material flows vs natural capital what makes an economy sustainable abstract in the discourse about sustainable development constant natural capital is frequently referred to as a criterion for ecological sustainability but what is natural capital the concept will be analyzed by presenting arguments in favour of using the term and different versions of sustainability strong and weak subsequently a critique of the natural capital concept is brought forward from an ecological as well as from an economic perspective following this critique the use of material inputs and the material input per unit of service mips as a measure for the environmental impact potential is suggested dematerialisation is understood to be an alternative management rule for sustainability in conclusion a change of perspective is proposed due to the conceptual and measurement problems associated with the constant natural capital criterion which refers to a stock it seems more reasonable from a scientific as well as from a practical perspective to add flows i e material inputs to a decision criterion for whether a development is sustainable or not

ownership and environmental regulation evidence from the european electricity industry abstract the paper investigates how ownership affects the environmental performance in developed countries where environmental regulation is introduced in the form of market based instrument by looking at a cross country panel dataset of 29 power markets around europe over the period 1990 2012 we find empirical evidence that an increase of public ownership as measured by the oecd etcr index is associated with a reduction of both greenhouse gas emissions and carbon intensity we also find that the implementation of the european emissions trading scheme ets had a limited impact on emissions reduction due to lax allocation of allowances the positive effect of public ownership on environmental performance has been significant even after the introduction of the ets giving additional incentives to mitigate emissions when the ets cap was not stringent enough this evidence suggests that government control over power companies in europe can has created idiosyncratic incentives to improve environmental quality complementing environmental regulation in the achievement of environmental goals when the latter was absent or sub optimal

temporary emancipation from land from the industrial revolution to the present time abstract ecological and thermodynamic analysis shows that the tremendous speed of matter and energy degradation of the earth is the genuine cause of land deterioration the temporary emancipation from land since the industrial revolution still heavily depends upon land based resources especially fossil fuels stored in the past the prophetic views of liebig and marx concerning land deterioration are reconsidered not only the essential differences but also similarities between manufacturing and farming will be presented several technological proposals for a secure food supply will be critically appraised this study suggests a drastic reorientation of economic activites in the future to preserve our land

energy conservation more effective with rebound policy this article sketches the problem of indirect energy use effects also known as rebound of energy conservation there is widespread support for energy conservation especially when it is voluntary as this seems a cheap way to realize environmental and energy climate goals however this overlooks the phenomenon of rebound the topic of energy rebound has mainly attracted attention from energy analysts but has been surprisingly neglected in environmental economics even though economists generally are concerned with indirect or economy wide impacts of technical change and policies this paper presents definitions and interpretations of energy and environmental rebound as well as four fundamental reasons for the existence of the rebound phenomenon it further offers the most complete list of rebound pathways or mechanisms available in the literature in addition it discusses empirical estimates of rebound and addresses the implications of uncertainties and difficulties in assessing rebound suggestions are offered for strategies and public policies to contain rebound it is advised that rebound evaluation is an essential part of environmental policy and project assessments as opposed to earlier studies this paper stresses the relevance of the distinction between energy conservation resulting from autonomous demand changes and from efficiency improvements in technology equipment in addition it argues that rebound is especially relevant for developing countries

white certificate schemes economic analysis and interactions with the eu ets this paper examines the economic environmental and distributional impacts of an idealised tradable white certificate twc scheme and shows how the impacts are modified when the scheme operates in parallel with the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets it uses simple graphical techniques to assess whether a twc scheme will increase decrease or have an ambiguous effect on electricity demand wholesale and retail electricity prices carbon emissions and investment in energy efficiency paying particular attention to the interpretation of additionality

