Economic and policy instrument analyses in support of the scrap tire recycling program in Taiwan

Understanding the cost-effectiveness and the role of economic and policy instruments, such as the combined product tax-recycling subsidy scheme or a tradable permit, for scrap tire recycling has been of crucial importance in a market-oriented environmental management system. Promoting product (tire) stewardship on one hand and improving incentive-based recycling policy on the other hand requires a comprehensive analysis of the interfaces and interactions in the nexus of economic impacts, environmental management, environmental valuation, and cost-benefit analysis. This paper presents an assessment of the interfaces and interactions between the implementation of policy instruments and its associated economic evaluation for sustaining a scrap tire recycling program in Taiwan during the era of the strong economic growth of the late 1990s. It begins with an introduction of the management of the co-evolution between technology metrics of scrap tire recycling and organizational changes for meeting the managerial goals island-wide during the 1990s. The database collected and used for such analysis covers 17 major tire recycling firms and 10 major tire manufacturers at that time. With estimates of scrap tire generation and possible scale of subsidy with respect to differing tire recycling technologies applied, economic analysis eventually leads to identify the associated levels of product tax with respect to various sizes of new tires. It particularly demonstrates a broad perspective of how an integrated econometric and engineering economic analysis can be conducted to assist in implementing policy instruments for scrap tire management. Research findings indicate that different subsidy settings for collection, processing, and end use of scrap tires should be configured to ameliorate the overall managerial effectiveness. Removing the existing boundaries between designated service districts could strengthen the competitiveness of scrap tires recycling industry, helping to reduce the required levels of product tax and subsidy. With such initial breakthroughs at hand to handle the complexity of scrap tire recycling technologies, there remains unique management and policy avenues left to explore if a multi-dimensional solution is to be successful in the long run.     

“双碳”背景下碳排放的边际外部性成本及最佳碳税的思考

气候变暖与环境恶化已成为人类生存和发展的重大威胁。鉴于碳排放具有负外部性，研究碳排放的边际外部性成本并探究最佳碳税，对于推进实现“双碳”目标具有重要意义。本文通过构建一个无限期的多部门新古典增长模型，探究碳排放的边际外部性成本及其影响因素，并对最优的碳税政策进行思考。研究结果表明：当居民消费效用函数呈对数形式、大气损害与产量成正比、大气中的碳含量存在线性关系和储蓄率不变等假设条件成立时，碳排放的边际外部性成本与产出成正比，且比例只与贴现率、大气损害函数和大气中的碳消散结构有关。因此，在碳税政策的制定上，要坚持经济发展与生态环境保护并重，分阶段动态优化调整碳税税率：在高贴现率时期提高碳税税率，分行业施行碳税政策和补贴政策，同时为了避免经济社会遭受到较大的冲击，起初征收碳税时税率不宜过高；考虑不同体量企业收入差距和负担能力，采用累进碳税征收机制；分地区实施差别税率，统筹区域协调发展。     

Measuring the impact of prefabrication on construction waste reduction: An empirical study in China

Prefabrication has been widely regarded as a sustainable construction method in terms of its impact on environmental protection. One important aspect of this perspective is the influence of prefabrication on construction waste reduction and the subsequent waste handling activities, including waste sorting, reuse, recycle, and disposal. Nevertheless, it would appear that existing research with regard to this topic has failed to take into account its innate dynamic character of the process of construction waste minimization; integrating all essential waste handling activities has never been achieved thus far. This paper proposes a dynamic model for quantitatively evaluating the possible impacts arising from the application of prefabrication technology on construction waste reduction and the subsequent waste handling activities. The resulting model was validated based on an actual building project in Shenzhen, China.The simulation results of the design scenarios indicate that the policy on providing subsidy for each square meter of the prefabrication adopted in the construction would have more significant effect on promoting the use of prefabrication and improving the performance of construction waste reduction compared to the increase of income tax benefits. The results also show that (1) interaction exists among different management measures, and (2) the combined effect of multiple policies is larger than the simple sum of their individual impacts, indicating the need for comprehensive consideration on the combined effect of these potential polices. This paper demonstrates the potential benefits of using a system dynamics approach in understanding the behavior of real-world processes. The developed model not only serves as a practical tool for assessing the impact of off-site prefabrication on construction waste reduction and the corresponding waste handling activities, but also help provide a valuable reference to policy makers through the comparison of simulation results generated under various scenarios such that the best policy mix can be identified prior to production.     

