碳税政策下制造商竞争的供应链定价策略和社会福利研究

本文在考虑消费者环境意识下，探讨了制造商竞争情形下基于碳税政策的供应链成员定价策略和社会福利问题。研究表明，碳税政策的实施均会使得普通产品和低碳产品的批发价格和零售价格上升，且普通产品的价格变化总是较低碳产品更加明显；实施碳税政策前后，清洁型制造商面临的产品需求和利润变化总是较普通制造商更具有相对优势；制造商竞争有利于碳税政策引导制造商降低单位产品的碳排放量，实现绿色转型；碳税政策下，不论是清洁型制造商还是普通制造商，他们降低自身产品的单位碳排放量对提升自身产品在需求上的优势或减少自身产品在需求上的劣势都是有益的。当制造商之间的竞争性较小时，实施最优的碳税政策可以显著改善社会福利；特别是当消费者环境意识水平较低时，实施最优的碳税政策更为必要。当制造商之间的竞争强度较大时，不论消费者环境意识高低，直观税率值1可以作为一个近似最优的碳税政策，用以改善社会福利。     

考虑消费者环保意识与政府补贴的企业绿色技术创新决策研究

在绿色经济时代，绿色技术创新已经成为越来越多企业获取竞争优势的途径。本文基于消费者需求偏好，在不同的政府补贴情形下，构建了包含绿色产品与普通产品生产企业的双寡头竞争模型和斯塔克博格模型，分析了企业绿色技术创新驱动因素和行动时机。研究表明：消费者环保意识有助于提升绿色产品市场份额和企业利润，而绿色产品的单位成本增加会降低其市场份额和企业利润，且绿色产品的单位成本与普通产品企业的利润呈倒U型关系；政府对绿色产品的补贴，可以促进企业绿色技术创新。补贴消费者与补贴企业两种方式下产品的市场份额和社会总福利相同，考虑到补贴的执行成本，补贴消费者更优；绿色产品生产企业作为追随者时，绿色产品的市场占有率最高，社会总福利也最高，因此，后发行动策略是企业绿色技术创新的占优行动策略。     

经济增长和环境质量相容性政策条件——环境技术进步方向视角下的政策偏向效应检验

现有文献关注政策规制的经济与环境绩效,却并未重视不同类型政策的技术偏向,以及技术偏态情境中经济增长和环境质量相容发展的政策条件。本文扩展Acemoglu等(2012)的环境技术进步方向模型,数理演绎不同性质政策的技术偏向,以及技术进步方向转变时经济增长和环境质量的动态演化过程,再结合我国经济数据进行政策效果评价。研究结果发现:(1)环境技术进步方向是技术研发效率和环境政策累积作用的结果,环境政策会通过影响不同类型技术创新激励的方式,改变环境技术进步方向。(2)异质性政策转变技术进步方向,影响经济增长和环境质量,其作用存在不同的着力点和偏向性。其中,研发补贴政策的清洁技术偏向和产出激励效果明显,而规制类政策的环境质量效应优于研发补贴,但其对经济增长的作用表现出非线性U型特征。(3)单一政策干预往往难以破除经济增长和环境质量的两难困境,而政策组合的效果明显优于单一政策,特别是在碳排放权交易试点地区实施研发补贴政策,以及在碳排放权交易试点地区同时实行环境税与研发补贴,效果明显优于实施单一政策。但最优的政策组合并非固定不变,而往往处于动态变化过程中。     

政府基金政策对WEEE回收处理的引导作用及效果分析

为了规范废弃电器电子产品（WEEE）的回收处理，2012年开始政府通过向生产企业征收基金、同时给予回收处理企业定额补贴的措施引导回收行业的有序开展，但现行基金政策在实施过程中面临着资金缺口的挑战，因此有必要探讨更加创新的激励约束机制。本文主要分析现行基金政策、资金平衡政策、以及基金减免政策对生产企业和回收处理企业的影响，通过比较企业利润、消费者剩余、环境收益、社会福利和政府资金投入等指标，综合评估三类政策的效果。研究结果表明，现行基金政策下生产企业缺少动力在生态设计、绿色生产等方面付诸环保努力，因此限制了废弃产品资源化的效率和效益。相对于现行基金政策，资金平衡政策的优势和劣势均较为突出，优势在于避免了政府财政负担，但劣势在于对生产企业的冲击过大，导致消费者剩余和社会福利下降。比较而言，基金减免政策在向生产企业征收处理基金的同时，还将根据废弃产品的处理数量给予生产企业相应的减免额度，这种压力与动力并举的措施能够更好地调动生产企业履行环境责任的积极性，激励生产企业与回收处理企业的共同努力。从评估指标来看，基金减免政策在提升WEEE的回收处理数量，改善回收处理企业的盈利状况，以及提高环境收益，降低政府开支方面具有显著的优越性。     

Economic Growth and Welfare in a Neoclassical Overlapping Generations Growth Model with Minimum Wages and Consumption Taxes

We examine the effects of minimum wages on both the long‐run per worker GDP and welfare in the textbook Diamond style overlapping generations economy. In addition, we assume the existence of unemployment benefits financed at a balanced budget with consumption taxes. Under suitable conditions, it is shown that a regulated‐wage economy with unemployment performs better than a competitive‐wage economy with full employment in the long run. Moreover, a welfare‐maximizing minimum wage exists. Our findings may have interesting policy implications.     

