Bolivia's strategy for restructuring the state's mining sector and promoting private investment in mining

Bolivia is a country of great mineral wealth with known reserves estimated to be worth over US$7 billion. Despite this great potential wealth, in the early 1980s the mining industry of Bolivia found itself in a crisis characterized by excessive state intervention in the industry, a financially troubled state mining company, large areas of the country off-limits to mineral development, an irrational tax system which discouraged mining and labour unrest. To deal with these problems, the government decided to restructure the mining industry so as to encourage private participation. This paper describes the policies introduced to revitalize the mining industry as well as projections of what the future benefits would be to the country if those policies are successful in achieving their objectives.     

SMALL SCALE MINING AND ECONOMIC AID IN BOLIVIA

Although the small-scale mining sector in Bolivia has absorbed economic aid, little or no improvement has resulted. It appears that much closer technical and financial co-operation with those operating small mines is called for, including rigid credit supervision. Problems in small-scale mines arise from difficult mining conditions, the tax structure and capital market situation as well as the employment patterns of the mine operators. It is suggested that mechanized projects may not always be the best way to overcome poor conditions, but where they are, lack of collateral is frequently an obstacle. In such cases, a three stage approach to project implementation is proposed.     

碳减排目标的实现机制比较与选择——基于数量型与价格型减排工具的模拟

基于2012年微观层面的社会核算矩阵(SAM)表,本文构建动态可计算的一般均衡(CGE)模型,分别设计碳交易和碳税情景加入该模型,模拟中国2012—2030年的宏观经济效应和部门结构效应。研究结果表明:就宏观效应来看,2030年碳交易和碳税情景的碳强度分别比基准情景下降了24.24%和26.487%,分别完成碳减排目标的55.052%和59.349%;碳交易情景下消费、投资、出口和进口出现较大波动,碳税情景下这些指标小幅上涨。就部门经济效应来看,能源部门受政策情景影响最大,其次是制造业部门,其他部门受到的影响较小;碳交易情景对各部门增加值有抑制作用,并对原油和天然气部门的消费产生较大冲击。就部门减排效应来看,制造业部门的减排效应较显著;碳税情景的减排效应优于碳交易情景。总体而言,单一实施碳交易或碳税政策,不能完全实现碳减排目标,碳税政策相对温和,可以考虑两种减排政策配合实施,以减缓对经济系统冲击,并实现碳减排目标。     

Effect of tax laws on mineral exploration in Canada

Changes since 1972 in Canadian federal and provincial tax laws have eliminated many of the prior tax incentives offered to the mining industry. These changes provide an opportunity to study the effect of tax laws on a country's mineral resource development by comparing trends in mineral exploration in various provinces with adjoining regions, and by comparing these results with firm behaviour that would be expected from microeconomic analysis. Mineral producers have sought higher, more stable returns, resulting in shifts of exploration into political regions with more favourable and less changeable tax policies. Future supplies of mineral raw materials from a political region are dependent on current exploration effort, which is in turn influenced by the region's tax laws.     

The effectiveness of market-based conservation in the tropics: forest certification in Ecuador and Bolivia

During the last decade, forest certification has gained momentum as a market-based conservation strategy in tropical forest countries. Certification has been promoted to enhance forest management in countries where governance capacities are insufficient to adequately manage natural resources and enforce pertinent regulations, given that certification relies largely on non-governmental organisations and private businesses. However, at present there are few tropical countries with large areas of certified forests. In this study, we conducted semi-structured stakeholder interviews in Ecuador and Bolivia to identify key framework conditions that influence the costs and benefits for companies to switch from conventional to certified forestry operations. Bolivia has a much greater relative area under certified forest management than Ecuador and also significantly more certified producers. The difference in the success of certification between both countries is particularly notable because Bolivia is a poorer country with more widespread corruption, and is landlocked with less access to export routes. Despite these factors, several characteristics of the Bolivian forest industry contribute to lower additional costs of certified forest management compared to Ecuador. Bolivia has stronger government enforcement of forestry regulations a fact that increases the cost of illegal logging, management units are larger, and vertical integration in the process chain from timber extraction to markets is higher. Moreover, forestry laws in Bolivia are highly compatible with certification requirements, and the government provides significant tax benefits to certified producers. Results from this study suggest that certification can be successful in countries where governments have limited governance capacity. However, the economic incentives for certification do not only arise from favourable market conditions. Certification is likely to be more successful where governments enforce forestry laws, provide financial incentives for certified forestry, and provide land tenure security, and where large-scale and vertically integrated forestry operations are commercially feasible. For this reason, at present, there are few developing countries where forest certification is likely to achieve widespread success.     