云南省洱海北部地区农田面源污染现状及控制的补偿政策

农田面源污染是洱海富营养化的重要原因之一。本文利用在洱海北部地区收集的实地调研数据,从化肥施用与流失和秸秆利用情况,分析了该地区的农田面源污染现状。结果表明：该地区的农田面源污染主要来源于大蒜田与玉米田的氮磷流失,以及大蒜秸秆与玉米秸秆的焚烧或丢弃。从补偿对象与主体、补偿标准、补偿环节与方式、配套政策四个方面,探讨了农田面源污染控制的补偿政策,并结合在洱海北部地区的实地调研资料,分析了测土配方施肥和秸秆还田两种农田面源污染控制技术采纳的补偿政策案例;提出政府应在基础设施建设、技术指导、教育培训、＂无公害＂农产品市场建设等方面给予政策支持。     

Policy Integration as a Success Factor for Emissions Trading

Emissions trading will not be able to become the single instrument of a national climate policy because of costs for monitoring of greenhouse gases and transfers of allowances. Thus, it is important to assess optimal ways of integrating emissions trading into national climate policy mixes, thus leading to a more efficient policy, especially by allowing the use of transboundary transactions. The implemented trading systems of the UK and Denmark, the agreed EU one, and the planned ones of Norway are used as case studies. In the UK, the introduction of an energy tax on industry was the catalyst that led to the development of emissions trading, voluntary agreements, and two subsidy programs. However, in Denmark trading was limited in scope and not integrated with the successful emission tax. The EU and Norwegian trading schemes both have a large scope and integrate international transfers; the former is integrated with other instruments to avoid free riding. Policy integration will thus enhance the efficiency improvements that emissions trading can introduce.     

MANAGEMENT AND POLICY EFFECTS ON POTENTIAL GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION FROM DAIRY WASTE1

ABSTRACT: A combined economic and water quality modeling framework was used to evaluate impacts of alternative policies and management practices on reducing nitrate movement to groundwater for dairy farms in Rockingham County, Virginia. The analysis considers three on-farm manure storage options, cost-sharing programs for purchasing manure storage facilities, restrictions on nitrogen application rates, and a tax on commercial fertilizer. The CREAMS model was used to estimate nitrate leaching from the crop root zone for various nutrient (and manure) management practices, based on timing and rate of manure and fertilizer applications. The mixed-integer programming economic model considers water quality, policy, and economic constraints in comparing the profitability of alternative cropping and nutrient management systems that reduce groundwater contamination potential. The study provides both the environmental and economic effects of better management of dairy waste.     

