Depletable externalities and pigouvian taxation

In their book Baumol and Oates [“The Theory of Environmental Policy: Externalities, Public Outlays, and the Quality of Life,” Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. (1975).] argue that whether an externality is depletable (private) or undepletable (public) is the key characteristic in determining the optimal pricing pattern. They argue that unlike the undepletable case a negative depletable externality requires not only a charge or tax on the generator of the externality but a payment or compensation to the victim in order to achieve Pareto optimality. It is shown that the key characteristic determining whether compensation of victims is required for efficiency is not the depletability of the externality but whether the victim can costlessly control or limit the amount of the damaging substance received.     

Vertical fiscal externalities and the environment

We show that imposition of a state-level environmental tax in a federation crowds out pre-existing federal taxes. We explain how this vertical fiscal externality can lead unilateral state-level environmental policy to generate a welfare gain in the implementing state, at the expense of other states, even absent any environmental benefits. Using a computable general equilibrium model of the Canadian federation, we show that vertical fiscal externalities can be the major determinant of the welfare change following environmental policy implementation by a state government. Our numerical simulations indicate that – as a consequence of vertical fiscal externalities – state governments can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 20 percent without any net cost to themselves.     

Optimal taxation: Timber and externalities

The paper presents a model of the relationship between timber taxation and externalities. Optimal pigouvian taxation formulas are derived within this framework for common taxes. A simulation model of Douglas fir is used to estimate the size and direction of these effects. The results show that taxation policy can have a marked impact on the production of externalities, depending on tree species and land productivity.     

Pesticide resistance externalities and optimal mosquito management

A simultaneous equation model of the behavior of a mosquito abatement district based on biological and economic data is presented. Results indicate high long term costs if heavy reliance on chemical pesticide control methods continue, due to a pesticide resistance buildup in the mosquito populations. Physical source reduction methods were shown to be more efficient both in the short and long run. A linear programming model is presented which optimizes the inix of chemical and physical control methods. Results indicate increasing costs of mosquito abatement as pesticide effectiveness declines.     

International externalities, strategic interaction, and domestic politics

Domestic politics can sometimes play an influential role when externalities have strategic and international implications. If voters delegate the choice to policymakers and if individual countries independently determine their environmental policy using a consumption tax on the emissions generating good, the result could be an outcome that is inferior to the one preferred by the median voter in the absence of delegation. On the other hand, if the international externality is unilateral in nature, rather than reciprocal, we find that delegation is largely irrelevant, since voters’ choice of policymaker is no longer strategic in character. Similarly, if voters anticipate policymakers successfully coordinating their policies at a later stage, there also will be no difference between the policymakers’ and the median voters’ aggregate weighting of environmental emissions.     

Optimal management of renewable resources with growing demand and stock externalities

In an equilibrium framework, optimal management of renewable resources in the presence of growing demand or externalities leads to steady states that differ from those characterized by rate of interest equals rate of change in growth plus rate of change in prices. Measures to reach an optimum with externalities other than direct controls are found to be critically mediated by the costs of harvesting.     

Production externalities and corrective subsidies: A general equilibrium analysis

Several recent attempts have been made to demonstrate that corrective subsidies and taxes do not have symmetric allocation effects. These demonstrations have utilized graphical partial equilibrium analysis. In this paper a general equilibrium model is introduced to show that a standard partial equilibrium result may be incorrect and that subsidies may lead to equilibrium states which are socially preferred to the status quo position.     

Optimal quasi-market choice in the presence of pollution externalities

When the relationship between emissions and ambient pollution is known, it is possible to implement a program to achieve economically efficient pollution levels, even when the control agency knows nothing about the victim's valuation of pollution damages or about emission abatement costs. Unlike a Pigouvian tax, the program provides the correct incentives for entry and exit whether or not marginal damages from a firm's emissions vary over the range of these emissions. Through the provision of “missing” markets, sizable revenues are raised while allocative distortions are corrected.     

Intertemporal production externalities,technical change,and public expenditure analysis

This paper discusses the implications of relative price change for public expenditure analysis involving natural environments. It develops a model which identifies those demand and supply factors which must be considered in the evaluation of the time stream of benefits associated with the amenity services provided by natural environments in their preserved status.     

Those outsiders: How downstream externalities affect public good provision

Some policy problems pit one group?s interests against another?s. One group may determine provision of a project (such as a dam) that benefits group members but hurts others. We introduce a model of such projects. In-group members may contribute to a common fund that benefits them as a public good. Benefits from the project may vary within the group. Provision has negative downstream externalities: contributions hurt agents outside the in-group (“Outsiders”), rendering them anti-social. Many models of social preferences predict that such externalities should reduce provision, although conditional cooperation or a preference for in-group members may counteract this. We test this model with a lab experiment using Outsiders with whom the in-group members have more and less contact. With homogeneous in-group benefits, the presence of negative downstream externalities reduces contributions by half when they have closer contact with Outsiders but not at all when they have had no contact. We introduce a rotating high-return position that allows subjects to trade favors. In this setting, contributions of non-privileged members diminish slightly when faced with the negative externality given closer contact with Outsiders, and not at all with less contact. Reciprocal giving occurs whether or not Outsiders are present.     

Pollution control in a simplified general-equilibrium model with production externalities

Pollution externalities of the producer-producer type are considered in a positive two-sector model with stationary capital and labor. By assumption, output from the polluting sector can be diverted to pollution abatement. Environmental authorities attempt to control the level of pollution to some minimum “acceptable” standard by requiring polluters to depollute through the mechanism of a uniform tax on production. Following discussion of short-run considerations, the stability of the tax-adjustment scheme is examined and the dynamic nature of growth paths in the economy is explored.     