Financial assurance and mine closure: Stakeholder expectations and effects on operating decisions

Financial assurance is increasingly seen as a means to ensure orderly, clean and lasting closure of mines. Broadly interpreted, “closure” requires leaving viable ecosystems on mining lands that are compatible with a healthy environment and with human activities, that have low hazard, and that encompass measures to prevent ongoing pollution from the site in the long-term. Financial assurance encompasses environmental surety instruments that protect the government and public in the event a mining company cannot meet its reclamation or rehabilitation obligations. As such, financial assurance is in essence the money available for closure of the mine in the case when the mine owner is not available to perform the work. A general trend towards greater environmental concern among social stakeholders in mining further serves to focus attention on policies and practices that can actually “assure” financial assurance.Financial assurance is also perceived as a means to address closure-related challenges that are increasing in number as well as diversity. Notably, current trends involve a shift towards a greater focus to the societal aspects of mine closure rather than just the ecological. The use of financial assurance, however, also raises some fundamental questions about how assurance mechanisms influence mining operations and the relationship between mining operations and their surroundings. This paper examines both the internal effect of a variety of financial assurance approaches on mining operations—in particular the manner in which environmental and social concerns are addressed by mining firms, and the almost inevitable tension between some form of financial provision for closure on the one hand, and governmental expectations of tax revenue on the other. As a major argument for supporting the conduct of mining is that state revenues from the extractive industries supply monies for the building of human and infrastructural capital, this second area of tension also has strong social and developmental overtones.     

我国生态环境财税政策历史变迁及优化建议

本文系统回顾了新中国成立70年以来生态环境财税政策的历史变迁,以时间为主线,分析其在不同阶段的措施手段,对于制定完善生态环境财税政策,全面推进美丽中国建设具有重大意义。生态环境财税政策大致经历了萌芽发展、探索发展、开拓发展和快速发展四个阶段,从无到有,逐步演化,已形成种类齐全,内容丰富的政策体系,但同时也存在着支出力度和支出效率不足、事权与支出责任相适应的制度不明确、税收政策体系尚不完善等问题。本文提出了增加财政"211节能环保"科目支出规模、健全事权与支出责任相匹配的财政制度、完善环境保护税和税收优惠政策、建立基于绩效的资金分配机制等优化新时期生态环境财税政策的建议。     

Mining taxation issues for the future

During the 1970s and 1980s the main concern of mining policies was to attract investment whilst at the same time balancing the interests of governments and companies. By the turn of the century a new spectrum of challenges faces governments and companies in the mining sector. The need for fiscal regimes to adapt to price cyclicity is to some extent superseded by the requirement that they adapt to a long-term decline of metal prices. The growing importance of environmental and community affairs in the mining sector will force governments to design coherent and comprehensive tax regulations to complement the wide range of initiatives being taken in these fields. Finally, the age-old problem of tax collection continues to raise its head in transition and developing economies.     

Restoring Forests and Associated Ecosystem Services on Appalachian Coal Surface Mines

Surface coal mining in Appalachia has caused extensive replacement of forest with non-forested land cover, much of which is unmanaged and unproductive. Although forested ecosystems are valued by society for both marketable products and ecosystem services, forests have not been restored on most Appalachian mined lands because traditional reclamation practices, encouraged by regulatory policies, created conditions poorly suited for reforestation. Reclamation scientists have studied productive forests growing on older mine sites, established forest vegetation experimentally on recent mines, and identified mine reclamation practices that encourage forest vegetation re-establishment. Based on these findings, they developed a Forestry Reclamation Approach (FRA) that can be employed by coal mining firms to restore forest vegetation. Scientists and mine regulators, working collaboratively, have communicated the FRA to the coal industry and to regulatory enforcement personnel. Today, the FRA is used routinely by many coal mining firms, and thousands of mined hectares have been reclaimed to restore productive mine soils and planted with native forest trees. Reclamation of coal mines using the FRA is expected to restore these lands’ capabilities to provide forest-based ecosystem services, such as wood production, atmospheric carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, watershed protection, and water quality protection to a greater extent than conventional reclamation practices.     