policy options to improve the effectiveness of the eu emissions trading system a multi criteria analysis abstract this paper considers several policy options which have been proposed to improve the functioning of the ets these options require an intervention either on the ets cap 30 target set aside carbon central bank long term target or on the carbon price european and national price floor we analyse the impact of each policy on the ets carbon price and emissions a multi criteria evaluation method is applied to compare the policy options against a plurality of environmental economic and procedural criteria we find that the final ranking depends on the goals to be achieved i e the relative weights attributed to the criteria when policymakers want mainly to support the carbon price both in the short and long run while improving ets flexibility and harmonization the ccb and the eu price floor are respectively ranked as first and second best options as the preference for environmental and implementation goals gradually increases the position of the eu price floor and ccb options tend to invert the 30 target should be adopted when reducing emissions is the priority goal while a national price floor is the worst option in this case nevertheless self interested states looking for a relatively quick feasible solution may find it optimal

energy savings and the rebound effect with multiple energy services and efficiency correlation abstract the rebound effect or the increased use of energy services following an increase in the efficiency of that service is widely studied in the literature but it is usually only considered in a single service environment such a framework ignores the potentially significant indirect rebound effects that occur through increased purchasing power for other services and does not allow for joint efficiency improvements across many services what we call efficiency correlation we develop a household production model with two energy services and distinct but simultaneous efficiency changes to test the implications of efficiency correlation on net energy elasticities and the rebound effect positively correlated efficiency choices across end uses not only increase technically feasible energy reductions but also drive additional rebound responses that erode these savings model simulations suggest that the rebound effects through the efficiency correlation channel are just as large as traditional direct and indirect rebound effects reported in the literature though they are offset by added technical energy savings moreover we find that negative correlation can significantly reverse any energy savings e g a household installs energy saving window panes but then trades in their sedan for a suv but current federal efficiency standards make this scenario unlikely this paper offers new insight into a host of additional behavioral responses to efficiency improvements particularly the incidence of efficiency correlation across different energy services and highlights its implication for realized energy savings

the threat of rent extraction in a resource constrained future abstract ecological economists aim to transform our economic institutions so that society can flourish within planetary boundaries the central message of this article is that private rent extraction forms a key barrier to the realisation of that goal i define rent as an economic reward which is sustained through control of assets that cannot be quickly and widely replicated and which exceeds proportionate compensation for the labour of the recipient i argue that unless we close opportunities for rent extraction and socialise unavoidable rents our governments will be compelled to pursue output growth regardless of its environmental consequences in order to prevent spiralling inequality and unemployment the positive proposition in this article is that the concept of rent can help us to identify and build democratic support for the institutional transformations necessary to prepare for a resource constrained future measures to reduce and redistribute rentier power could be emancipatory for the poorest in society whilst making more feasible many proposals that have been advocated already in this journal including reduced working hours and resource caps by contrast if environmental protections are introduced before opportunities for private rent extraction are closed we could see intensified rent seeking asset price bubbles poverty and economic insecurity

the economic consequences of the osha cotton dust standards an analysis of stock price behavior in a celebrated 1981 decision the supreme court upheld the occupational safety and health administration s osha standards limiting the exposure of textile workers to respirable cotton dust this decision represented the culmination of a rule making process the beginnings of which are traceable to seminal scientific studies first released almost ten years earlier on the incidence of so called brown lung disease reputed to be quite costly 1 the standards attracted more media attention as well as more congressional white house and judicial involvement than almost any regulation issued in recent years the purpose of this study is to assess the effect of major events in the development of the standards on the expected profitability of firms in the textile industry by examining the behavior of security prices at the time of those events while little formal research exists on the ecomomic effects of the cotton dust standards beyond an analysis prepared for osha before the standards were issued 2 a study by maloney and mccormick3 m m offers

procrastinating reform the impact of the market stability reserve on the eu ets abstract we study the impact of the market stability reserve msr on price and emission paths of the eu ets from 2019 onwards the msr will adjust the number of allowances auctioned as a function of the size of the surplus i e in times of a large surplus it shifts the issue date of allowances into the future in a perfectly competitive allowance market the msr only affects price and emission paths if the baseline equilibrium becomes unfeasible if the msr is binding prices increase in the short run but drop in the medium run relative to the baseline the msr increases price variability if uncertainty over future allowance demand is resolved while there is a surplus the long run cap is unaffected by both the msr and overlapping climate policies this contrasts the eu s objectives of improving the resilience of the eu ets and increasing synergies with overlapping climate policies

