testing for asymmetric information in insurance markets the first goal of this paper is to provide a simple and general test of the presence of asymmetric information in contractual relationships within a competitive context we also argue that insurance data are particularly well suited to such empirical investigations to illustrate this claim we use data on contracts and accidents to investigate the extent of asymmetric information in the french market for automobile insurance using various parametric and nonparametric methods we find no evidence for the presence of asymmetric information in this market

embodied carbon in china s foreign trade an online sci e and ssci based literature review abstract this paper systematically presents a survey of the empirical literature studying the embodied co2 emissions in china s foreign trade ecct based on the bibliometric method and the online version of science citation index expanded sci e and social sciences citation index ssci this study summarizes the latest publications regarding ecct in peer reviewed journals in terms of quantities most productive countries institutions authors citations and disciplines by using synthetic analysis of keyword frequency this study reveals the most popular methodologies applied in measuring ecct discusses the variation of numerical results in the literature and reasons and countermeasures for the results uncertainties continuous investigation of the literature releases the methodology employed for measuring ecct becoming more reasonable and the results more critical however the numerical results of ecct are of great discrepancies within given year by different considerations on methodology specification accounting principles and data sources and processing for instance the estimates of co2 embodied in china s exports changed from 478 mt to over 3000 mt and those of in china s imports ranged from 140 mt to over 1700 mt in 2007 therefore overcoming data inherent limitations and reducing discrepancies among available databases should be urgently considered the results imply that the prospective research tendencies on ecct are to 1 improve china s regional input output data and energy intensity data to more precise estimates under global perspective 2 estimate china s carbon emission at firm level by different firm ownerships in production and consumption worldwide 3 assess china s carbon emission from processing or non processing trade by compiling more detailed multi regional input output table 4 evaluate city level carbon mitigation capacity in china under global mrio model 5 explore new carbon management experience in china s carbon trading market and new trade expansion policy of one belt and one road in her new growth era

moral hazard and dynamic insurance data this paper exploits dynamic features of insurance contracts in the empirical analysis of moral hazard we first show that experience rating implies negative occurrence dependence under moral hazard individual claim intensities decrease with the number of past claims we then show that dynamic insurance data allow to distinguish this moral hazard effect from dynamic selection on unobservables we develop nonparametric tests and estimate a flexible parametric model we find no evidence of moral hazard in french car insurance our analysis contributes to a recent literature based on static data that has problems distinguishing between moral hazard and selection and dealing with dynamic features of actual insurance contracts methodologically this paper builds on and extends the literature on state dependence and heterogeneity in event history data jel d82 g22 c41 c14

pounds that kill the external costs of vehicle weight heavier vehicles are safer for their own occupants but more hazardous for other vehicles simple theory thus suggests that an unregulated vehicle fleet is inefficiently heavy using three separate identification strategies we show that controlling for own vehicle weight being hit by a vehicle that is 1000 pounds heavier generates a 40 50 increase in fatality risk these results imply a total accident related externality that exceeds the estimated social cost of us carbon emissions and is equivalent to a gas tax of 0 97 per gallon 136 billion annually we consider two policies for internalizing this external cost a weight varying mileage tax and a gas tax and find that they are similar for most vehicles the findings suggest that european gas taxes may be much closer to optimal levels than the us gas tax language en

a note on the calculus for physical input output analysis and its application to land appropriation of international trade activities abstract in a recent paper in this journal embodied land appropriation in international trade activities was analysed using a physical input output table piot ecological economics 44 2003 137 the authors stated that there are significant differences between the physical and the monetary input output tables in their results which the authors argued to be due to the fact that the results from the monetary table are determined mainly by the monetary structure of final demand while the structure of a physical table more closely resembles the physical realities of an economy in the present paper it is argued that the methodological foundation that the authors based their analysis on is misleading and does not satisfy the overall material balance requirement it is shown that the differences in the results between the monetary and physical tables presented by the authors have nothing to do with the resemblance to the physical realities i also tried to further clarify a number of critical issues in applying physical input output tables related to double counting treatment of wastes and the effect of closing the system toward direct material inputs a number of consistent but different approaches to cope with these issues are presented including their proofs the embodied land appropriation of international trade activities is calculated and compared by applying those approaches there are many advantages of using physical input output tables however their superiority should not be exaggerated nor be regarded as absolute depending on how it is constructed and used it is also possible that the results from a physical input output table do not tell us more than that indeed some commodities are cheaper or more costly per unit of their mass

