database by less than 10 the method can be largely adopted as a more feasible preliminary step towards consumption based emission accounting and responsibility assignment

agricultural ch4 and n2o emissions of major economies consumption vs production based perspectives abstract agriculture is one of the most important sectors for global anthropogenic methane ch4 and nitrous oxide n2o emissions while much attention has been paid to production side agricultural non co2 greenhouse gas anghg emissions less is known about the emissions from the consumption based perspective this paper aims to explore the characteristics of agricultural ch4 and n2o emissions of global major economies by using the latest emission data from the food and agriculture organization corporate statistical database faostat and the recently available global multi regional input output model from the world input output database wiod the results show that in 2014 the 42 major economies together accounted for 60 7 and 65 0 of global total direct and embodied anghg emissions respectively the consumption based anghg emissions in the us japan and the eu were much higher than their production based emissions while the converse was true for brazil australia and india the global average embodied anghg emissions per capita was 0 7 t co2 eq but major developing countries such as china india indonesia and mexico were all below this average value we find that the total transfer of embodied anghg emissions via international trade was 622 4 mt co2 eq 11 9 of the global total china was the largest exporter of embodied anghg emissions while the us was the largest importer most developed economies were net importers of embodied emissions mexico us china us china eu china japan china russia brazil eu india eu and india us formed the main bilateral trading pairs of embodied emission flows examining consumption based inventories can be useful for understanding the impacts of final demand and international trade on agricultural ghg emissions and identifying appropriate mitigation potentials along global supply chains

a ten year rule to guide the allocation of eu emission allowances abstract member states in the european union eu are responsible for national allocation plans governing the initial distribution of emission allowances in the co2 emission trading system including rules governing allocations to installations that close and to new entrants the european commission has provided guidelines to discourage the use of allocation methodologies that provide incentives affecting firms compliance behavior for example by rewarding one type of compliance investment over another we find that the treatment of closures and new entrants by member states is inconsistent with the general guidelines provided by the eu we propose stronger eu guidance regarding closures and new entrants a more precise compensation criterion on which to justify free allocations and a ten year rule as a component of future eu policy that can guide a transition from current practice to an approach that places greater weight on efficiency

should social security benefits be means tested social security retirement benefits distort the saving decisions of workers who are rational enough to save for their future since the implicit rate of return in an unfunded social security program is less than the marginal product of capital the resulting decline in saving causes a welfare loss the present paper examines the conditions under which the welfare loss could be reduced by replacing the current universal social security program with a means tested program that pays benefits only to those individuals with little or no other retirement income or assets every society must solve the problem of supporting those individuals who become too old to work but have not made adequate provision for their own old age by saving when they were young at the present time the major industrial countries of the world have responded to this problem by creating social security programs that tax the working population and use the proceeds to provide a universal benefit to all retirees regardless of their financial condition this universal provision of social security benefits distorts the saving decisions of those workers who are rational enough to plan for the future since the implicit rate of return that taxpayers get on their this research is part of the nber study of the government budget and the private economy a more complete version of this paper with some numerical calculations is available as nber working paper no 1775 feldstein 1985b i am grateful to gilbert metcalf for assistance with the calculations presented in this paper and for helpful discussions for a discussion of the effect of promised retirement benefits on the savings of employees see feldstein 1974 1982 barro 1974 1978 has discussed an interesting

tax avoidance and the deadweight loss of the income tax traditional analyses of the income tax greatly underestimate deadweight losses by ignoring its effect on forms of compensation and patterns of consumption the full deadweight loss is easily calculated using the compensated elasticity of taxable income to changes in tax rates because leisure excludable income and deductible consumption are a hicksian composite good microeconomic estimates imply a deadweight loss of as much as 30 of revenue or more than ten times harberger s classic 1964 estimate the relative deadweight loss caused by increasing existing tax rates is substantially greater and may exceed 2 per 1 of revenue

market power in tradable emission markets a laboratory testbed for emission trading in port phillip bay victoria abstract in theory competitive emission permit markets minimize total abatement costs permit markets are often imperfectly competitive however and may be thin and dominated by large firms the dominant firm s could exercise market power and increase other firms costs of pollution control while reducing their own emission control costs this paper reports a testbed laboratory experiment to examine whether a dominant firm can exercise market power in a permit market organized using the double auction trading institution our parameters approximate the abatement costs of sources in a proposed tradable emissions market for the reduction of nitrogen in the port phillip watershed in victoria australia we vary across treatments the initial allocation of permits to sources so that in one treatment the seller of permits is a monopolist and in another treatment the market is duopolistic we also vary the information that subjects have about the number and abatement costs of their competitors we find that prices and seller profits are higher and efficiency is lower on average in the monopoly sessions compared with the duopoly sessions but the differences are not substantial and are not statistically significant due to pronounced variation across sessions moreover prices profits and transaction volumes are usually much closer to the competitive equilibrium ce than the monopoly equilibrium