should degrowth embrace the job guarantee degrowth should consider the right to work a job guarantee jg as a way of making a smaller economy more just and socially sustainable economic shrinkage in richer countries is accompanied by increased unemployment a bad enough problem in itself but also a barrier to voters acceptance of the degrowth path since being out of work is distinct from being poor anti poverty income policies should be approached separately the jg is one of several paths to full employment including reduced working time this essay only briefly mentions some real world jg programs and some technical objections the main suggestion is to move employment from being a matter of economics particularly economic growth to being a political right a right to work is necessarily effective and would avoid sacrificing the ecological and social goals of degrowth on the altar of full employment

the dynamics of willingness to consume abstract it is increasingly acknowledged that the growing consumption in the north constitutes an important part of global environmental problems to improve the possibilities of dealing with this aspect of the problems this paper explores some of the driving forces behind the growth in consumption the first section introduces the environmental debate on consumption including the relationship between final consumption and the consumption of resources the recent political acceptance of dealing with consumption and the fundamental conditions for consumption growth in the north in the following sections a cross disciplinary approach is applied in a broad search for the driving forces behind the willingness to consume throughout the exposition two questions are explored 1 why are productivity increases largely transformed into income increases instead of more leisure 2 why is such a large part of these income increases used for the consumption of goods and services with a relatively high materials intensity instead of less material intensive alternatives the explanations are divided into three groups first the economic explanations including socio economic aspects related to the institutional set up of the economy second socio psychological explanations focusing on consumption from the perspective of the human being embedded in specific social relations third historical and socio technological explanations focusing on different aspects of everyday life the paper concludes with some reflections on the political implications of the analysis

victims and shareholders the dilemmas of presenting corporate policy during a crisis corporate crises such as accidents scandals and product safety incidents exacerbate stakeholder demands in such a way that conflict can arise between the interests of shareholders and crisis vict

increased ecoefficiency and gross rebound effect evidence from usa and six european countries 1960 2002 despite increased efficiency in the use of natural resources the use of these resources continues to increase in most societies this paper examines the discrepancy between the potential decrease of use of natural resources as an effect of increased efficiency and actual use during the period 1960 2002 this difference was found to grow faster in the usa than the mean for six west european countries possible reasons for this difference between the two regions are analysed to reduce the anthropogenic flows of energy and material and the consequent deleterious effects on the biosphere it will become necessary to adapt consumption to degree of efficiency in the use of natural resources based on the comparison between the two regions some economic aspects of this issue are discussed

willing consumers or locked in policies for a sustainable consumption postmodern explanations of consumer behaviour stress social and psychological factors to the neglect of explanations based on structural issues such as the working life conditions which favour a work and spend lifestyle the conditions of urban living or the effects of pervasive marketing this paper argues that consumers may not be so keen and willing but are rather locked in by circumstances some of these circumstances are deliberately created by other interests and a policy to limit consumption must look for adequate means over a large and varied field in the end shorter working hours may be an important key to a more sustainable future 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

regulation by prices quantities or both a review of instrument choice choosing appropriate policy instruments is an important part of successful regulation once objectives are agreed and suitable targets adopted policy makers can employ command and control regulation and or economic instruments and choose between fixing a price or a quantity this paper examines the relative advantages of price quantity and hybrid instruments according to their efficiency under uncertainty the trade off between credible commitment and flexibility implementation international considerations and political economy various illustrations of the theory are provided with two detailed applications to climate change and transport policy specifically congestion and safety pricing

price drivers and structural breaks in european carbon prices 2005 2007 this article aims at characterizing the daily price fundamentals of european union allowances euas traded since 2005 as part of the emissions trading scheme ets the presence of two structural changes on april 2006 following the disclosure of 2005 verified emissions and on october 2006 following the european commission announcement of stricter phase ii allocation allows to isolate distinct fundamentals evolving overtime the results extend previous literature by showing that eua spot prices react not only to energy prices with forecast errors but also to unanticipated temperatures changes during colder events besides the sub period decomposition of the pilot phase gives a better grasp of institutional and market events that drive allowance price changes

