The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

Title IV of the 1990 U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments offers firms facing high marginal costs for pollution abatement the chance to purchase the right to emit sulfur dioxide from firms with lower costs. In the long run such allowance trading may achieve substantial cost savings over an "enlightened" command and control program with a uniform emission-rate standard. But in the short run what has lowered costs is technical change and the fall in low-sulfur coal prices. Title IV of the 1990 U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments established a market for transferable sulfur dioxide emission allowances among electric utilities. The market offers firms facing high marginal costs for pollution abatement the opportunity to purchase the right to emit sulfur dioxide from firms with lower costs. It is expected to yield more cost savings than a command and control approach to environmental regulation. To evaluate the performance of the market for sulfur dioxide allowances, Carlson, Burtraw, Cropper, and Palmer use econometrically estimated marginal abatement cost functions for power plants affected by Title IV. They investigate whether the much-heralded fall in the cost of abating sulfur dioxide can be attributed to allowance trading. They find that for plants that use low-sulfur coal to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, technical change and the fall in low-sulfur coal prices have lowered marginal abatement cost curves by more than half since 1985. And that is the main source of cost reductions rather than trading allowances per se. In the long run, allowance trading may achieve cost savings of $700 million to $800 million a year more than could be expected from an "enlightened" command and control program with a uniform emission-rate standard. But comparing potential cost savings in 1995 and 1996 with actual emissions costs suggests that most trading gains were unrealized in the first two years of the program. This paper-a product of Environment and Infrastructure, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to examine the successes and failures of environmental regulation as a guide to formulating environmental policy. Maureen Cropper may be contacted at mcropper@worldbank.org

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/371.pdf?abstractid=597216&mirid=1&type=2

Sulfur Dioxide Control by Electric Utilities: What Are the Gains from Trade?

Feel lonely? What about reading books? Book is one of the greatest friends to accompany while in your lonely time. When you have no friends and activities somewhere and sometimes, reading book can be a great choice. This is not only for spending the time, it will increase the knowledge. Of course the b=benefits to take will relate to what kind of book that you are reading. And now, we will concern you to try reading models of man as one of the reading material to finish quickly.

Models of man

The theory of environmental policy

IDENTIFICATION AND INFERENCE FOR ECONOMETRIC MODELS ESSAYS IN HONOR OF THOMAS ROTHENBERG PDF Are you looking for Ebook identification and inference for econometric models essays in honor of thomas rothenberg PDF? You will be glad to know that right now identification and inference for econometric models essays in honor of thomas rothenberg PDF is available on our online library. With our online resources, you can find identification and inference for econometric models essays in honor of thomas rothenberg or just about any type of ebooks, for any type of product.

Identification and Inference for Econometric Models: Essays in Honor of Thomas Rothenberg

SUMMARY

This paper explores individual motives for volunteering. The analysis is based on the interpretation of volunteering as a consumption good (consumption model) or as a mean to increase individual's own human capital (investment model). We present an econometric framework taking into account self selection into volunteering and simultaneity between the volunteering decision and the determination of income in order to test these two models and to identify the underlying motives.



 We find strong statistical evidence for the investment model with a highly robust and significant impact of volunteering on the wage rate. Within the framework of the investment model it turns out that the number of volunteering hours plays a major role in explaining this wage premium. This supports the significance of skill acquisition to accumulate human capital, the importance of deepening of social contacts and signalling willingness to perform. As far as the consumption model is concerned we find no clear statistical evidence for its validity.

/pdf/volunteering-and-income-the-fallacy-of-the-good-samaritan-1lqs4yabe4.pdf

Volunteering and Income – The Fallacy of the Good Samaritan?

Volunteering participation rates vary greatly across countries even when the potential volunteers’ individual characteristics are controlled. We therefore analyze the volunteers’ motives against the backdrop of the predominant political and economic environment in different countries, focusing on the state’s role in influencing an individual’s decision to volunteer. Combining individual-level data from the European and World Values Survey with macroeconomic and political variables for OECD countries, we identify three channels through which governmental activities influence voluntary labor: size of the state (i.e., amount of public social expenditure), political consensus between voters and the government, and government support for democratization.

http://www.econ.jku.at/papers/2009/wp0901.pdf

Volunteering and the state

This paper covers nonmarket services provided by farmers for recreational purposes in several Central European regions. A regionally specified general equilibrium model is used to derive the efficiency conditions for a competitive equilibrium to guarantee a Pareto optimal outcome. Moreover, we present green agricultural compensation programmes in Europe and their assessment from an economic perspective. The empirical analysis focuses on tourists' willingness to pay (WTP) for the provision of agricultural landscape-enhancing services in Austria. A comparison of these measures with current voluntary compensation payments made to farmers for the preservation of an agricultural countryside in several Austrian tourism communities suggests that the hypothetical contingent valuation (CV) results represent a valid order of magnitude for the value of recreation-related agricultural services. As far as agricultural policy is concerned, environmental improvement, the stabilization of agricultural income levels, diminishing intrasectoral income differences, and the development of economically disadvantaged rural regions can be expected from directly subsidizing farmers for the provision of countryside amenities.

Towards More Efficient Compensation Programmes for Tourists' Benefits From Agriculture in Europe

The paper presents contingent valuation (CV) estimates of benefits provided by a proposed ‘Kalkalpen’ National Park in Austria. Although descriptive results of welfare measures are presented, the focus of the paper is on methodological questions concerning the analysis of CV answers. Evidence is given regarding the difference between payment card (PC) answers and closed-ended question formats. Based on different estimation models for CV questions substantial differences are found between closed-ended and payment card welfare measures. On average PC-willingness to pay (WTP) measures are below the closed-ended figures. Since the evaluation models are based on different premises in the calculation of WTP figures a more precise disclosure of the underlying evaluation methods is required if different question formats are compared to one another. Identical assumptions on the probability distributions have to be assumed whenever open- and closed-ended CV welfare measures are compared. Taking theoretical argument...

On the gap between payment card and closed-ended CVM-answers

Summary WeanalyselocalcompensationpaymentsmadetofarmersforprovidinglandscapeamenitiesinAlpine touristcommunities.Thesepaymentsresultfrom political bargainingat themunicipallevel.Paneldataestimationshowsthattheprobabilityofintroducingcompensationpaymentsdependspositivelyonthebenefitsoflandscapeamenities.Although no impact of service provision cost is found, transaction costs at different levels of the bargaining process reduce the probability of payments. Compensation payments mainly occur in communities where the provision of agricultural landscape services is perceivedasrelatively low andthe diversityof the countryside seems tobe endangered. We argue that municipal compensation payments are an important supplement to national and European Union policy measures in support of less-favoured areas.

Franz Hackl

Papers

Volunteering and Income – The Fallacy of the Good Samaritan?

Volunteering and the state

Towards More Efficient Compensation Programmes for Tourists' Benefits From Agriculture in Europe

On the gap between payment card and closed-ended CVM-answers

Local compensation payments for agri-environmental externalities: a panel data analysis of bargaining outcomes