next allocation phase of the eu emissions trading scheme how tough will the future be abstract the development of national allocation plans naps for the first phase 2005 2007 of the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets was accompanied by the stated concern of the industrial enterprises with installations that fall under the scope of the relevant directive 2003 87 since the impacts of the allocation in their financial and technical modes of operation were judged to be severe thus the intensity of the negotiations for the next allocation phase i e 2008 2012 is expected to be heated with a view to assisting enterprises especially in the energy sector or for which energy use and its management is a crucial part of their activity to incorporate in their business plans the impacts of the directive in an informed manner an attempt is made here to explore the constraints and the available options that will guide the coming eu ets potential allocations in the analysis the credits derived from the use of cdm are specifically taken into account the results show that the next allocations would tend to be significantly more stringent than the current ones because of the combined effect of no inter period transfer of allowances the amount of cdm credits expected to be available compared to the amount of effort that would be required and the yield of emission reductions from existing or planned policies and measures it becomes then crucial if not imperative for the enterprises involved as well as national governments to examine carefully means to address their obligations under the directive

allocation of co2 emission permits economic incentives for emission reductions in developing countries the economic impacts on developing regions following a global cap and trade system for carbon dioxide are assessed through the use of an energy economy systems model both an equal per capita allocation and a contraction and convergence allocation with convergence of the per capita emissions by 2050 are shown to offer economic incentive for africa india and probably also latin america to accept binding emissions commitments under a 450 ppm carbon dioxide stabilization scenario the gain for latin america is mainly a result of increased export revenues from sales of bio fuels as a result of the climate policy it is on the other hand unlikely that these allocation approaches would offer an economic incentive for china to join the regime because of its high economic growth present higher per capita emissions than india and africa and more costly mitigation options than latin america a more stringent allocation for developing countries such as contraction with convergence of the per capita emissions by the end of this century is estimated to generate reduced net gains or increased net losses for the developing regions though africa is still expected to gain

quo vadis mrio methodological data and institutional requirements for multi region input output analysis abstract in order to understand wider sustainability impacts of consumption and to successfully promote and implement sustainable consumption and production policies there is a need to capture the whole life cycle impact of products and services across international supply chains multi region input output mrio databases are a well described and suitable foundation for global sustainability analyses addressing a wide range of policy and research questions in this paper we reflect on the reasons for the recent boom in mrio compilation summarise the current state of development and discuss future options for mrio analysis we list in detail the requirements for efficient and effective mrio research and propose systemic and institutional changes we deliberately try to go beyond existing ambitions for mrio compilation and thus intend to stimulate discussion and to lay out the options for the future of mrio research

the role of technological change for a sustainable development technological change has become a major focus in environmental policy as well as in energy and climate policy indeed there is a growing body of knowledge about how and in which direction technological change might have an impact on environmental resource constraints and how environmental policy might have an impact on this direction in this article we introduce the contributions to this special issue showing how they add to recent developments in the field of economics of technological change and sustainability we also discuss potential avenues for future research

income based environmental responsibility abstract a strong mitigation effort is underway to reduce the levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions an allocation of the mitigation effort among multiple agents requires understanding which agent is responsible for what emissions according to a defined measure of carbon responsibility the metric adopted by current international climate policy is production based or territorial responsibility however other types of responsibility have been discussed in the literature namely consumption based or upstream responsibility and downstream responsibility in this paper we study the latter which is little explored in the literature we clarify the term through a novel nomenclature income based responsibility and present a case study with the quantification of income based responsibility for 112 world regions and the comparison of the results with production and consumption based responsibilities

a general formula for the optimal level of social insurance in an influential paper baily 1978 showed that the optimal level of unemployment insurance ui in a stylized static model depends on only three parameters risk aversion the consumption smoothing benefit of ui and the elasticity of unemployment durations with respect to the benefit rate this paper examines the key economic assumptions under which these parameters determine the optimal level of social insurance i show that a baily type expression with an adjustment for precautionary saving motives holds in a general class of dynamic models subject to weak regularity conditions for example the simple reduced form formula derived here applies with arbitrary borrowing constraints durable consumption goods private insurance arrangements and search and leisure benefits of unemployment

does voluntary participation undermine the coase theorem abstract the coase theorem states that costless enforcement of voluntary agreements yields efficient outcomes we argue that previous treatments fail to recognize the full meaning of voluntary it requires a two stage game a non cooperative participation decision followed by coaseian bargaining only among those who choose to participate we illustrate this in a simple public goods model and find outcomes ranging from extremely inefficient to fully efficient however the efficient equilibrium is not robust to even very small transaction costs thus we cast doubt on coaseian claims of universal efficiency finally we outline a kind of coercion that restores efficiency