dealing with environmental savings in a dynamical economy how to stop chasing your tail in the pursuit of sustainability abstract in most countries people are urged to change their pattern of consumption and lifestyle in a less energy consuming and more environmental friendly direction but gains in ecoefficiency are likely to be annihilated by a larger consumption the so called rebound effect resulting in an increased throughput in the economy here is an obvious contradiction another contradiction entails from the fact that most governments strive to promote economic growth which includes increased consumption the paper takes a look at various means to handle these contradictions in order to avoid or balance the rebound effect environmental policies including such measures as green taxes may redirect consumption from one kind to another but this demands that the alternative spending is less harmful than the one dissuaded from two other tested means are to alter the sector mix of the economy and to shorten the working hours work sharing to match the increasing efficiency

business perspective to the national greenhouse gases emissions trading scheme a survey of cement companies in china abstract applying data gathered from 105 cement companies this paper gives an analysis of how business views the upcoming national greenhouse gases emissions trading scheme in china despite a good overall understanding the surveyed companies have not been able to prepare properly for the implementation of this policy they still need training to enhance their related capacity probably due to strict competition it is difficult for cement companies to pass the policy cost on to their clients the sampled companies intend to make self mitigation efforts for compliance it is highly likely that cement companies would mitigate emissions themselves if the carbon price is higher than 108 of the self abatement cost the surveyed cement companies anticipate an increase in the carbon price in china from about 35 yuan t co2 in 2020 to 60 yuan t co2 in 2025 and 90 yuan t co2 by 2030 the analysis provides reference for the smooth introduction and effective implementation of national carbon market in china from the business viewpoint

impact caps why population affluence and technology strategies should be abandoned abstract this paper classifies strategies to reduce environmental impact according to the terms of the i pat formula policies limiting resource depletion and pollution impact by heavily taxing resources or rationing them on a country basis are thus called direct or left side strategies other policies to achieve the environmental goal of lowering impact strive to limit population and affluence or to use technology to lower the ratio of resource inputs to goods and services outputs next it is shown that lowering any of these right side factors causes or at least enables the other two to rise or rebound this has two consequences 1 since i pat does not express these interdependencies on the right side it is more accurately written i f p a t and 2 success in lowering any of the right side factors does not necessarily lower impact rationing or pigouvian taxation of resources or pollution on the other hand necessarily lower impact and are therefore preferable to population consumption and technological environmental strategies finally lifestyle and technology changes towards more sufficiency and efficiency would follow the caps as consumers and producers work to retain the greatest amount of welfare within the limits given

on the rebound feedback between energy intensities and energy uses in iea countries abstract the interaction or feedback between energy efficiencies or energy intensities and energy use has long been the topic of debate some have argued that energy efficiency improvements by reducing energy intensities and therefore lowering the cost of energy services would lead to rebound effects offsetting much or all of any initial savings in energy in this paper we analyse historical data on energy use efficiency and pricing in different sectors to try and identify rebounds for the period of our data since about 1970 we show that key measures of activity car use manufacturing output and structure house area etc have changed little in response to changes in energy prices or efficiency instead continuing their long term evolution relative to gdp or other driving factors while our analysis cannot disentangle more macro level economic feedbacks in a detailed way we show indirectly that such effects also appear to have been small over the 1970s and 1980s overall our analysis of disaggregated sectoral and subsectoral energy use and activity trends in a variety of iea economies suggests that any feedback effect is small compared to both the effects on energy use of changes in energy intensities and overall economic growth we conclude that most of the improvements in energy efficiencies led to reductions in energy intensities observed in the 1970s and 1980s weighted by 1990 activity levels intensities were roughly 15 20 lower in 1994 5 than in 1973 which in turn meant real savings of energy energy demand in iea countries is roughly this much below what it would have been for the same gdp had these savings not occurred rebounds may have taken back some of the overall savings but most remain even after the fall of oil prices in 1986 any boost to gdp as a result of these savings could not have been sufficient to increase energy demand enough to significantly alter these conclusions that the savings remained after the fall in oil prices supports the notion that net savings restrained energy growth relative to gdp in some formulations arise from technological progress even if energy prices do not increase how far this effect can reach however is a matter of considerable debate

