how do market reforms affect china s responsiveness to environmental policy a large percentage of total investment in china is allocated by the central government at below market interest rates in pursuit of non economic objectives this has resulted in low rates of return and a high number of non performing loans threatening the future health of the chinese economy as a result reform of capital markets is a high priority of the chinese government at the same time the country is implementing various environmental policies to deal with serious pollution issues in this paper we ask how reforms of the capital market will affect the functioning of a carbon tax this allows us to assess how china s willingness to join global efforts to reduce carbon emissions is influenced by china s current efforts to reduce investment subsidies we compare the costs of a carbon tax in a reformed economy with the costs of a carbon tax in the current subsidized economy we find that in the subsidized economy the tax interaction effect dampens the effect of a carbon tax resulting in smaller reductions in emissions than what would result in a reformed economy importantly we also find that the effect on economic welfare from a carbon tax is lower in the subsidized economy in fact for lower levels of reductions the carbon tax is actually welfare improving these results have important implications for an economy undergoing economic transition the carbon tax rate required to achieve a certain level of emission reductions will be higher in an economy with capital subsidies however the welfare implications of the tax indicate that the current system with capital subsidies is highly distorting implying that there is a high efficiency cost for the non economic objectives the government is pursuing by maintaining this system of subsidies

corporate social responsibility for supply chain management a literature review and bibliometric analysis corporate social responsibility csr in supply chain management scm has gained an increasing research attention in recent years extant studies have discussed stakeholder interests performance evaluation ethical sourcing and sustainable production the purpose of this paper is to develop a systematic study quantitatively depicting the knowledge structure and the intellectual progress of csr for scm this research adopts bibliometric analysis in conjunction with network analysis to systematically evaluate the csr related publications for scm the analysis involves 628 peer reviewed articles identified with careful selection of influential work data analytic techniques including citation analysis co citation analysis and co word analysis are used key findings for researchers include 1 an analytical discussion of the five sub fields that constitute the intellectual structure of csr for scm 2 theoretical and conceptual research significantly dominate in this field 3 the topics of sustainable development and economic and social effects are more frequently discussed among scholars 4 key research gaps include lacking of practical and normative modeling research and considering from the supplier perspectives in emerging economies the findings suggest that future research would emerge a greater depth of practical and modeling analysis to enrich the theories

commuting transport tax reform and the labour market employer paid parking and the relative efficiency of revenue recycling instruments in this paper the welfare effects of a budget neutral increase in taxes on car commuters are studied in a model that takes into account the presence of employer paid parking at the workplace it is found that the presence of employer paid parking substantially increases the welfare effect of such a tax reform independent of the use of the revenues congestion taxes not only correct congestion externalities they also reduce the inefficiency caused by employer paid parking moreover different congestion effects of alternative recycling instruments and the presence of employer paid parking jointly imply that recycling the tax revenues via higher public transport subsidies may yield much more favourable welfare effects than previously believed it can easily outperform recycling the tax revenues via lower labour taxes finally cashing out parking costs to public transport users is found to generate substantial positive welfare effects numerical analysis confirms the theory

re analyzing the economic impact of a global bunker emissions charge abstract regulating bunker emissions continues to be a challenging task largely due to the lack of a globally coordinated scheme providing economic and political incentives to potential participating countries this paper analyses the economic costs and benefits of imposing a global carbon tax on international bunker emissions by employing a computable general equilibrium model approach under the assumption of an emissions reduction of 5 below 2000 levels by 2020 we demonstrate that a global bunker emissions charge on one hand reduces trade volume and change trade patterns between countries and regions while on the other hand accelerates the adoption of energy saving technologies and reallocates the supply of international transportation services throughout the world the net economic impact though negative on average is modest compared to the benefits obtained from the emissions reduction if revenues from a bunker emissions charge are properly distributed among countries and regions the losses to disadvantaged countries are likely to be offset by the benefits to advantaged countries this finding provides useful insights for policy makers a global bunker emissions charge could in future be an economically feasible strategy to reduce the increasing bunker emissions through the implementation requires more political effort and wisdom

meta analysis in model implementation choice sets and the valuation of air quality improvements this research illustrates how the methods developed for meta analysis can serve to document and summarize voluminous information derived from repeated sensitivity analyses our application is to the sensitivity of welfare estimates derived from discrete choice models to assumptions about the choice set these assumptions affect welfare estimates through both the estimated parameters of the model and conditional on the parameters the substitution among alternatives in our specific application the evaluation is in terms of estimated benefits of air quality improvements in los angeles based on discrete choices of neighborhood and housing copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

pricing of fluctuations in electricity markets abstract in an electric power system demand fluctuations may result in significant ancillary cost to suppliers furthermore in the near future deep penetration of volatile renewable electricity generation is expected to exacerbate the variability of demand on conventional thermal generating units we address this issue by explicitly modeling the ancillary cost associated with demand variability we argue that a time varying price equal to the suppliers instantaneous marginal cost may not achieve social optimality and that consumer demand fluctuations should be properly priced we propose a dynamic pricing mechanism that explicitly encourages consumers to adapt their consumption so as to offset the variability of demand on conventional units through a dynamic game theoretic formulation we show that under suitable convexity assumptions the proposed pricing mechanism achieves social optimality asymptotically as the number of consumers increases to infinity numerical results demonstrate that compared with marginal cost pricing the proposed mechanism creates a stronger incentive for consumers to shift their peak load and therefore has the potential to reduce the need for long term investment in peaking plants