constructing physical input output tables for environmental modeling and accounting framework and illustrations abstract a physical input output table piot provides a framework in which all the physical flows associated with an economy can be recorded this makes it a valuable tool for environmental economic modeling and accounting during the 1990 s piots were constructed for a number of countries subsequently the piot and related physical supply and use tables have been taken up in the system of environmental and economic accounting un united nations 2003 system of environmental and economic accounting united nations new york this paper reviews piots for the netherlands germany denmark italy finland and the european union these studies applied the basic and extended piot frameworks this paper elaborates these frameworks with packaging residuals wastes and emissions recycling and stock changes in order to create a full piot the production process of the extended and full piot is split into structural and auxiliary production processes modeling applications and ways of deriving environmentally relevant information from the full piot are illustrated using a numerical example

price dispersion in an automobile insurance market from automobile insurance data for alberta over the period 1974 81 we find thatpremiums are highly correlated across driver classes in a given year but that premiums for a given driver class are not correlated over a period of more than 5 years firms relative market shares among drivers over age 25 and married males under 25 are inversely related to their deviations from the mean premiums in these driver classes the variance of real premiums decreases with the numberof firms in the market and increases with the real loss cost per car insured and the number of cars insured from these results we conclude that the price dispersion in automobile insurance in alberta is based on costly consumer search

separating moral hazard from adverse selection and learning in automobile insurance longitudinal evidence from france the identification of information problems in different markets is a challenging issue in the economic literature this paper performs tests of residual asymmetric information in the french automobile insurance market for the 1995 1997 period this market is characterized by the presence of a regulated experiencerating scheme bonus malus contract choices are strongly associated with the bonus malus of policyholders we have access to longitudinal survey data with dynamic information both on claims and accidents we propose a causality test to distinguish pathways through which a positive correlation arises between contract choice and accidents we find evidence of moral hazard among a sub group of policyholders with significant driving experience 5 15 years we distinguish this moral hazard estimate from adverse selection and learning policyholders with less experience have a combination of learning and moral hazard whereas no residual information problem is found for policyholders with more than 15 years of experience

why is automobile insurance in philadelphia so damn expensive the authors document and attempt to explain the observation that automobile insurance premiums vary dramatically across cities the authors argue that high premiums can be attributed at least in part to large numbers of uninsured motorists in some markets while uninsured motorists can be attributed to high premiums the authors construct a simple noncooperative equilibrium model that can generate inefficient equilibria with uninsured drivers and high yet actuarially fair premiums for certain parameterizations an efficient full insurance equilibrium and inefficient high price equilibria with uninsured drivers exist simultaneously helping to explain price variability across otherwise similar cities policy implications are discussed

do changes in pension incentives affect retirement a longitudinal study of subjective retirement expectations this paper investigates the responsiveness of individuals retirement decisions to forward looking measures of pension accumulations in contrast to previous research we use within person variation in retirement incentives and are able to control for unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for retirement by studying a panel of subjective retirement expectations we confirm that individuals do respond as expected to pension incentives even when we control for individual fixed effects however the magnitude of these responses differs when estimated from models based on within person versus cross sectional variation the inclusion of fixed effects reduces the response by about half