causes of the eu ets price drop recession cdm renewable policies or a bit of everything new evidence the price of eu allowances euas in the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets fell from almost 30 tco2 in mid 2008 to less than 5 tco2 in mid 2013 the sharp and persistent price decline has sparked intense debates both in academia and among policy makers about the decisive allowance price drivers in this paper we examine whether and to what extent the eua price drop can be justified by three commonly identified explanatory factors the economic recession renewable policies and the use of international credits capitalizing on marginal abatement cost theory and a broadly extended data set we find that only variations in economic activity and the growth of wind and solar electricity production are robustly explaining eua price dynamics contrary to simulation based analyses our results point to moderate interaction effects between the overlapping eu ets and renewable policies the bottom line however is that 90 of the variations of eua price changes remains unexplained by the abatement related fundamentals together our findings do not support the widely held view that negative demand shocks are the main cause of the weak carbon price signal in view of the new evidence we evaluate the eu ets reform options which are currently discussed

technological progress and sustainable development what about the rebound effect abstract sustainability concepts that rest on the idea of resource or energy efficiency improvements due to technological progress tend to overestimate the potential saving effects because they frequently ignore the behavioral responses evoked by technological improvements efficiency improvements also affect the demand for resources and energy and often an increase in efficiency by 1 will cause a reduction in resource use that is far below 1 or sometimes it can even cause an increase in resource use this phenomenon is commonly labeled the rebound effect which is well known among energy economists but never attracted much attention in ecological economics the paper starts with the traditional neoclassical analysis of the rebound effect in a partial equilibrium framework that concentrates on the demand of one particular energy service such as mobility or room temperature it also provides an overview of some of the main empirical studies based on this model that mostly confirm the existence of the rebound effect but are controversial about its actual importance however we have to go beyond the neoclassical single service model in order to take care of the variety of possible feedback affecting energy use the paper presents two important expansions of the single service model in order to show the potential relevance of the rebound effect to ecological economics first it is shown that in a multi services model it proves to be difficult to make general statements about the relevance of the rebound effect in this case the overall effect of an increase in energy efficiency on total energy use depends on the on the assumptions about the substitutability between the services considered and the direction of the income effect second the paper also tries to take care of the fact that changes in resource use or energy use are frequently just side effects of other forms of technological progress especially technological change of a time saving nature can have a large influence on energy use as many time saving devices for example faster modes of transport require an increase in energy consumption that is frequently reinforced by a rebound effect with respect to time this effect will be especially strong when wages are high and at the same time energy prices are low as is currently the case in most industrialized countries consequently the paper also provides a strong argument for the introduction of energy taxes

energy efficiency fallacies revisited abstract a number of governments including that of the uk subscribe to the belief that a national program devoted to raising energy efficiency throughout the economy provides a costless indeed profitable route to meeting international environmental obligations this is a seductive policy it constitutes the proverbial free lunch not only avoiding politically unpopular measures like outlawing taxing or rationing offending fuels or expanding non carboniferous sources of energy like nuclear power but doing so with economic benefit the author of this contribution came to doubt the validity of this solution when it was offered as a way of mitigating the effect of the opec price hikes of the 1970 maintaining that economically justified improvement in energy efficiency led to higher levels of energy consumption at the economy wide level than in the absence of any efficiency response more fundamentally he argues that there is no case for preferentially singling out energy from among all the resources available to us for efficiency maximization the least damaging policy is to determine targets enact the restrictive measures needed to curb consumption and then leave it to consumers intermediate and final to reallocate all the resources available to them to best effect subject to the new enacted constraints and any others they might be experiencing there is no reason to suppose that it is right for all the economic adjustment following a new resource constraint to take the form of improvements in the productivity of that resource alone as many others have argued any action to impose resource constraint entails an inevitable economic cost in the shape of a reduction in production and consumption possibilities there would be no free lunch in the last few years debate about the validity of these contentions has blossomed especially under the influence of writers on the western side of the atlantic in this contribution the author outlines the original arguments for questioning whether raised efficiency leads to lower consumption reports more recent developments and offers some insights as food for further thought