基于政府补贴的企业最优减排技术选择研究

通过构建三阶段博弈模型，得到了清洁工艺治污和末端治污企业的减排研发绩效，并进一步利用数值模拟方法分析了最优补贴政策下，技术溢出率、污染损害程度及排污税对企业治污技术选择的影响。研究表明：无补贴政策下，企业最优的选择为末端治污技术，经济和环境无法取得双赢。最优补贴政策下，当污染损害在一定范围内时，无论技术溢出率取何值，基于利润最大化和政府福利最大化视角，企业的最优技术选择都为清洁工艺治污技术。最优补贴政策下，无论排污税取何值，清洁工艺治污模式下的企业利润都高于末端治污模式下的企业利润；排污税影响不同治污模式下的社会福利水平，当排污税较小时，清洁工艺治污模式下的福利水平大于末端治污模式下的情形，当排污税较大时，末端治污模式下的福利水平大于清洁工艺治污模式下的情形，为保证企业的减排技术选择和政府的选择一致，取得经济和环境无法取得双赢，政府应设置一个合理的排污税水平。     

需求不确定情况下绿色产品消费过程中政府的最优补贴

从化解绿色技术创新的环境外部效应出发，对绿色产品消费过程中政府如何给购买者提供补贴问题进行了研究。假定绿色产品的市场需求存在不确定性，讨论了需求函数分别为加法形式与乘积形式时，企业如何确定产品的价格和销量，以及政府如何选择补贴方式的策略问题。研究认为：给定需求函数的具体形式，政府提供的最优补贴或者价格折扣、企业最优产量以及政府实际补贴支出随着政府期望实现销售目标的提高而增加，随着市场风险的增加而增加。从政府补贴支出最小化角度来看，固定额度补贴方式为政府的最优选择。给定政府补贴支出，从实现企业产量最大化角度来看，价格折扣方式为政府的最优选择。对消费者来讲，政府应用价格折扣方式能够降低消费者的购买支出，提高消费者获得的福利剩余。     

基于绿色投资效率的港航供应链投资策略研究

在IMO环境政策约束日趋严格的背景下，绿色投资成为港航企业提升自身竞争优势的方式之一。本文以港口主导的供应链为研究对象，分析三种投资场景与不同成员投资的利益关系，即从绿色技术投资效率对港航供应链的成本效应、绿色技术投入效应、经济效应和市场效应等方面展开分析，最后分析不同投资策略对消费者剩余和社会福利的影响。研究表明：港口绿色技术投资在一定程度上会增加整体供应链的成本投入；当绿色技术投资效率逐步提高时，绿色投入水平不断下降，降低了绿色投入的成本，从而达到“投入高效率，投入水平低增长，整体收益高增长”的投资效果；无论是承运人或是港口进行绿色技术投入，均会增加市场的服务价格，相较于非绿色技术投入，绿色技术投入时会增加整体市场的需求数量；从消费者剩余的角度考虑，承运人绿色技术投入相较于港口绿色技术投入产生的消费者剩余大，也会在一定程度上减少因价格“传递效应”带来的不利影响；从社会福利的角度考虑，虽然绿色投资可能会降低社会福利，但承运人投资产生的社会福利优于港口绿色投资时产生的社会福利；从保护环境的角度，政府的政策制定具有较高的优先级，有助于提升环境收益。研究结果进一步丰富了港航企业绿色投资的研究成果，可为合理权衡绿色技术投资效率，为港口供应链成员的绿色投资决策提供一定的参考，对绿色港口供应链的良性发展具有一定的指导意义。     

Technology Choice and Capacity Portfolios under Emissions Regulation

We study the impact of emissions tax and emissions cap‐and‐trade regulation on a firm's technology choice and capacity decisions. We show that emissions price uncertainty under cap‐and‐trade results in greater expected profit than a constant emissions price under an emissions tax, which contradicts popular arguments that the greater uncertainty under cap‐and‐trade will erode value. We further show that two operational drivers underlie this result: (i) the firm's option not to operate, which effectively right‐censors the uncertain emissions price; and (ii) dispatch flexibility, which is the firm's ability to first deploy its most profitable capacity given the realized emissions price. In addition to these managerial insights, we also explore policy implications: the effect of emissions price level, and the effect of investment and production subsidies. Through an illustrative example, we show that production subsidies of higher investment and production cost technologies (such as carbon capture and storage technologies) have no effect on the firm's optimal total capacity when firms own a portfolio of both clean and dirty technologies, but that investment subsidies of these technologies increase the firm's total capacity, conditionally increasing expected emissions. A subsidy of a lower production cost technology, on the other hand, has no effect on the firm's optimal total capacity in multi‐technology portfolios, regardless of whether the subsidy is a production or investment subsidy.     