applying physical input output analysis to estimate land appropriation ecological footprints of international trade activities in the last few years some studies have been presented which link land use accounting and input output analysis based on monetary input output tables miots for the calculation of direct and indirect land appropriation of production and consumption activities the compilation of the first comprehensive physical input output tables piots for some western european countries in the 1990s opened new possibilities for linking physical accounting and input output analysis using a physical multiplier for this kind of calculation is more appropriate as the most land intensive sectors are also the sectors with the highest amounts of material flows physical input output analysis illustrates land appropriation in relation to material flows of each of the sectors which is more appropriate from the point of view of environmental pressures than land appropriation in relation to monetary flows of a miot physical input output analysis has so far not been applied for any land related studies based on a physical input output model of the eu 15 physical input output analysis is applied in this paper in order to calculate direct and indirect land requirements for the production of exports from eu 15 to the rest of the world

income growth and atmospheric pollution in spain an input output approach abstract the relationships between economic growth and environmental pressures are complex since the early nineties the debate on these relationships has been strongly influenced by the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis which states that during the first stage of economic development environmental pressures increase as per capita income increases but once a critical turning point has been reached these pressures diminish as income levels continue to increase however to date such a delinking between economic growth and emission levels has not happened for most atmospheric pollutants in spain the aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between income growth and nine atmospheric pollutants in spain in order to obtain empirical outcomes for this analysis we adopt an input output approach and use namea data for the nine pollutants first we undertake a structural decomposition analysis for the period 1995 2000 to estimate the contribution of various factors to changes in the levels of atmospheric emissions and second we estimate the emissions associated with the consumption patterns of different groups of households classified according to their level of expenditure

physical and monetary input output analysis what makes the difference abstract a recent paper in which embodied land appropriation of exports was calculated using a physical input output model ecological economics 44 2003 137 151 initiated a discussion in this journal concerning the conceptual differences between input output models using a coefficient matrix based on physical input output tables piots in a single unit of mass and input output models using a coefficient matrix based on monetary input output tables miots extended by a coefficient vector of physical factor inputs per unit of output in this contribution we argue that the conceptual core of the discrepancies found when comparing outcomes obtained using physical vs monetary input output models lies in the assumptions regarding unit prices and not in the treatment of waste as has been claimed ecological economics 48 2004 9 17 we first show that a basic static input output model with the coefficient matrix derived from a monetary input output table is equivalent to one where the coefficient matrix is derived from an input output table in physical units provided that the assumption of unique sectoral prices is satisfied we then illustrate that the input output tables that were used in the original publication do not satisfy the assumption of homogenous sectoral prices even after the inconsistent treatment of waste in the piot is corrected we show that substantially different results from the physical and the monetary models in fact remain finally we identify and discuss possible reasons for the observed differences in sectoral prices faced by different purchasing sectors and draw conclusions for the future development of applied physical input output analysis

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

simulating the impact of new industries on the economy the case of biorefining in australia abstract we investigate the economic and employment consequences of introducing a new sugarcane based biofuel industry into australia we model the new biofuel industry on the production recipe of the existing large scale gasoalcohol and alcohol sectors in the brazilian economy to this end we utilise a hybrid io lca input output life cycle assessment approach which involves inserting data on new processes and or sectors into an existing io table in particular we develop and test an analytical and a numerical approach for re balancing an io table augmented with rows and columns representing large new biofuel industries we quantify changes in economic output and employment in the australian economy we conclude that a future biofuel industry will be employment positive for australia

quantifying the premium externality of the uninsured in some insurance markets the uninsured can generate a negative externality on the insured leading insurance companies to pass on costs as higher premia using a novel panel data set and a staggered policy change that exogenously varied the rate of uninsured drivers at the county level in california we quantitatively investigate the effect of uninsured motorists on automobile insurance premia consistent with predictions of theory we find uninsured drivers lead to higher insurance premia specifically a 1 percentage point increase in the rate of uninsured drivers raises insurance premia by between 1 2 we also discuss corrective pigouvian taxes