combining voluntary agreements and taxes an evaluation of the danish agreement scheme on energy efficiency in industry abstract in this paper the danish agreement scheme on energy efficiency in industry is described and evaluated the basis for this evaluation is an implementation study of the agreement scheme and five evaluation criteria examining the practical considerations related to the choice of policy instruments a distinct feature of the danish scheme is that it is closely connected to a co2 tax on trade and industry this connection is important for the understanding and the functioning of the scheme the scheme has certain advantages the prevention of free riding is effective the scheme is flexible over time and the agreements do actually have an impact on firm behaviour but there are also drawbacks the administrative costs and search costs are high and the impact on innovation and networking among firms is low

does decreasing working time reduce environmental pressures new evidence based on dynamic panel approach abstract there is a growing interest in the correlation between working time and environmental pressures but prior empirical studies were mostly focused on static methods within limited country groups to fill the gap this study aims to stimulate the discussion by distinguishing between different time periods for developed and developing country groups respectively in particular we contribute to a further understanding of the environmental effects of working time reduction policies by comparing the differences under the dynamic framework of system generalized method of moments we applied this dynamic panel regression approach for 55 countries worldwide over the period 1980 2010 and employing carbon emissions per capita as the environmental indicator in general results confirmed the significant relationship between hours of work and environmental impacts in developed economies although this is not the case for the developing counterparts interestingly the significant correlations for the developed country group turned from positive during the first sub period 1980 2000 to negative during the second sub period 2001 2010 connecting these results with previous literature we proposed the reasons of rebound energy use derived from certain leisure activities which were more energy intensive if excessive non working time provided

analysis of the eu policy package on climate change and renewables abstract in 2009 the eu decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least by 20 in 2020 compared to 1990 and to supply 20 of energy needs by 2020 from renewable energy sources this paper uses an energy model coupled with a non co 2 greenhouse gas model to assess the range of policy options that were debated to meet both targets policy options include trading of renewable targets carbon trading in power plants and industry and the use of the clean development mechanism to improve cost efficiency the models also examined fairness by analysing the distribution of emission reduction in the non emission trading sector the distribution of co 2 allowances in the emission trading sector and the reallocation of renewable targets across member states the overall costs of meeting both targets range from 0 4 to 0 6 of gdp in 2020 for the eu as a whole the redistribution mechanisms employed significantly improve fairness compared to a cost effective solution

reform of refined oil product pricing mechanism and energy rebound effect for passenger transportation in china new huadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program of the energy foundation g 1203 15828 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013

rushing the impatient allowance reserves and the time profile of low carbon investments postponing the issue date of allowances in a cap and trade scheme by e g a reserve mechanism impacts the time profile of low carbon investments if the postponement constrains intertemporal arbitrage short term investments increase but long term investments are deterred this effect aggravates the shortage of long term investments at least partially attributed to firms impatience the cancellation of allowances agreed for phase iv of the eu ets is suitable to counteract the negative effects of cap neutral postponement on long term investments by making the reserve redundant all effects crucially depend on how firms form expectations about future allowance prices

event studies in management research theoretical and empirical issues we examined the use of event studies in management research and found that there was inadequate attention paid to theoretical and research design issues this lack of attention may lead to false in

the greenhouse effect the fallacies in the energy efficiency solution abstract the view that widespread improvements in energy efficiency can by themselves do anything to halt the build up of greenhouse gases around the globe is fundamentally unsound it is based on the same fallacies that underlie the claim that energy savings from improving efficiency can substitute for new energy supply the paper by keepin and kats1 claiming that per tonne of coal not burned improvements in energy efficiency are more cost effective than substituting nuclear for coal fired power is therefore an irrelevancy as far as this debate is concerned reductions is energy intensity of output that are not damaging to the economy are associated with increases not decreases in energy demand at the macroeconomic level even within the boundaries of their own flawed approach their attempt2 to refute the critique of their thesis made by jones3 was little more than misdirected grape shot with no discernable connected thread of argument