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

responsible retailing the practice of csr in banana plantations in costa rica during the last 10 years or so a number of corporate social responsibility csr initiatives have been introduced in global supply chains which aim to improve the conditions of workers engaged in producing goods for export this article discusses the observations of csr in practice in the costa rican united kingdom uk banana chain the banana chain makes for an interesting case study because there are dominant corporate actors at each end who are in a position to influence the conditions experienced by workers on banana plantations at the top of the chain there are four major uk supermarket groups who control access to the retail market and as self appointed guardians of consumer interest are demanding that producers adopt more socially responsible practices at the other end banana production is highly integrated and controlled by three large north american agri businesses who have developed their own social and environmental certification programmes costa rica also makes for an interesting country to locate the study as it has a tradition of state led policies to protect worker rights yet in spite of csr commitments made by both supermarkets and producers that emphasise health and safety and the country s established labour law this article shows that there are problems for workers when they are forced to meet demanding production schedules furthermore it suggests that whilst supermarkets continue to drive down consumer prices and put pressure on producers to reduce costs a downward spiral of working conditions is created regardless of the csr policies in place however this article also identifies that changes to supermarket behaviour is possible when consumer trust is at stake

inter linking issues and dimensions in sustainability reporting during the last decade sustainability reporting sr has been increasingly adopted by corporations worldwide this is evidenced by the adoption of several guidelines such as the iso 14000 series the social accountability 8000 standard and the gri sustainability guidelines sr shows promise to help corporate leaders and their employees to contribute towards achieving sustainable societies however most of the guidelines and standards address sustainability issues through comparmentalisation thereby leading to the separation of the economic environmental and social dimensions due to these divisive approaches holistic assessments of the effects of their efforts are seldom properly integrated into coporate decisions and procedures to make improvements for example through cleaner production worker health and safety consumer safety and reductions in the negative short and long term social and environmental impacts this paper analyses sr reports from three companies with the help of grounded theory s constant comparative analysis this analytical framework helped the authors to systematically assess the degree to which the companies addressed economic ecological and social issues separately or in an integrated and inter linked manner from the inter linkages found a new category is proposed to be added to future sr this new category can help corporate sr planners and researchers on sustainability reports to better understand how the company leaders understand their responsibilities with regard to sd these inter connectednesses are highly relevant in many short and long term dimensions of supply chain management global warming ecological disruption and societal equity issues especially with regard to the local national and global energy issues of fuels and oils the central themes of the conference at which this paper was originally presented it also plays a key role in real long term changes towards sustainability where the time dimension plays a key role in human survival on planet earth

up scaling formative phases and learning in the historical diffusion of energy technologies the 20th century has witnessed wholesale transformation in the energy system marked by the pervasive diffusion of both energy supply and end use technologies just as whole industries have grown so too have unit sizes or capacities analysed in combination these unit level and industry level growth patterns reveal some consistencies across very different energy technologies first the up scaling or increase in unit size of an energy technology comes after an often prolonged period of experimentation with many smaller scale units second the peak growth phase of an industry can lag these increases in unit size by up to 20 years third the rate and timing of up scaling at the unit level is subject to countervailing influences of scale economies and heterogeneous market demand these observed patterns have important implications for experience curve analyses based on time series data covering the up scaling phases of energy technologies as these are likely to conflate industry level learning effects with unit level scale effects the historical diffusion of energy technologies also suggests that low carbon technology policies pushing for significant jumps in unit size before a formative phase of experimentation with smaller scale units are risky

valuation of natural resource improvements in the adirondacks for 20 years acid rain in the adirondack park has been a central issue in the debate about clean air regulation based on a contingent valuation survey of new york residents our study quantifies the total economic value of expected ecological improvements in the park from forthcoming policies our preferred estimates of the mean household willingness to pay range from 48 to 107 annually which imply total statewide benefits ranging from 336 million to 749 million annually alternative assumptions about ecological changes yield benefits up to 1 1 billion the instrument passes external scope sensitivity to bid and sample selection tests

the economic and environmental impact of a carbon tax for scotland a computable general equilibrium analysis using a disaggregated energy economy environmental model we investigate the economic and environmental impact of a scottish specific carbon tax under three alternative assumptions about the use of the revenue raised by the tax revenues raised are not recycled within scotland revenues are used to increase general government expenditure or to reduce scottish income tax we find that by imposing a tax of 50 per tonne of co2 the 37 co2 reduction target is met with a very rapid adjustment in all three cases if the model incorporates forward looking behaviour however the adjustment is much slower if agents are myopic in addition the results of the model suggest that a carbon tax might simultaneously stimulate economic activity whilst reducing emissions and thus secure a double dividend but only for the case in which the revenue is recycled through income tax

renewable resource use and nonseparable amenity benefits we incorporate amenity benefits into an overlapping generations model with a renewable resource as a factor of production source of amenity benefits and store of value unlike the conventional renewable resource problems studied under the assumption of additive consumption and amenity benefits we let amenity benefits affect the utility of consumers in a nonseparable fashion we examine the role that weights given to consumption and amenities have for harvesting and the resource stock we characterize dynamics and stability of steady state equilibria with a logistic resource growth function we demonstrate in parametric and numerical models that the weights given to consumption and amenities in the utility function matter substantially for the steady state equilibrium stock and its stability and dynamics both conventional saddle point equilibria and indeterminacy with infinite number of equilibria and saddle node bifurcation is possible depending on the weights given to consumption and amenities in addition we show that for each inefficient equilibrium stock there is a unique subsidy rate that can move the economy from an inefficient equilibrium to an efficient one the presence of indeterminacy provides a challenge to resource policies because the system becomes unpredictable therefore expectations and market psychology may play an important role in resource utilization and provision of amenities

carbon taxation when climate affects productivity optimal carbon taxation is evaluated in a model where climate change affects productivity with a numerical us economy model with preexisting taxes the optimal carbon tax is found to exceed marginal social damage by 53 percent and marginal private damage the sum of households marginal willingness to pay by 73 percent the welfare gain from optimal carbon taxation is estimated at 3 58 billion per year when marginal damages are 40 ton employment also increases setting the carbon tax at the pigouvian rate raises welfare by only 3 17 billion the contrasting results in the tax interaction literature are due to the use of marginal private damage when applied to amenity externalities

effects of carbon taxes in an economy with prior tax distortions an intertemporal general equilibrium analysis abstract this paper analyzes the costs of carbon taxes in a model that recognizes interactions between this tax and pre existing taxes first we examine the extent to which costs of a u s carbon tax are reduced when its revenues finance cuts in income taxes such use of revenues significantly reduces but does not eliminate the overall policy costs the positive overall costs reflect the carbon tax s focus on intermediate inputs and its relatively narrow base in comparison with income taxes we also examine the sensitivity of the carbon tax s costs to the level of pre existing taxes for any given use of revenues welfare costs rise significantly with pre existing tax rates indicating that models disregarding pre existing taxes may substantially understate the costs of new environmental tax initiatives