Modeling the relationship between land use and surface water quality

It is widely known that watershed hydrology is dependent on many factors, including land use, climate, and soil conditions. But the relative impacts of different types of land use on the surface water are yet to be ascertained and quantified. This research attempted to use a comprehensive approach to examine the hydrologic effects of land use at both a regional and a local scale. Statistical and spatial analyses were employed to examine the statistical and spatial relationships of land use and the flow and water quality in receiving waters on a regional scale in the State of Ohio. Besides, a widely accepted watershed-based water quality assessment tool, the Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS), was adopted to model the plausible effects of land use on water quality in a local watershed in the East Fork Little Miami River Basin. The results from the statistical analyses revealed that there was a significant relationship between land use and in-stream water quality, especially for nitrogen, phosphorus and Fecal coliform. The geographic information systems (GIS) spatial analyses identified the watersheds that have high levels of contaminants and percentages of agricultural and urban lands. Furthermore, the hydrologic and water quality modeling showed that agricultural and impervious urban lands produced a much higher level of nitrogen and phosphorus than other land surfaces. From this research, it seems that the approach adopted in this study is comprehensive, covering both the regional and local scales. It also reveals that BASINS is a very useful and reliable tool, capable of characterizing the flow and water quality conditions for the study area under different watershed scales. With little modification, these models should be able to adapt to other watersheds or to simulate other contaminants. They also can be used to study the plausible impacts of global environmental change. In addition, the information on the hydrologic effects of land use is very useful. It can provide guidelines not only for resource managers in restoring our aquatic ecosystems, but also for local planners in devising viable and ecologically-sound watershed development plans, as well as for policy makers in evaluating alternate land management decisions.     

京津冀及周边地区清洁取暖补贴政策现状、问题与对策

京津冀及周边地区以燃煤为主的农户冬季采暖方式是影响区域大气环境质量的重要原因之一,大规模推进清洁取暖改造是优化区域能源结构、改善大气环境质量的重要举措.本文以京津冀大气污染传输通道城市("2+26"城市)为重点,全面梳理了京津冀及周边地区清洁取暖政策特别是补贴政策的实施情况和主要问题,对近期区域清洁取暖改造补贴投资进行测算,提出未来农村清洁取暖补贴政策的优化建议.结果表明,在现行补贴标准下,补贴资金投入额的差异主要来源于清洁取暖技术路径及农居建筑节能性能的差异,使用热泵类设备并进行建筑节能改造对降低补贴资金投入有积极影响;中央财政的清洁取暖试点城市奖补资金只能覆盖2019年改造补贴所需投资总额的20%左右,地方政府财政压力巨大.未来京津冀及周边地区农村清洁取暖补贴政策应继续充分发挥中央财政支持作用,充分利用市场建立多元化投融资机制,已大规模推进农村清洁取暖改造并已制定清洁取暖补贴政策的地区应继续制定新的补贴政策,尚未大规模改造的地区建议通过试点补贴方式逐步引导推广,清洁取暖补贴标准的制定和调整应在农户可接受、政府可承担的前提下逐步实现退坡.     

Local air pollution and global climate change taxes: a distributional analysis for the case of Spain

Global climate change measures are difficult to implement. In this context, local air pollution measures may play an important role in the political agenda since their effects are felt more immediately by citizens. Distributional implications are one of the main barriers for implementing environmental policies. This paper explores the distributional implications of air pollution taxes and compares them to climate change taxes. For the comparison, both tax schemes were set to yield the same revenue. Methodologically, the study uses a top–down approach linking a macro model to a micro model. We find that taxes on local air pollutants are more regressive than those levied on CO₂. This is because the goods implicitly taxed have a greater weight in the consumer basket of low-income groups, even if the tax revenues are recycled. Furthermore, the revenue-neutral recycle scheme increases both taxes efficiency, but, at the same time, can increase regressivity.     

Compromising sustainable mobility? The case of the Gothenburg congestion tax

Congestion charging is widely considered an effective policy measure to regulate and reduce car traffic demand and associated environmental and health problems in cities. However, introducing restrictive measures to constrain individual choice and behaviour for the common good has often proven difficult. Using a specific case, the Gothenburg congestion tax introduced in 2013, we study the policy process behind the introduction of the tax and assess to what extent green values were compromised along the way. The tax was made possible by co-financing infrastructure investments, including roads, which seemingly contradicts stated goals of reducing car traffic and emissions. We show how the tax was ‘muddled through’ in a top-down political compromise by a grand coalition where different interests could legitimate their support in relation to the achievement of partially conflicting objectives and projects. However, to declare the regulatory goals fully neutralised would be to underestimate the scheme's direct environmental effects and restrictive potential. Finding a compromise with powerful political and economic interests was necessary to get it off the ground. Once launched, however, it can over time regain its restrictive properties and lead to more profound long-term effects.     