coherence causality and effectiveness of the eu environmental policy system results of complementary statistical and econometric analyses this paper presents the first empirical test of coherence i e consistency of policies within a framework causality i e logical priority of objectives over policies and effectiveness i e ability of policies to tackle challenges as defined by objectives of the overall eu environmental policy system to do so i applied complementary statistical cross sectional and time series and econometric dynamic tri probit analyses to an original panel dataset based on addressed issues i e pollution vs resource trans boundary vs domestic flow vs stock rather than on implemented policies i e eu legislation aiming at optimal pollution production optimal resource use and market competition it would be impossible to perform similar analyses by referring to realized policies rather than tackled issues due to the unbalanced sample characterizing the former with respect to the latter as well as due to overlapping objectives interrelated policies and non univocal relationships between objectives and policies in contrast with previous studies of single eu environmental policies characteristics of the eu environmental policy or eu environmental objectives i found that the overall eu environmental policy system is internally coherent dynamically causal and ex ante effective moreover the evidence suggests that many issues are correlated trans boundary issues became more relevant in 2012 pollution production was more significant than resource use and flow issues were more important than stock issues from 1995 to 2010 finally i show that few objectives overlapped a safe environment objective 1987 1997 was preferred to a greenhouse gas ghg reduction objective 2003 2012 but pursued with a 2 year lag although the latter has recently become preferred to the former in addition a ghg reduction objective was preferred to a sustainable development objective 1998 2002

investor response to health care cost containment legislation is american health policy designed to fail two failed congressional attempts to control escalating health costs are examined the data show that investors apparently anticipated their failure with the implementation of a policy encouraging market competition however investors expected larger firms to benefit and firms with previously high profit growth rates to lose from the viewpoint of the politics of structural choice it appears that identifiable structural flaws were deliberately designed into both laws in ways that would promote failure and protect key interest groups

how china s current carbon trading policy affects carbon price an investigation of the shanghai emission trading scheme pilot abstract to better establish a unified carbon market in china this study evaluates the effect of current carbon trading policy and further investigates the relationship between such policy that is published during the second phase of shanghai environment and energy exchange seee and shanghai emission allowance shea price we aim to analyze whether these policies can improve the operation efficiency of current carbon market by the mean reversion test cox ingersoll ross cir model and event study method we first analyze the potential price discovery function of shea products thereby describing the transmission channel of current policy to shea price then we examine the effect of carbon policies published in different periods on their corresponding shea price by the auto correlation test and cir simulation we find that 3 4 of all auto correlation values are less than 0 after apr 2017 and the minimum cumulative error is 31 3792 under the supply and demand channel these findings imply that shea price has the discovery function at the middle and end of trading period and the current policy affects shea price through its effect on the fundamentals of supply and demand further more than 60 of all r values r value that reflects the response of price to policy are less than 1 which implies that the published policy will improves future shea price accordingly we argue that seee belongs to a policy oriented market and the change of carbon price is closely related to emission allocation policies in this case china s government should further push forward the smooth operation of current carbon market by the aid of incentive policy in the coming period

the sufficiency strategy would rich world frugality lower environmental impact abstract one alleged weapon against unsustainable environmental impact is for the wealthy to consume less this sufficiency strategy is to complement the efficiency strategy of lowering ratios of resource inputs to economic outputs the former would reduce the affluence factor in i pat the latter the technology factor that the latter strategy suffers from a consumption rebound is widely recognized this paper identifies a similar rebound when the affluence factor is autonomously lowered the lower initial demand lowers prices which in turn stimulates new demand by others the strategy moreover addresses only the rich raising questions of its theoretical maximum efficacy its proponents usually conflate frugality with the north south dichotomy and intra generational with inter generational equity moreover there are difficulties with the supporting arguments that frugality is good for one s own sake as well as for the environment and that the rich should lead the way to living more lightly personal behaviour change is furthermore not a substitute for international political efforts finally since all changes in right side factors of the i pat equation change other right side factors such indirect attacks on impact should be abandoned in favor of supply and emissions quotas