the role of public policy in optimizing renewable energy development in the greater southern appalachian mountains abstract this research presents a third component of a comprehensive decision support system for energy planning that allows for combining existing electricity generating capabilities with increased use of renewable energy sources it focuses on energy planning at the regional level and concentrates specifically on the greater southern appalachian mountains of the eastern united states a region that was chosen for analysis not only due to its heavy dependence on coal for electricity but also because of its potential for increased use of wind and solar power previous research used a geographic information system gis model for identifying renewable energy potential to provide input data for a multi objective linear programming molp model to determine the optimal constrained mix of renewable energy sources and existing fossil fuel facilities by balancing annual generation costs against the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions this new component of the system analyzes three potential public policies renewable portfolio standard carbon tax and renewable energy production tax credit that have been used to foster increased renewable energy usage these policies require minor modifications to the molp model for implementation the results of these policy cases were then analyzed to determine the impact that these policies have on generation cost and pollution emissions within the region

supply chain specific understanding the patchy success of ethical sourcing initiatives as a number of high profile companies have found to their cost corporate reputations can be significantly affected by firms management of sustainability issue including those that are outside their direct control such as the environmental and social impacts of their supply networks this paper begins by examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility reputation and supply network conditions it then looks at the effectiveness of one tool for managing supply network sustainability issues ethical sourcing codes of conduct by examining how the characteristics of three supply networks branded clothes diy wood products and branded confectionary affects the implementation ethical sourcing codes of conduct it ends by setting out conclusions on why implementation of such codes has been so much more successful in some sectors than others and recommendations on effective approaches to managing sustainability issues in supply networks

non price equilibria for non marketed goods abstract as part of the resources for the future frontiers of environmental economics collection of papers we consider the problem of general equilibrium feedback effects in non price space as they relate to non market valuation our overall objective is to examine the extent to which non price equilibria arising from both simple and complex sorting behavior can be empirically modeled and the resulting differences in partial and general equilibrium welfare measures quantified after motivating the problem in general we consider the specific context of congestion in recreation demand applications which we classify as the outcome of a simple sorting equilibrium using both econometric and computable general equilibrium cge models we examine the conceptual and computational challenges associated with this class of problems and present findings on promising solution avenues we demonstrate the relevance of accounting for congestion effects in recreation demand with an application to lake visits in iowa our econometric and cge results confirm that for some plausible counterfactual scenarios substantial differences exist between partial and general equilibrium welfare estimates we conclude the paper by describing tasks that are needed to move forward research in this area

network externality perspective of feed in tariffs fit instruments some observations and suggestions abstract existing energy policy frameworks revolving around the acceleration of deployment 1 of renewable energy technology can be broadly classified as the quantity vs price approach with this brief viewpoint this paper suggests another perspective of viewing these instruments in terms of a more fundamental basis whether the deployment in capacity is in terms of a cost minimization approach or a network externality approach we suggest that the generic price or feed in tariff fit approach in subsidizing renewable electricity generation and associated income would create a bandwagon or self propagation effect among users rendering the renewable energy technology spreads like a software or information technology our objective is to raise awareness of this technology dynamics oriented perspective in renewable deployment supplementing the conventional installation subsidies perspective we hope that it would inspire more empirical works and studies relating to the policy implications of this viewpoint

emergence of new economics energy transition models a review abstract well known academic and non academic institutions call for a new approach in economics able to capture features of modern economies including but not limited to complexity non equilibrium and uncertainty in this paper we provide a systematic review of ecological macroeconomic models that are suitable for the investigation of low carbon energy transitions and assess them based on the features considered desirable for a new approach in economics we draw two main conclusions firstly the knowledge base and structure of these existing ecological macroeconomic models are relevant alongside other types of models for the creation of a new approach in economics secondly the reviewed models are policy relevant especially in the context of the complexity and urgency of rapid energy transitions where increasingly policymakers require economic models able to capture real world characteristics however further improvements are needed to these models and future research should focus on i assuring comparability of models results and their policy insights ii incorporation of the relationships between macroeconomics finance and sustainability and iii the institutionalization of a new approach in economics

the economics of dams dams provide a host of benefits to societies helping to balance variability in water availability with demand for multiple uses allowing power generation providing and enhancing recreation opportunities and offering protection against damaging floods yet dams are often controversial due to their high investment requirements unequal distributional effects and concerns over the irreparable harm they may cause to free flowing rivers and ecosystems this paper considers the economic case for such projects organized around a review of what we know about their value and impacts though heterogeneity across contexts is a common feature of interventions in many sectors we argue that it is particularly acute in the case of dams and that this creates difficulties for drawing general conclusions about their social value still evidence suggests that investment in additional surface water storage may not always be the best solution for addressing water scarcity furthermore a number of biases and blind spots exist in economic frameworks used to evaluate dams and these often challenge analysts ability to correctly identify which projects will be most attractive perhaps due to some of these perceived deficiencies policy makers do not appear to make much use of economic analyses for decision making about dams if progress is to be made in avoiding costly mistakes related to construction and removal of such infrastructures in the future economists need to improve the realism and methods underlying their analyses of the value of dams and offer more useful interpretations of the results that these approaches produce

the substantial bias from ignoring general equilibrium effects in estimating excess burden and a practical solution we show that under typical conditions the simple excess burden triangle formula substantially underestimates the excess burden of commodity taxes in some cases by a factor of 10 or more this formula performs poorly because it ignores general equilibrium interactions most important interactions between the taxed commodity and the labor market many prior studies have shown that general equilibrium interactions affect excess burden but have not appreciated the bias associated with ignoring these interactions or the quantitative importance of this bias we derive an implementable alternative to the simple formula this alternative formula captures interactions that the simple formula omits as a result it is both unbiased and usually more accurate

ftt power a global model of the power sector with induced technological change and natural resource depletion abstract this work introduces a model of future technology transformations for the power sector ftt power a representation of global power systems based on market competition induced technological change itc and natural resource use and depletion it is the first component of a family of sectoral bottom up models of technology designed for integration into the global macroeconometric model e3mg itc occurs as a result of technological learning produced by cumulative investment and leads to highly nonlinear irreversible and path dependent technological transitions the model uses a dynamic coupled set of logistic differential equations as opposed to traditional bottom up energy models based on systems optimisation such differential equations offer an appropriate treatment of the times and structure of change involved in sectoral technology transformations as well as a much reduced computational load resource use and depletion are represented by local cost supply curves which give rise to different regional energy landscapes the model is explored for a single global region using two simple scenarios a baseline and a mitigation case where the price of carbon is gradually increased while a constant price of carbon leads to a stagnant system mitigation produces successive technology transitions leading towards the gradual decarbonisation of the global power sector