Chinese resource security policies and the restructuring of the Asia-Pacific iron ore market

This paper reviews the restructuring of the Asia-Pacific iron ore market in the wake of the rise of the Chinese steel industry. Prior to the 2000s, this market was characterised by two key features—high firm-level concentration on both the producer and consumer sides, and price determination through annually negotiated benchmark pricing between Australian mining and Japanese steel firms. However, owing to rapid growth in the Chinese steel industry and its emergence as the region's principal iron ore consumer, the Asia-Pacific iron ore market has been dramatically restructured during the last decade. This process has been accelerated since 2005 by Chinese governmental resource security policies, which have sought to address current record high iron ore prices through the use of foreign investment to sponsor new market entrants and the formation of an import cartel amongst the Chinese steel firms. This paper evaluates how these policies have driven restructuring in the Asia-Pacific iron ore market, through an analysis of the growth of China's steel industry, Chinese resource security policies aimed at lowering iron ore import costs, and their effects upon the regional market's ownership structure and price determination mechanisms. It argues that while Chinese investment and cartelisation policies have catalysed significant changes to the ownership and pricing structures of the Asia-Pacific iron ore market, they have carried only mixed benefits for the Chinese steel industry's resource security.     

A Case-study of ISO 14001-based Environmental Management System Implementation in the People's Republic of China

The ISO 14001 implementation process among certified firms in China was examined by conducting a questionnaire survey distributed to all certified firms as of December 1998. Results showed that the ISO 14001-based environmental management system (EMS) has a significant effect on firms' daily environmental activities and performance. Recycling, natural resource consumption and released pollutants have been managed in a better way and, in some cases, pollutants have been reduced. The study showed that firms' main targets for adopting the system were to: enhance the firm's public image; enhance employees' environmental awareness; improve the EMS inside the firm; improve the environmental aspects and performance inside the firm; and improve relations with government offices and local citizens. ISO 1400-based EMS implementation showed that it is a promising tool for helping build a better partnership between three main stakeholders, government, local citizens and enterprises. The system has enabled firms to consider the role of the local people in a more effective way. For example, special consideration is given to involving local citizens in health and emergency preparedness during firms' daily environmental activities. Moreover, enhancing environmental awareness among the local citizens and giving more consideration to co-operation with other firms from the same industrial groups are reported by certified firms. Finally, there are strong demands for government support to build more reliable information systems, ISO 14001-related research, more incentives for eco-labelling and tax exemptions.     

Malaysia's tin supply problems

The sharp decline in Malaysia's tin output has become a matter of serious concern. The mining industry has blamed ‘penal’ tax rates for the decline in development, but more important in discouraging new investment and prospecting are difficulties in obtaining new mining leases, and the insecurity created by government plans to restructure asset ownership so as to increase indigenous Malay participation.     

Emission versus Input Taxes for Diffuse Nitrate Pollution Control in the Presence of Transaction Costs

The most important obstacle to solving diffuse pollution problems is that emissions are either unobservable or cannot be observed at a reasonable cost. Biophysical models may provide sufficient information to set a cost-effective emission tax. However, evidence from recent studies has shown that transaction costs for emission-based policies are higher per hectare than for input-based policies. An economic model of agriculture for the Kennet catchment in south-east England shows that, when transaction costs are accounted for, an input tax is more efficient than an emission tax over a range of emission standards. This result has policy implications in that it indicates, first, that economists' policy recommendations should account for transaction costs, and, secondly, that the standard advice that emission-based policies are superior may be wrong where transaction costs differ substantially between emission- and input-based policies.     

A Case-study of ISO 14001-based Environmental Management System Implementation in the People's Republic of China

The ISO 14001 implementation process among certified firms in China was examined by conducting a questionnaire survey distributed to all certified firms as of December 1998. Results showed that the ISO 14001-based environmental management system (EMS) has a significant effect on firms' daily environmental activities and performance. Recycling, natural resource consumption and released pollutants have been managed in a better way and, in some cases, pollutants have been reduced. The study showed that firms' main targets for adopting the system were to: enhance the firm's public image; enhance employees' environmental awareness; improve the EMS inside the firm; improve the environmental aspects and performance inside the firm; and improve relations with government offices and local citizens. ISO 1400-based EMS implementation showed that it is a promising tool for helping build a better partnership between three main stakeholders, government, local citizens and enterprises. The system has enabled firms to consider the role of the local people in a more effective way. For example, special consideration is given to involving local citizens in health and emergency preparedness during firms' daily environmental activities. Moreover, enhancing environmental awareness among the local citizens and giving more consideration to co-operation with other firms from the same industrial groups are reported by certified firms. Finally, there are strong demands for government support to build more reliable information systems, ISO 14001-related research, more incentives for eco-labelling and tax exemptions.     