estimating welfare in insurance markets using variation in prices we provide a graphical illustration of how standard consumer and producer theory can be used to quantify the welfare loss associated with inefficient pricing in insurance markets with selection we then show how this welfare loss can be estimated empirically using identifying variation in the price of insurance such variation together with quantity data allows us to estimate the demand for insurance the same variation together with cost data allows us to estimate how insurers costs vary as market participants endogenously respond to price the slope of this estimated cost curve provides a direct test for both the existence and the nature of selection and the combination of demand and cost curves can be used to estimate welfare we illustrate our approach by applying it to data on employerprovided health insurance from one specific company we detect adverse selection but estimate that the quantitative welfare implications associated with inefficient pricing in our particular application are small in both absolute and relative terms

the accident externality from driving we estimate auto accident externalities more specifically insurance externalities using panel data on state average insurance premiums and loss costs externalities appear to be substantial in traffic dense states in california for example we find that the increase in traffic density from a typical additional driver increases total statewide insurance costs of other drivers by 1 725 3 239 per year depending on the model high traffic density states have large economically and statistically significant externalities in all specifications we check in contrast the accident externality per driver in low traffic states appears quite small on balance accident externalities are so large that a correcting pigouvian tax could raise 66 billion annually in california alone more than all existing california state taxes during our study period and over 220 billion per year nationally

structural analysis of material flows in china based on physical and monetary input output models abstract the physical input output pio model has different product flow scopes from the monetary input output mio model using the pio and mio models to analyze the structure of material flows can identify new hotspots for policy decisions over each other however pio models are not well studied in existing studies on the structure of china s material flows this study uses both the pio and mio models to analyze consumption based material flows of chinese sectors and critical supply chain paths leading to china s material flows results show that the pio and mio models validate each other by simultaneously identifying critical sectors and important final demand categories however product prices and the treatment of services lead to different findings based on the mio and pio models compared with the pio model the mio model underestimates the contribution of the construction sector to china s material flows but overestimates that of the equipment and machinery and other services sectors the pio model reveals the higher importance of rural household consumption while the mio model identifies more critical supply chain paths associated with services the pio and mio models can complement each other in the implementation and assessment of environmental measures e g production efficiency improvement

sectoral phillips curves and the aggregate phillips curve sector level phillips curves are estimated in french data there is considerable heterogeneity across sectors with vastly different estimates of the backward looking component of inflation and the duration of nominal rigidities a multi sector model of inflation dynamics is calibrated on the basis of these sectoral estimates aggregate inflation simulated on the basis of heterogeneous sectors displays comparable dynamics to actual data a comparison is drawn between the policy trade offs implied by a phillips curve based on macroeconomic estimates vs one based on a model with heterogeneous sectors the difference is sizeable

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

on the importance of linking inputs and outputs in material flow accounts the weight of nations report revisited abstract the influential word resources institute report the weight of nations of 2000 called for additional research effort to understand linkages between primary material inputs and output of waste and emissions in material flow accounts the report proved highly influential in driving efforts toward methodological harmonization of national material flow accounts but had little impact in triggering additional study into comprehensive material flow accounts and material balances for national economies in this research we test the feasibility of linking inputs to outputs by establishing material flow balances for five countries including germany japan the united states china and australia using available statistical data and agreed calculation methods while statistics for emissions to air are well documented statistics for solid waste are usually incomplete and for many countries are of poor quality we employ stock and flow modeling to determine the waste potential of a national economy which can be used to validate statistically reported waste flows we ask whether the accounts could be up scaled to a global dataset and discuss challenges and limitations of such an approach we also revisit the findings of the wri report and find that methodological improvements to material flow accounting yield more reliable results than could be achieved two decades ago unifying input and output accounts in one coherent framework i e a material balance allows alignment of the policy domains of resource efficiency greenhouse gas and pollution abatement and waste minimization

adverse selection and an individual mandate when theory meets practice we develop a model of selection that incorporates a key element of recent health reforms an individual mandate using data from massachusetts we estimate the parameters of the model in the individual market for health insurance we find that premiums and average costs decreased significantly in response to the individual mandate we find an annual welfare gain of 4 1 per person or 51 1 million annually in massachusetts as a result of the reduction in adverse selection we also find smaller post reform markups