valuing nature in a general equilibrium abstract we explore the consequences of modeling the demand for environmental quality improvements as a fully integrated part of a general equilibrium demand system in an applied general equilibrium or cge analysis demand for non market goods depends on a full range of relative prices as well as environmental outcomes we simulate the effects of reducing two air pollutants to improve human health and three ecosystem services provided to households the ecosystem services make non separable contributions to household utility we find that willingness to pay measures of use based ecosystem services are impacted by changes in demand for complementary market goods demand for these goods shifts due to pollution reductions that enhance ecosystem services partial equilibrium estimates of these use values can be measured with substantial error if they fail to account for the general equilibrium adjustments caused by pollution over 300 calibrations of the model identify the model features important to these errors we find that effects on ecosystem services associated with non use values have important implications for the feedback effects on use related measures of economic tradeoffs this is due to how our model integrates market and non market effects reflecting the non market services importance to general equilibrium market outcomes

capital investment for optimal exploitation of renewable resource stocks in the age of global change abstract the world is rapidly changing and biotic resources and their users are adapting determining how ecological and economic interactions determine the outcomes of this adaptation is critical to understanding the future of natural resources we model a two species fisheries as a stylized system to investigate the adaptation strategies of a harvester faced with shifting species composition in an ecological community we explore how interspecies interactions and pricing effects jointly determine the optimal adaptation strategy we consider two interacting species that are harvested jointly but where the harvester may exert effort towards each species differentially provided she invests in reproducible capital that allows targeting the possible adaptation strategies comprise changes in how people interact with natural capital for example changing harvest levels and investment in reproducible or human capital which may be a substitute or complement for natural capital stocks we find that the market price of the harvested species exerts a particularly strong impact on the adaptation strategy all else equal unequal prices tends to drive extreme targeting or avoidance of a new species economic and ecological factors can necessitate investment at equilibrium and early transient management decisions for beneficial species may like with nuisance species produce large benefits

csr practices and corporate strategy evidence from a longitudinal case study this paper aims to contribute to the present debate about business ethics and corporate social responsibility csr that the journal of business ethics is hosting numerous contributions argued theoretical frameworks and taxonomies of csr practices the authors want to ground in this knowledge and provide further evidence about how companies adopt csr practices to address stakeholders claims and consolidate their trust evidence was provided by a longitudinal case study about an italian food company that is one of the largest producers of baby food this company reshaped its corporate strategy along three decades through the adoption of csr practices in order to win stakeholders trust about food safety and supply chain behaviour the empirical exercise was informed by a literature review of the relevant contributions in terms of csr business practices and levels of efforts to adopt them in light of this review the authors adopted for the research framework the taxonomy of business practices proposed by spiller 2000 ethical business and investment a model for business and society journal of business ethics27 149 160 and the levels of commitment towards csr proposed by stahl and grigsby 1997 strategic management total quality global competition blackwell oxford the main findings are discussed in order to argue theoretical implications and identify further areas of research and debate

designing a climate change policy for the international maritime transport sector market based measures and technological options for global and regional policy actions abstract the international maritime transport sector has a significant abatement potential and some technical improvements that reduce ghg emissions would already be profitable without any policy in place this paper analyses in depth the limits and opportunities of policy options currently under consideration at the international level to stimulate the sector to reduce its ghg emissions in particular in order for the maritime transport sector to become more environmentally friendly the flexible nature of international market based measures and the european union emission trading scheme provide a definite window of opportunity without placing unnecessary high burden on the sector however the development of a regional policy such as at european level for the international maritime transport sector faces several obstacles allocation of emissions carbon leakage permit allocation treatment of the great variety in ship type size and usage and transaction cost global market based policies could overcome most of these challenges this paper provides an in depth analysis of the policy instruments currently under discussion to reduce the sector s burden on the environment and focuses on economic theory legal principles technological options and the political framework that together make up the basis of decision making regarding the international maritime transport sector s climate change policies

assessing global resource use and greenhouse emissions to 2050 with ambitious resource efficiency and climate mitigation policies achieving sustainable development requires the decoupling of natural resource use and environmental pressures from economic growth and improvements in living standards g7 leaders and others have called for improved resource efficiency along with inclusive economic growth and deep cuts in global greenhouse emissions however the outlooks for and interactions between global natural resource use resource efficiency economic growth and greenhouse emissions are not well understood we use a novel multi regional modeling framework to develop projections to 2050 under existing trends and three policy scenarios we find that resource efficiency could provide pro growth pro environment policies with global benefits of usd 2 4 trillion in 2050 and ease the politics of shifting towards sustainability under existing trends resource extraction is projected to increase 119 from 2015 to 2050 from 84 to 184 billion tonnes per annum while greenhouse gas emissions increase 41 both driven by the value of global economic activity more than doubling resource efficiency and greenhouse abatement slow the growth of global resource extraction so that in 2050 it is up to 28 lower than in existing trends resource efficiency reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 15 20 in 2050 with global emissions falling to 63 below 2015 levels when combined with a 2 c emissions pathway in contrast to greenhouse abatement resource efficiency boosts near term economic growth these economic gains more than offset the near term costs of shifting to a 2 c emissions pathway resulting in emissions in 2050 well below current levels slower growth in resource extractions and faster economic growth

trade and the environment with pre existing subsidies a dynamic general equilibrium analysis abstract countries that wish to erect trade barriers have a variety of instruments at their disposal in addition to tariffs and quotas countries can offer tax relief low interest financing reduced regulation and other subsidies to domestic industries facing foreign competition in a trade agreement countries typically agree to reduce not only tariffs but also subsidies we consider the effect of a free trade agreement on pollution emissions we show that while reducing tariffs may indeed increase output and pollution reductions in some subsides required by the trade agreement reduce pollution in general equilibrium for reasonable parameter values reducing subsidies has three effects on pollution 1 reducing subsidies to firms reduces pollution causing capital accumulation 2 if subsidized firms are more pollution intensive then reducing subsides moves capital and labor from more to less pollution intensive firms and 3 reducing subsidies concentrates production in more productive firms increasing output and thus pollution we derive straightforward conditions for which 1 and 2 outweigh 3 we then calibrate the model to china in 1997 and find that pollution has a more elastic response to reducing subsidies than to reducing tariffs while a 5 reduction in tariffs increases all pollutants by approximately 1 a 5 reduction in subsidies reduces pollution by 1 8 11 6 depending on the pollutant the reductions in pollution occur without any environmental side agreements or abatement policy changes

