Investing in safety an analytical precautionary principle

PROBLEM: Governments and businesses must respond to increasing safety requirements and balance the associated costs with productivity and competing pressures. METHOD: A real options approach has been introduced for decision making in the private sector; this approach is adapted for regulatory decisions that can involve irreversible and uncertain safety impacts, social costs that differ from private costs, and differences in perception among the stakeholders. RESULT AND IMPACT ON INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT: The outcome is an economic decision gage that determines if it is optimal to invest in safety even if the estimated costs significantly exceed the estimated benefits. Applications potentially include safety decisions related to aviation, ground transportation, pipelines, nuclear facilities, natural disaster planning, and terrorism, among others.     

东三省“十二五”城镇污水厂投资与减排效益分析

东北三省"十二五"主要水污染物减排项目方案实施后,必然会引起环境发生一定变化,环境效益正是污染减排工程的环境后果的代表。利用西方经济学中的边际效用理论对"十二五"期间东三省城镇污水处理厂单位投资的COD削减量进行分析。依据投入的环境边际效益对各省工作重点提出建议。     

Mineral development,financing and cooperation: New forms of international participation?

Although relations between direct investors and host countries must steadily evolve to meet continually changing circumstances, this should be within a broadly stable framework. The basic technical and economic characteristics of mining should dictate the nature of that framework. In contemplating their experiences during the past decade many international mining companies might ruefully agree with Benjamin Franklin that: ‘in this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes’. The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the important factors that must be taken into account by governments, international agencies and private investors contemplating large-scale mining projects. These inevitably dictate the forms of international participation in mining ventures.     

林火预防与扑救投资的成本效益分析

针对某一林区,确定其林木管理目标,以及为达到此目标对林火监测与扑救系统的要求,从而确定森林防火的资金投入。分析了加大森林防火投入前后森林火灾损失与扑求费用的变化。     

Competitive investment in clean technology and uninformed green consumers

In a market where consumers and the regulatory authorities are not fully informed about the actual production technology or environmental performance of firms that engage in strategic competition, I study the effect of environmental consciousness of consumers on firms׳ incentive to invest in cleaner technology. Firms compete in prices and may signal their environmental performance to uninformed consumers through prices. I also analyze the effect of an expected liability on firms in this setting. Compared to full information, incomplete information generates higher strategic incentive to invest in cleaner technology particularly when consciousness and/or expected liability are not too high. Requiring mandatory disclosure of technology or environmental performance may discourage such investment. Even though consumers and the regulator are uninformed, competition has a positive effect (relative to monopoly) on the incentive to invest.     

Assessment of risk in a minerals industry: Canadian nickel

The level of rents attributable to natural resource producers depends on the risk faced by those producers. This paper argues that estimates of risk in mining should control for characteristics of firms such as diversification and debt financing. The capital asset pricing model is applied to securities of three Canadian nickel mining firms over the period 1961–1974. It is concluded that the level of risk was not unusually high.     

Male butterfly investment in successive ejaculates in relation to mating system

In Lepidoptera, female mating systems range from strict monandry to strong polyandry. Males transfer an ejaculate during copulation that contains both sperm and accessory gland substances. In butterflies the male ejaculate has at least three effects: it (1) contains sperm that can fertilize the eggs of the male’s mating partner, (2) influences the refractory period of the mated female, and (3) contains nutrients that can be used by the female to increase her reproductive output. A number of recent studies have shown that males in polyandrous mating systems are endowed with adaptations to increase mating capabilities. Relative to males in more monandrous species they transfer larger first ejaculates which contain relatively more protein, and allocate proportionally more resources to reproduction. The objective of this study was to compare male reproductive investment in successive ejaculates, in terms of both mass and quality, to determine if males of polyandrous species are capable of maintaining the production of larger and more nutritious ejaculates than males of more monandrous species. We used three species of pierid butterfly, with mating systems ranging from relative monandry to polyandry. The degree of polyandry had a substantial effect on the reproductive performance of males. The cumulative protein content of ejaculates increased with the degree of polyandry. Only males of the most polyandrous species, Pieris rapae, produced three successive ejaculates of similar mass and protein content. In the relatively monandrous species, Aporia crataegi and P. brassicae, males in subsequent matings never produced another ejaculate as large as that transferred by males mating for the first time, although the protein content (mg) of ejaculates did not differ in second and third ejaculates. Moreover, the ability to remate varied with the degree of polyandry. Given the opportunity to remate, the majority of P. rapae males mated three times, whereas relatively few A. crataegi and P. brassicae males were able to perform three matings. These results suggest that male capacity to produce large, nutritious ejaculates is limited in relatively monandrous species. In this study only males belonging to the most polyandrous species had the ability to recuperate quickly from a mating event and remate. Our results suggest that males in polyandrous systems are better adapted to mating more than once. Received: 3 November 1995/Accepted after revision: 13 July 1996     

Regional development benefits of mineral projects

This paper discusses the development impact of mining and mineral processing on the regions in which they are located. The discussion is organized so as to be of relevance for policy formulation in resource-rich developing countries which consider the exploitation of their mineral wealth. The hypothesis is that mining technology, interpreted in a broad sense, has undergone a profound change since 1900. In consequence, experiences of mineralbased regional development in the industrialized countries around the turn of the century are of little relevance to the Third World in the 1980s. Contemporary mineral ventures have very weak regional development repercussions in the absence of forceful policies specifically directed towards the regional development goal.     

污染治理投资质量与回报的量化分析

从环境污染汉理投资的相关因子和系数分析入手，对治理投资质量和效果分别建立了量化函数关系，由此计算所得结果与理论标准值比较，则可确定其质量与回报结果。     

对上海空间环境维系可持续发展的探讨

文章阐述了上海要建成国际大都市，需处理好大都市圈，市辖范围的城郊及市中心地区三个层面的城市空间环境问题。对大都市圈，以上海为中心的长江三角洲范围内，突破踞行政管辖范围的限制，形成基础设施和区域环境保护网络。对市辖范围内的城郊，一是要充分认识杭州湾滨江海城市带，将是２１世纪继浦东开发后，最具活力的新的经济增长及改善城市环境的重要地区，要有所预见并引导与规范其发展；二是要对郊工业的发展严格执行有利于环