Controlling stock externalities in a common property fishery subject to uncertainty

Two methods are examined for regulating stock externalities under uncertainty: quotas and taxes. Dynamic programming is used to characterize the externalities precisely. The accuracy with which the current size of the resource stock can be monitored is found to be of crucial importance in the choice between tax and quota regulation. If the current stock is observed without error, taxes are capable of outperforming any quota.     

Shifting cultivation, forest fallow, and externalities in ecosystem services: Evidence from the Eastern Amazon

This study examines the value of fallow ecosystem services in shifting cultivation, including hydrological externalities that may affect other farms. Using farm-level survey data from the Brazilian Amazon, I estimate a production function to assess the value of forest fallow and test whether it provides local externalities to agricultural production. Soil quality controls, instrumental variables, and spatial econometric approaches help address endogeneity issues. I use GIS data on external forest cover at the farm level and model the hydrological externality as an upstream-to-downstream process. The estimated parameters indicate that fallow contributes significantly to productivity both on farm and downstream. In addition, most farms allocate sufficient land to fallow, accounting for both the value of hydrological spillovers and the opportunity cost of land left out of cultivation. These results suggest that farming communities may have some self-interest in preserving forest cover locally—a finding that may bolster policy efforts aimed at conserving tropical forests for their global public goods.     

Health externalities of India's expansion of coal plants: Evidence from a national panel of 40,000 households

Coal power generation is expanding rapidly in India and other developing countries. In addition to consequences for climate change, present-day health externalities may also substantially increase the social cost of coal. Health consequences of air pollution have proven important in studies of developed countries, but, despite clear importance, similarly well-identified estimates are less available for developing countries, and no estimates exist for the important case of coal in India. We exploit panel data on Indian households, matched to local changes in exposure to coal plants. Increased exposure to coal plants is associated with worse respiratory health. Consistent with a causal mechanism, the effect is specific: no effect is seen on diarrhea or fever, and no effect on respiratory health is seen of new non-coal plants. Our result is not due to endogenous avoidance behavior, or to differential trends in determinants of respiratory health, either before the period studied or simultaneously.     

Modelling the hydrological externalities of agriculture in wetlands: the case of rice in Esteros del Iberà, Argentina

The conversion of wetlands to alternative uses, or land uses that affect either water levels or water quality, have profound implications for the ecological and hydrological services wetlands provide. This study considers the hydrological externalities of agricultural production in one freshwater wetland: the Esteros del Iberà in north-eastern Argentina. Two externalities are considered. First, an international hydroelectric power project, the Yacyretà dam, has significantly increased the extent of the Iberà wetland and will continue to do so over the next decade. This has negatively affected the production of rice. Second, production of rice positively affects the area of the wetland. Further increases in water levels in Iberà are expected to induce a reallocation of rice production within the region and in particular within the wetland. The paper models the externality and estimates the costs involved.     

鸡败血型葡萄球菌病的诊断与治疗

鸡葡萄球菌是由致病性金黄色葡萄球菌引起鸡的一种环境性传染病,已成为一些养鸡场的常见病之一,本病的特点是引起鸡的急性败血症,发病率和死亡率都很高,造成的经济损失很大。     

Shifting Baselines and The Extinction of The Caribbean Monk Seal

The recent extnction of the Caribbean monk seal Monachus tropicalis has been considered an example of a human‐caused extinction in the marine environment, and this species was considered a driver of the changes that have occurred in the structure of Caribbean coral reef ecosystems since colonial times. I searched archaeological records, historical data, and geographic names (used as a proxy of the presence of seals) and evaluated the use and quality of these data to conclude that since prehistoric times the Caribbean monk seal was always rare and vulnerable to human predation. This finding supports the hypothesis that in AD 1500, the Caribbean monk seal persisted as a small fragmented population in which individuals were confined to small keys, banks, or isolated islands in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. This hypothesis is contrary to the assumption that the species was widespread and abundant historically. The theory that the main driver of monk seal extinction was harvesting for its oil for use in the sugar cane industry of Jamaica during the 18th century is based primarily on anecdotal information and is overemphasized in the literature. An analysis of reported human encounters with this species indicates monk seal harvest was an occasional activity, rather than an ongoing enterprise. Nevertheless, given the rarity of this species and its restricted distribution, even small levels of hunting or specimen collecting must have contributed to its extinction, which was confirmed in the mid‐20th century. Some sources had been overlooked or only partially reviewed, others misinterpreted, and a considerable amount of anecdotal information had been uncritically used. Critical examination of archaeological and historical records is required to infer accurate estimations of the historical abundance of a species. In reconstructing the past to address the shifting baseline syndrome, it is important to avoid selecting evidence to confirm modern prejudices. Puntos de Referencia Cambiantes y la Extinción de la Foca Monje Caribeña     

大学生违法犯罪的特点及趋势探讨

近年来,大学生违法犯罪现象有明显增加的趋势,给社会造成了重大损失．如何有效预防和减少大学生犯罪,已逐渐成为社会高度关注并亟待解决的问题．在对部分高校调查研究的基础上,本文从阐述当代大学生违法犯罪的现状和特点着手,多方位对大学生违法犯罪的趋势作出了大胆的预测,以期为构筑大学生违法犯罪预防体系提供理论依据．参6．