energy taxation and the double dividend effect in taiwan s energy conservation policy an empirical study using a computable general equilibrium model abstract faced with pressure from greenhouse gas reductions and energy price hikes the taiwan government is in the process of developing an energy tax regime to reflect environmental external costs and effectively curb energy consumption as well as mitigate co2 emissions through an adequate pricing system this study utilizes a cge model to simulate and analyze the economic impacts of the draft energy tax bill and its complementary fiscal measures under the assumption of tax revenue neutrality the use of energy tax revenue generated for the purpose of reducing income tax is the best choice with double dividend effects since it will effectively stimulate domestic consumption and investment and consequently mitigate the negative impacts of the distortionary tax regime the double dividend effect is less significant however when the supplementary measures being used are for government expenditure nevertheless all supplementary measures have effectively reduced energy consumption which means they have delivered at least the first dividend in the sense of co2 emissions control it has been verified in this study that having adequate public finance policy measures is the key to realizing the double dividend effect

responsive regulation and developing economies summary developing states with limited regulatory capacity might benefit from a responsive approach to regulation responsive regulation is a democratic ideal incorporating notions of deliberative democracy and restorative justice responsive regulation conducted by regulatory networks of governmental and non governmental actors allows for networking around capacity deficits ngos play a vital role in this kind of regulation by utilizing ngos and local social pressure developing countries might develop a regulatory society model bypassing the regulatory state where capacity remains limited private bounty hunting such as fees for successful private prosecutions may become an appealing tool for achieving certain regulatory objectives

the dynamics of technology diffusion and the impacts of climate policy instruments in the decarbonisation of the global electricity sector this paper presents an analysis of climate policy instruments for the decarbonisation of the global electricity sector in a non equilibrium economic and technology diffusion perspective energy markets are driven by innovation path dependent technology choices and diffusion however conventional optimisation models lack detail on these aspects and have limited ability to address the effectiveness of policy interventions because they do not represent decision making as a result known effects of technology lock ins are liable to be underestimated in contrast our approach places investor decisionmaking at the core of the analysis and investigates how it drives the diffusion of low carbon technology in a highly disaggregated hybrid global macroeconometric model ftt power e3mg ten scenarios to 2050 of the electricity sector in 21 regions exploring combinations of electricity policy instruments are analysed including their climate impacts we show that in a diffusion and path dependent perspective the impact of combinations of policies does not correspond to the sum of impacts of individual instruments synergies exist between policy tools we argue that the carbon price required to break the current fossil technology lock in can be much lower when combined with other policies and that a 90 decarbonisation of the electricity sector by 2050 is affordable without early scrapping 2014 the authors published by elsevier ltd this is an open access article under the cc by license

a two level dynamic game of carbon emission trading between russia china and annex b countries this paper proposes a computable dynamic game model of the strategic competition between russia and developing countries dcs mainly represented by china on the international market of emission permits created by the kyoto protocol the model uses a formulation of i a demand function for permits from annex b countries and ii marginal abatement costs mac in russia and china provided by two detailed models gemini e3 is a computable general equilibrium model that provides the data to estimate annex b demand for permits and macs in russia poles is a partial equilibrium model that is used to obtain mac curves for china the competitive scenario is compared with a monopoly situation where only russia is allowed to play strategically the impact of allowing dcs to intervene on the international emission trading market is thus assessed

optimal dynamic carbon taxes in a climate economy model with distortionary fiscal policy how should carbon be taxed as a part of fiscal policy the literature on optimal carbon pricing often abstracts from other taxes however when governments raise revenues with distortionary taxes carbon levies have fiscal impacts while they raise revenues directly they may shrink the bases of other taxes e g by decreasing employment this article theoretically characterizes and then quantifies optimal carbon taxes in a dynamic general equilibrium climate economy model with distortionary fiscal policy first this article establishes a novel theoretical relationship between the optimal taxation of carbon and of capital income this link arises because carbon emissions destroy natural capital they accumulate in the atmosphere and decrease future output consequently this article shows how the standard logic against capital income taxes extends to distortions on environmental capital investments second this article characterizes optimal climate policy in sub optimal fiscal settings where income taxes are constrained to remain at their observed levels third this article presents a detailed calibration that builds on the seminal dice approach but adds features essential for a setting with distortionary taxes such as a differentiation between climate change production impacts e g on agriculture and direct utility impacts e g on biodiversity existence value the central quantitative finding is that optimal carbon tax schedules are 8 24 lower when there are distortionary taxes compared to the setting with lump sum taxes considered in the literature

evaluating policy interventions with general equilibrium externalities abstract we report on the results of analytical and numerical models that describe the effects of non separable externalities or public goods on public policies with important general equilibrium consequences in the numerical exercise we calibrate a general equilibrium model with non separable air quality benefits in order to measure the excess burden and total net benefits of transportation and energy taxes in the 1995 u s economy the change in the physical level and the economic value in air quality associated with a given policy is a function of the substitution patterns between air quality and market goods that we assume the size of the deadweight loss due to pre existing distortions such as a tax on labor income is substantially affected by these substitution patterns

dynamics of supply chain networks with corporate social responsibility through integrated environmental decision making in this paper we develop a dynamic framework for the modeling and analysis of supply chain networks with corporate social responsibility through integrated environmental decision making through a multilevel supply chain network we model the multicriteria decision making behavior of the various decision makers manufacturers retailers and consumers which includes the maximization of profit the minimization of emission waste and the minimization of risk we explore the dynamic evolution of the product flows the associated product prices as well as the levels of social responsibility activities on the network until an equilibrium pattern is achieved we provide some qualitative properties of the dynamic trajectories under suitable assumptions and propose a discrete time algorithm which is then applied to track the evolution of the levels of social responsibility activities product flows and prices over time we illustrate the model and computational procedure with several numerical examples