The Employment and Productivity Effects of Environmental Taxation: Additional Dividends or Added Distractions?

Claims of employment and productivity gains from environmental taxation are examined in the context of recent policy developments which have extended the traditional role of economic instruments in environmental regulation. Although the general existence of such spin-offs cannot be established, the debate has clarified guidelines for designing and implementing specific environmentally based taxes to help deliver sustainable development. Recent UK tax proposals have started to draw on the flexibility of fiscal instruments to tackle environmental problems. Innovations include earmarking taxes to fund allied spatial and sectoral programmes, recycling revenues to provide fiscally neutral improvements in tax efficiency and using taxation to help promote eco-efficiency.     

Taxation of uranium mining ventures in Saskatchewan: A policy assessment

The basic objective of this paper is to present a policy assessment of the Saskatchewan Uranium Royalty (SUR). This scheme, as enacted on 1 August 1976, was designed to be an integral part of the province's rent appropriation and economic development strategy. Before the tax regime is addressed directly an overview is given of the resource policy environment within which the impost was developed.     

The capital shortage phenomenon : Its impact on the US mineral industries

After examining the concept of a capital shortage, the author analyses the impacts of sectoral shortages in the mineral industries. He analyses the future capital needs of certain segments of the mineral industries and the prospects open to them. Finally, the author discusses some policy proposals to stimulate investment. These include the reduction of corporate tax, increasing investment tax credit, changing depreciation allowances to allow for inflation, and changing the tax treatment of capital gains.     

Tax neutrality and the Saskatchewan Uranium Royalty

In their analysis of the Saskatchewan Uranium Royalty (SUR) scheme Anderson and Barnett (1983) conclude that the scheme is effective in that, together with the other levies on the uranium industry, it succeeds in appropriating 75–80% of available economic rent under reasonable assumptions about uranium price and production costs. While collecting a substantial proportion of economic rent was a major provincial government objective in designing the tax structure, provincial tax planners may also have been concerned to ensure that marginal production decisions be affected as little as possible by the tax. Because their model of the Key Lake mine considers only the extraction plan adopted by the firm, Anderson and Barnett are unable to conclude whether a different plan would have been adopted in the absence of the tax. In other words, the nature of their model confines their investigation to the question of effectiveness, as defined above. The purpose of the present article is to examine the question of whether the SUR is likely to be neutral with respect to the extraction plan and to assess the effects of any tax-induced distortion.     

Controlling urban air pollution caused by households: uncertainty, prices, and income

We examine the control of air pollution caused by households burning wood for heating and cooking in the developing world. Since the problem is one of controlling emissions from nonpoint sources, regulations are likely to be directed at household choices of wood consumption and combustion technologies. Moreover, these choices are subtractions from, or contributions to, the pure public good of air quality. Consequently, the efficient policy design is not independent of the distribution of household income. Since it is unrealistic to assume that environmental authorities can make lump sum income transfers part of control policies, efficient control of air pollution caused by wood consumption entails a higher tax on wood consumption and a higher subsidy for more efficient combustion technologies for higher income households. Among other difficulties, implementing a policy to promote the adoption of cleaner combustion technologies must overcome the seemingly paradoxical result that efficient control calls for higher technology subsidies for higher income households.     