“碳税问题”的国内研究现状

从碳税的内涵、理论渊源、碳税的影响、碳税税制设计问题与实施框架四方面入手,对国内学术界关于我国碳税问题的研究文献进行系统整理与分析,从而了解国内学术界关于碳税问题的主要研究成果,并在此基础上进行评述。研究认为：碳税开征将从宏观经济与微观经济两个层面对我国经济体系产生影响,这种影响既有正面也有负面。这就要求我国政府在碳税税制设计和实施路线上积极协调．从而达到节能减排与经济发展之间的平衡。     

The Environmental “Risky” Region: Identifying Land Degradation Processes Through Integration of Socio-Economic and Ecological Indicators in a Multivariate Regionalization Model

The economic policy needs to pay increasingly more attention to the environmental issues, which requires the development of methodologies able to incorporate environmental, as well as macroeconomic, goals in the design of public policies. Starting from this observation, this article proposes a methodology based upon a Simonian satisficing logic made operational with the help of goal programming (GP) models, to address the joint design of macroeconomic and environmental policies. The methodology is applied to the Spanish economy, where a joint policy is elicited, taking into consideration macroeconomic goals (economic growth, inflation, unemployment, public deficit) and environmental goals (CO₂, NO _x and SO _x emissions) within the context of a computable general equilibrium model. The results show how the government can “fine-tune” its policy according to different criteria using GP models. The resulting policies aggregate the environmental and the economic goals in different ways: maximum aggregate performance, maximum balance and a lexicographic hierarchy of the goals.     

South African gold mining taxation : An example of a resource rent tax

Theoretically, a resource rent tax is neutral in that it does not influence the allocation of resources. However, the application of such fundamental principles in the tax formula of the South African gold mining industry negates the neutrality principle. A progressive element in the tax rate encourages mining of submarginal ores - leads to misallocation of resources. However, it substantially reduces the financial risks of a mining company engaged in the extraction of a commodity characterized by price volability, such as gold, and permits economies of scale in mining and encourages conservation of a non-renewable resource. As long as prices increase faster than costs, the advantages of this system probably exceed the disadvantages. The choice of the threshold rate in such a tax system is critical. If it is too high it will encourage mining of submarginal ores, and if too low it does not recognize the peculiar risks of gold mining investments.     

促进我国环保产业发展的税收政策研究

阐述了税收政策介入环保产业发展的理论基础,即外部性和公共产品理论决定了环保产业的发展需要税收优惠政策给予支持;分析了我国现有环保产业的所得税政策、增值税政策和营业税政策;提出了应完善现有税制及税收分配体制等促进我国环保产业发展的税收政策建议。     

环境政策评估：一个宏观经济分析框架的综述

环境动态随机一般均衡（E-DSGE）模型以其良好的扩展性和预测性逐渐被环境宏观经济学者接纳。环境因素的引入包括经济系统对环境系统的作用、环境系统的演化过程、环境系统对经济系统的反作用等方式。E-DSGE模型中的不确定性冲击包括经济不确定性冲击、政策不确定性冲击和环境不确定性冲击。E-DSGE模型中环境政策的讨论重点包括环境税、限额与交易、强度管制等。多重环境政策的组合效应、环境影响的国际传导以及环境政策与宏观经济政策的融合等是E-DSGE模型研究的重要前沿课题。加强新凯恩斯框架下E-DSGE模型的构建与应用,加强跨流域和跨界的环境问题、水的问题、碳的问题等研究是下一阶段E-DSGE建模的重点。     

Industry and the environment: Chief executive officer attitudes, 1976 and 1986

This research considers the question of changing environmental values within the leadership of firms responsible for the management of pollution as an unwanted byproduct. Information was obtained from a pair of surveys mailed to the chief executive officers (CEOs) of the 50 largest firms listed within the mining and manufacturing directories of Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming in 1976 and again in 1986. The authors found that industry CEOs were more supportive of environmental concerns in 1986 than 1976, suggesting that ecological values have become institutionalized to some extent. Yet, there is little indication that this attitudinal shift in environmental concern among CEOs has been accompanied by a willingness to spend a larger proportion of the company budget on pollution control or to improve working relationships with federal regulatory officials.