energy taxes in the netherlands what are the dividends in this paper the environmental and economic effects of the introduction of a unilateral energy tax in the netherlands are analysed using an applied general equilibrium age model the effects of a small user energy tax and a general energy tax are compared while taking into account different tax recycling mechanisms the model contains a great level of detail with respect to emissions and environmental indicators greenhouse effect acidification eutrophication and waste which is helpful for assessing environmental quality the results show that the introduction of a small environmental tax reform not only improves the environment but also raises non environmental welfare which is due to an improvement of the efficiency of the tax structure

technological change in economic models of environmental policy a survey this paper provides an overview of the treatment of technological change in economic models of environmental policy numerous economic modeling studies have confirmed the sensitivity of mid and long run climate change mitigation cost and benefit projections to assumptions about technology costs in general technical progress is considered to be a noneconomic exogenous variable in global climate change modeling however there is overwhelming evidence that technological change is not an exogenous variable but to an important degree endogenous induced by needs and pressures hence some environmenteconomy models treat technological change as endogenous responding to socio economic variables three main elements in models of technological innovation are i corporate investment in research and development ii spillovers from r d and iii technology learning especially learning by doing the incorporation of induced technological change in different types of environmental economic models tends to reduce the costs of environmental policy accelerates abatement and may lead to positive spillover and negative leakage

coasean bargaining in the presence of pigouvian taxation coasean arguments against the pigouvian perspective are well established a central tenet in this criticism argues that a pigouvian tax may be a source of inefficiency if parties were to bargain in the presence of a pigouvian tax allocative inefficiencies would occur the so called buchanan stubblebine turvey theorem by analyzing a coasean environment where the appropriation of property rights is costly we show coasean bargaining in the presence of a pre existing pigouvian tax may be superior this has implications for policy where dual regulatory environments exist such as regulation at the state and federal level as well as environmental liability and litigation

optimal environmental border adjustments under the general agreement on tariffs and trade a country choosing to adopt border carbon adjustments based on embodied emissions is motivated by both environmental and strategic incentives we argue that the strategic component is inconsistent with commitments under the general agreement on tariffs and trade gatt we extend the theory of border adjustments to neutralize the strategic incentive and consider the remaining environmental incentive in a simplified structure the theory supports border adjustments on carbon content that are below the domestic carbon price because price signals sent through border adjustments inadvertently encourage consumption of emissions intensive goods in unregulated regions the theoretic intuition is supported in our applied numeric simulations countries imposing border adjustments at the domestic carbon price will be extracting rents from unregulated regions at the expense of efficient environmental policy and consistency with international trade law

impact of cap and trade policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions on u s households abstract proposals being considered by the u s congress would establish a cap and trade system to cut greenhouse gas ghg emissions approximately 2 annually through 2050 past cap and trade policies for other pollutants have distributed allowances free to the regulated companies leaving consumers uncompensated for passed through costs needed to achieve the required reductions social equity concerns were not a major issue because the total costs were relatively small however americans currently spend about 1 trillion year on energy directly and indirectly via the goods and services they consume if a cap on carbon emissions results in significant increases in energy prices social equity concerns could quickly dominate the debate over climate policy this paper confirms earlier studies that a traditional cap and trade policy is regressive and would cause the cost of reducing ghg emissions to fall disproportionately on low income households this paper explores ways to ameliorate those effects using highly disaggregated data available on consumer expenditures and energy input output analyses of the u s economy emissions are estimated based on direct and embodied energy use at the household level social equity concerns are taken into account and the consequences of cap and trade policies are assessed by quantifying the extent to which the expenditure patterns of the poor are significantly more energy intensive than those of the rich

demand pull instruments and the development of wind power in europe a counterfactual analysis renewable energy technologies are called to play a crucial role in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions since most of these technologies did not yet reach grid parity public policies have been implemented in order to foster their deployment the approach that has been privileged in europe is the demand pull approach that aims at creating a demand for these new technologies and at stimulating their diffusion this paper examines the effect of demand pull policies on the diffusion of onshore wind power technology in six european countries denmark france germany italy portugal and spain in a first step a micro founded model of diffusion is calibrated in order to replicate the observed diffusion of wind power in these six countries in a second step a counterfactual analysis is conducted by investigating several scenarios by taking into account the complex self sustained dynamics of diffusion and the learning spillovers that operate in the wind power sector we can derive several insights about demand pull policies first the impact of a demand pull policy on the diffusion of wind power is determined by the stage at which it comes to support it the effect seems to be stronger at the beginning of the diffusion second international spillovers do operate in the wind power sector these international spillovers however are not strong enough to foster the diffusion of wind power in a country having no demand pull support we can derive from these two statements that a strategy consisting in not implementing any demand pull policy with the expectation that international spillovers will reduce the cost of wind power and foster the diffusion of the technology that then shall become competitive is not a good option for a country targeting a high share of wind power in its energy mix

business codes of multinational firms what do they say business codes are an oft cited management instrument but how common are codes among multinationals and what is their content in an unprecedented study the codes of the largest corporations in the world have been collected and thoroughly analyzed this paper presents the results of that study of the 200 largest companies in the world 52 5 have a code more than half f these codes describe company responsibilities regarding quality of products and services 67 adherence to local laws and regulations 57 and the protection of the natural environment 56 many codes make reference to principles governing stake holder relations e g transparency 55 honesty 50 and fairness 45 corporate core values e g teamwork 43 appropriate conduct among employees e g discrimination 44 and intimidation 43 and treatment of company property by employees e g conflict of interests 52 corruption 46 and fraud 45 monitoring compliance with the code is addressed in 52 of the codes based on this content study three types of codes are distinguished the stakeholder statute 72 the values statement 49 and the code of conduct 46 the results of this inquiry present a benchmark for the evaluation and development of both individual and international business codes