碳排放交易体系的政策灵活性:国际经验及启示

在《联合国气候变化框架公约》和《京都议定书》的背景下,越来越多的国家开始关注全球气候变暖的问题。考虑到碳排放交易体系比碳税更具有政治可行性,不少国家或地区开始实施碳排放交易体系,以最低的减排成本来达到温室气体减排目标。然而,采用碳排放交易体系,其排放总量是固定的,而减排成本是不确定的,可能会出现由于政策或外部冲击而产生的配额价格异常波动的现象。因此,为确保碳排放交易体系的成本有效性,政策灵活性十分重要。在理想情况下,碳排放市场具有完全的时间灵活性(包括长期的履约期、自由的配额储存与预借)和空间灵活性(即建立全球碳市场),这将对增强市场流动性、降低减排成本、缓解价格波动起到重要的作用。然而,由于政策设计需要考虑更多因素,实际上理想状态很难达到。本文将对国外碳排放交易体系的政策灵活性设计进行较为系统的分析和比较,尤其关注履约期的长短、配额的跨期使用、配额的抵消、区域碳市场连接等方面的具体政策设计,这对我国在7个省市进行碳排放交易试点以及今后建立全国性的碳排放交易体系有较强的借鉴意义。     

Environmental effects of agri-environmental schemes in Western Europe

Agri-environmental schemes (AES) have been introduced as part of European Union's (EU) Common Agricultural Policy and are now an important part of this. A methodological approach to analyse the policy effects of AES is outlined, in which we distinguish between performance effects (on agricultural practices) and outcome effects (environmental impact). The performance effects are further approached including measurement of improvement and protection effects based on 12 indicators on changes/maintenance of land use and agricultural management.Data from personal interviews of participating and non-participating farmers in AES measures in nine EU Member States and Switzerland were used to analyse policy effects, including single indicator effects on agricultural practices as well as combined effects at the agreement level. Significant effects were found for mineral N-fertiliser use, stocking density reduction, maintenance of a minimum livestock density and pesticides. For AES agreements regulating grassland management, fertiliser use and pesticides, clear indications of combined improvement and protection effects were found. In addition clear improvement effects of agreements regulating fertiliser and pesticides use on mainly arable lands were revealed. It is concluded that the approach presented including the 12 selected indicators has proven to be operational.     

Addressing the Impact of Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition on Western European Grasslands

There is a growing evidence base demonstrating that atmospheric nitrogen deposition presents a threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function in acid grasslands in Western Europe. Here, we report the findings of a workshop held for European policy makers to assess the perceived importance of reactive nitrogen deposition for grassland conservation, identify areas for policy development in Europe and assess the potential for managing and mitigating the impacts of nitrogen deposition. The importance of nitrogen as a pollutant is already recognized in European legislation, but there is little emphasis in policy on the evaluation of changes in biodiversity due to nitrogen. We assess the potential value of using typical species, as defined in the European Union Habitats Directive, for determining the impact of nitrogen deposition on acid grasslands. Although some species could potentially be used as indicators of nitrogen deposition, many of the typical species do not respond strongly to nitrogen deposition and are unlikely to be useful for identifying impact on an individual site. We also discuss potential mitigation measures and novel ways in which emissions from agriculture could be reduced.     

Environmental Awareness and Public Support for Protecting and Restoring Puget Sound

In an effort to garner consensus around environmental programs, practitioners have attempted to increase awareness about environmental threats and demonstrate the need for action. Nonetheless, how beliefs about the scope and severity of different types of environmental concerns shape support for management interventions are less clear. Using data from a telephone survey of residents of the Puget Sound region of Washington, we investigate how perceptions of the severity of different coastal environmental problems, along with other social factors, affect attitudes about policy options. We find that self-assessed environmental understanding and views about the seriousness of pollution, habitat loss, and salmon declines are only weakly related. Among survey respondents, women, young people, and those who believe pollution threatens Puget Sound are more likely to support policy measures such as increased enforcement and spending on restoration. Conversely, self-identified Republicans and individuals who view current regulations as ineffective tend to oppose governmental actions aimed at protecting and restoring Puget Sound. Support for one policy measure—tax credits for environmentally-friendly business practices—is not significantly affected by political party affiliation. These findings demonstrate that environmental awareness can influence public support for environmental policy tools. However, the nature of particular management interventions and other social forces can have important mitigating effects and need to be considered by practitioners attempting to develop environment-related social indicators and generate consensus around the need for action to address environmental problems.