the impacts of the trade liberalization of environmental goods on power system and co2 emissions abstract the trade liberalization of environmental goods eg through as environmental goods agreement ega is crucial in low carbon electricity technology diffusion however there is a big gap of the eg definition lists and the integrated effectiveness analysis of ega this paper analyses the effects of the trade liberalization of eg based on macroeconomic and electricity sector models and attempts to find a more efficient eg trade policy by comparing different eg lists considering end use control and combining the eg policy with a carbon tax the results show that the trade liberalization of eg does not necessarily benefit the environment without other policies as the effects of the multiple end uses of eg on conventional energy might result in environmental damage we find that merging an ega into a global carbon tax system would enhance the effects of carbon tax on co2 reduction by 33 and simultaneously lower the gdp loss due to the carbon tax by 75 the economic benefits from the ega could offset the costs of other environmental policies thus end use control and other environmental policies should be considered at both the global and regional levels in the setting of international trade agreements that target eg

latent tastes incomplete stratification and the plausibility of vertical sorting models this paper uses the 2011 phoenix area social survey to evaluate the plausibility of the assumptions made with pure characteristics sorting models to rationalize incomplete stratification of households across local communities by income the analysis with the new ecological paradigm a well recognized index of environmental attitudes confirms the correlations in equilibrium outcomes implied by these models as a result it provides the first empirical support for the role of differences in the tastes for public goods as one explanation that provides the rationale for the commonly observed sorting outcomes

measuring welfare loss caused by air pollution in europe a cge analysis abstract to evaluate the socio economic impacts of air pollution we develop an integrated approach based on computable general equilibrium cge applying our approach to 18 western european countries shows that even there where air quality is relatively high compared with other parts of the world health related damages caused by air pollution may be substantial we estimate that as of 2005 europe experienced an annual loss in consumption of about 220 billion euro in year 2000 prices about 3 of total consumption with a range based on 95 high and low epidemiological response functions of 107 335 billion euro and a total welfare loss of about 370 billion euro range of 209 550 including both consumption and broader welfare losses around 2 of welfare level due to the accumulated effects of three decades of air pollution in europe in addition we estimate that a set of air quality improvement policy scenarios as proposed in the 2005 cafe program would bring 18 european countries as a whole a welfare gain of 37 49 billion euro year 2000 prices in year 2020 alone

developing social capital in buyer supplier relationships the contingent effect of relationship specific adaptations abstract strategic buyer supplier relationships are increasingly viewed in both the scholarly and practitioner literatures as key drivers of sustainable competitive advantage in particular relationship specific adaptations the extent to which exchange members make tangible or intangible adaptations for a partner are acknowledged as one of the central issues such adaptations need to be examined in context taking into consideration the social ties that connect a firm and its suppliers using the lens of social capital we examine the contingent effect of buyer and supplier relationship adaptations and structural and cognitive capital on the development of relational capital a sample of 163 buyer supplier relationships within uk manufacturing firms is used to test a series of three way moderated regressions the data indicate that the relationship between structural and cognitive forms of social capital and the level of relational capital is moderated by the extent of the relationship adaptations made by each firm and its supplier contrary to expectations the relationship between cognitive capital and relational capital was significantly negative when high levels of buyer adaptations and supplier adaptations were present indicating a substitution effect between cognitive capital and relationship adaptations structural capital was found to be most strongly related to relational capital when adaptations were reciprocated by both actors however unilateral adaptations by either actor resulted in significantly lower levels of relational capital as structural capital increased implications for theory and managers are discussed relating to the impact of different combinations of relationship specific adaptations on social capital components in a buyer supplier relationship

the neighbor effect simulating dynamics in consumer preferences for new vehicle technologies abstract understanding consumer behaviour is essential in designing policies that efficiently increase the uptake of clean technologies over the long run expert opinion or qualitative market analyses have tended to be the sources of this information however greater scrutiny on governments increasingly demands the use of reliable and credible evidence to support policy decisions while discrete choice research and modeling techniques have been applied to estimate consumer preferences for technologies these methods often assume static preferences this study builds on the application of discrete choice research and modeling to capture dynamics in consumer preferences we estimate canadians preferences for new vehicle technologies under different market assumptions using responses from two national surveys focused on hybrid gas electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles the results support the relevance of a range of vehicle attributes beyond the purchase price in shaping consumer preferences towards clean vehicle technologies they also corroborate our hypothesis that the degree of market penetration of clean vehicle technologies is an influence on people s preferences the neighbor effect finally our results provide behavioural parameters for the energy economy model cims which we use here to show the importance of including consumer preference dynamics when setting policies to encourage the uptake of clean technologies

stakeholder learning dialogues how to preserve ethical responsibility in networks the shift in corporate strategy from vertical integration to strategic alliances has developed hand in hand with the evolution of organizational structure from the vertically integrated firm to the network organization the result has been the elimination of boundaries more flexible organizations and a greater interaction among individuals and organizations on the negative side the specialization of firms on single areas of competence has resulted in the disaggregation of the value chain and in the disaggregation of ethical and legal responsibility to illustrate this point the paper considers some cases such as the case of the beer girls of southeast asia who are used unethically by distributors to sell beer and liquor to deal with the problem of the disaggregation of ethical responsibility managers can use organizational culture and ethical values to control the performance of employees and of other organizations contemporary developments in business ethics also offer tools for dealing with the problem for example global corporate citizenship integrated social contracting theory and stakeholder learning dialogues provide ways of integrating the interests of all stakeholders the task is now to use these new approaches to create a governance process that incorporates the voices of all stakeholders especially the voices of those stakeholders that have legitimate and urgent moral claims but lack the power to establish those claims

on the global economic potentials and marginal costs of non renewable resources and the price of energy commodities a model is presented in this work for simulating endogenously the evolution of the marginal costs of production of energy carriers from non renewable resources their consumption depletion pathways and timescales such marginal costs can be used to simulate the long term average price formation of energy commodities drawing on previous work where a global database of energy resource economic potentials was constructed this work uses cost distributions of non renewable resources in order to evaluate global flows of energy commodities a mathematical framework is given to calculate endogenous flows of energy resources given an exogenous commodity price path this framework can be used in reverse in order to calculate an endogenous marginal cost of production of energy carriers given an exogenous carrier demand using rigid price inelastic assumptions independent of the economy these two approaches generate limiting scenarios that depict extreme use of natural resources this is useful to characterise the current state and possible uses of remaining non renewable resources such as fossil fuels and natural uranium the theory is however designed for use within economic or technology models that allow technology substitutions in this work it is implemented in the global power sector model ftt power policy implications are given

determinants of social disclosure quality in taiwan an application of stakeholder theory this study adopts a stakeholder theory framework to examine determinants of social reporting quality and empirically test the ability of the theory to explain disclosure quality in an emerging economy using a sample of 246 listed companies and a hand collected dataset that included 2 years of data based on survey questions reflecting international disclosure trends we apply an aggregate measure of quality with five facets to a variety of corporate social responsibility areas the results support the application and demonstrate that measures of stakeholder power strategic posture economic resources firm size and media visibility are related to social disclosure quality this paper adds to the scarce evidence on social reporting in taiwan and provides a useful method for evaluating disclosure quality it also illustrates the impact of two dominant foreign stakeholder groups on social disclosures in taiwan 1 organizational buyers in the global supply chain and 2 listing and social rating agencies in international capital markets

assessing social risks of global supply chains a quantitative analytical approach and its application to supplier selection in the german automotive industry abstract risk management in supply chains has gained increasing attention over the last years at the same time the pressure to consider social issues in global and interconnected supply chains has risen as well these issues pose risk to supply chains since their occurrence may cause adverse stakeholder reaction through e g reputational losses despite the growing importance of supplier management as a key process within supply chains and the frequently articulated demand for a quantitative assessment of associated risks such approaches are missing so far thus the aim of this paper is to develop a model to efficiently estimate and assess social risks along global supply chains for this purpose leontief s input output model is combined with country risks and sector specific labour intensities in addition a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process is used to weigh the various considered social risks thereby the focus is on the upstream supply chain of actors in a supply chain the approach is developed generally opening the possibility of adaption to different types of input output data bases and using different social risks discussed in social life cycle assessment the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process facilitates the operational application in companies where different people with differing preferences are involved e g in procurement decisions the model is applied to a case study of a german premium car manufacturer to demonstrate and validate the approach it is shown how based on the developed model the assessment of supply chains risks can be carried out the approach allows an assessment of the supply chain as a whole i e considering all upstream tiers and of specific tiers furthermore a sensitivity analysis with regard to the obtained weights is conducted to verify the final aggregative risk values the results show that there are huge differences in the social risks associated with different suppliers as well as different risk structures along the n tier chain this helps prioritizing any projects with the aim to improve the living and working conditions in summary the model has a great benefit for practitioners in purchasing functions of focal companies and can be a helpful tool to support the efficient handling of social issues along supply chains at the same time its academic contributions lie in extending the life cycle sustainability analysis through a multi regional socially extended input output model seio for social risk assessment in sustainable supply chain management

a note on optimal taxation in the presence of externalities abstract i consider the problem of optimal taxation with externalities in a general setup encompassing most of optimal taxation models found in the literature it is demonstrated that when direct taxation of externalities is possible optimal taxes can be expressed as the sum of the optimal pigouvian taxes and the optimal taxes in a related problem without externalities regardless of what other tax instruments are available this result generalizes the so called principle of targeting

a revealed preference approach to the measurement of congestion in travel cost models abstract travel cost models are regularly used to determine the value of recreational sites or particular site characteristics yet congestion a key site attribute is often excluded from such analyses one reason for this omission is that congestion is determined in equilibrium by the process of individuals sorting across sites and thus presents significant endogeneity problems this paper illustrates this source of endogeneity describes how previous research has dealt with it using stated preference techniques and describes an instrumental variables approach to address it in a revealed preference context we demonstrate that failing to address the endogeneity of congestion leads one to dramatically understate its costs we apply our technique to the valuation of a large recreational fishing site in wisconsin lake winnebago which if eliminated would induce significant re sorting of anglers amongst remaining sites ignoring congestion leads to an understatement of the lake s value by more than 50

taxation unemployment and growth dynamic welfare effects of green policies abstract this paper analyzes the effects of environmental tax reforms on a small open economy the labor market is characterized by union wage setting the carbon tax acts as an implicit tariff which gives rise to terms of trade gains the terms of trade effect together with the union wage setting leads to a positive relationship between the capital labor ratio and net foreign wealth in the short run the disinvestments in real and financial capital give temporary room for higher consumption and instantaneous utility the long run effect on instantaneous utility is more uncertain a strong double dividend may exist

dynamics of energy technologies and global change technological choices largely determine the long term characteristics of industrial society including impacts on the natural environment however the treatment of technology in existing models that are used to project economic and environmental futures remains highly stylized based on work over two decades at iiasa we present a useful typology for technology analysis and discuss methods that can be used to analyze the impact of technological changes on the global environment especially global warming our focus is energy technologies the main source of many atmospheric environmental problems we show that much improved treatment of technology is possible with a combination of historical analysis and new modeling techniques in the historical record we identify characteristic l such network e ects yield high barriers to entry even for superior competitors these simple observations allow three improvements to modeling of technological change and its consequences for global environmental change one is that the replacement of long lived infrastructures over time has also replaced the fuels that power the economy to yield progressively more energy per unit of carbon pollution from coal to oil to gas such replacement has d they also include endogenous generation of s we show that doing so can yield projections with lessened environmental impacts without necessarily incurring negative e ect on the economy arriving on that path by the year 2100 depends on intervening actions such as incentives to promote greater diversity in technology and lower barriers to entry for new infrastructures that could accelerate historical trends of decarbonization 1999 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

carbon taxes with exemptions in an open economy a general equilibrium analysis of the german tax initiative abstract sectoral exemptions from environmental regulation are applied in many countries to avoid adverse adjustment effects in specific industries the problem with exemptions is that they can make environmental policy more costly our paper analyzes the welfare costs of exemptions in environmental policy together with the issue of unilateral carbon taxes in an open economy several countries within the eu have introduced or contemplated unilateral taxes to reduce anthropogenic co2emissions taxes which are unilaterally imposed in an open economy can have significant impacts on production and employment of energy and export intensive industries to save jobs by maintaining international competitiveness most co2taxation schemes include exemptions for energy and export intensive industries as a compromise between environmental objectives and employment in these sectors this paper shows that such compromises are costly as the tax base narrows the dead weight loss increases our calculations illustrate this point in the framework of a static general equilibrium model for west germany calibrated to 1990 data we evaluate the excess costs of exemptions as a means of saving jobs in specific industries relative to an alternative instrument a uniform carbon tax cum wage subsidy which achieves an identical level of national emissions and employment at a fraction of the cost