逆向供应链中电子废弃产品回收定价和补贴策略研究

随着废弃电子产品的大量涌现和社会环保意识的增强,废弃电子产品的回收处理成为社会关注的热点问题之一。在现有的文献研究中,更多的是从逆向供应链系统化的视角关注价格或税收政策对回收商或处理商的运营效率、积极性的影响,逆向供应链激励的关键问题即如何确定回收价格和补贴方面的研究却较少见。本文基于社会福利最大化的视角,建立斯塔克伯格博弈模型（社会福利模型）来确定逆向供应链分散管理中的回收价格和社会最优补贴费,该模型可以检验分散管理系统（环保局作为领导者、MIS和回收商作为追随者）中回收逆向供应链的回收价格和补贴的激励效应。通过社会福利模型和资金平衡模型的比较,以及比较案例的数值演算,结果发现：达到市场最优销售数量和向顾客提供回收废弃电子产品的最优奖金的状况下,销售商和回收商处于平衡状态;社会福利模型中窒息价格、零奖金对应的基准收集数量、相对于奖金的收集量敏感度等因素对社会福利的影响均优于资金平衡模型。     

Design of the Reverse Channel for Remanufacturing: Must Profit‐Maximization Harm the Environment?

A key attribute of a remanufacturing strategy is the division of labor in the reverse channel, especially whether remanufacturing is performed in‐house or outsourced. We investigate this decision for a retailer who accepts returns of a remanufacturable product. Our formulation considers the cost structures of the two strategies, uncertainty in the input quality of the collected/returned used products, consumer willingness‐to‐pay for remanufactured product, the extent to which the remanufactured product cannibalizes demand for a new product, and the power structure in the channel. For the profit‐maximizing retailer, the differentials in variable remanufacturing costs drive strategy choice, and higher fixed costs of in‐house remanufacturing favors outsourcing. The variable remanufacturing costs and the balance of power in the prospective outsourced reverse channel are the key drivers of environmental impact, as measured by the retailer's propensity to remanufacture. While profitability and environmental goals often conflict, they align under certain conditions. These include (a) the third party has less bargaining power; or (b) the fixed cost for in‐house remanufacturing is relatively high. All else equal, when remanufacturing is outsourced, the environment fares better if the third party has leadership power. We generalize to the cases when remanufacturing achieves a quality level less than “good‐as‐new" and when used items have non‐zero salvage value. Analysis of these extensions illuminates how relative power in the reverse channel drives the firms’ preferences, as well as the end customers’ consumption experience.     

闭环供应链再制品消费补贴政策模型分析

本文从政府提供消费补贴以鼓励消费者选择购买再制品的视角,构建了政府消费补贴下的闭环供应链博弈模型,得到了政府的最优消费补贴策略,并探讨了政府消费补贴政策对闭环供应链新品与再制品的定价、供应链总利润、消费者剩余、社会福利的影响。研究结果表明：1）只有满足特定条件时,政府才需提供再制品消费补贴;2）政府的消费补贴在制造商和消费者之间进行平均分配,因而补贴政策对制造商和消费者均有激励作用;3）政府消费补贴政策有利于供应链总利润、消费者剩余、社会福利的提高;4）政府应引导制造商专注于再制造,将废旧品的回收交由第三方回收商来完成,这有利于提高废旧产品的回收率;5）政府消费补贴政策将造成再制品对新品的市场挤兑效应。论文最后利用数值试验对研究结果进行了验证。     

Managing Slow‐Moving Perishables in the Grocery Industry

We address the value of information and value of centralized control in the context of a two‐echelon, serial supply chain with one retailer and one supplier that provide a single perishable product to consumers. Our analysis is relevant for managing slow‐moving perishable products with fixed lot sizes and expiration dates of a week or less. We evaluate two supply chain structures. In the first structure, referred to as decentralized information sharing, the retailer shares its demand, inventory, and ordering policy with the supplier, yet both facilities make their own profit‐maximizing replenishment decisions. In the second structure, centralized control, incentives are aligned and the replenishment decisions are coordinated. The latter supply chain structure corresponds to the industry practices of company‐owned stores or vendor‐managed inventory. We measure the value of information and value of centralized control as the marginal improvement in expected profits that a supply chain achieves relative to the case when no information is shared and decision making is decentralized. Key assumptions of our model include stochastic demand, lost sales, and fixed order quantities. We establish the importance of information sharing and centralized control in the supply chain and identify conditions under which benefits are realized. As opposed to previous work on the value of information, the major benefit in our setting is driven by the supplier's ability to provide the retailer with fresher product. By isolating the benefit by firm, we show that sharing information is not always Pareto‐improving for both supply chain partners in the decentralized setting.     

企业环境研发、产品差异化与政府环境管制

气候变暖已成为全球日益关注的重要问题之一,实施环境管制政策是政府控制企业碳排放量的重要手段。基于东道国企业和外资企业产品差异化竞争假设,建立了企业环境研发策略(环境研发卡特尔策略和独立环境研发策略)与政府环境管制的三阶段博弈模型,运用逆向求解法求得各阶段均衡解,比较了不同环境研发策略下企业环境研发水平(及碳减排量)、政策环境管制水平及国家福利。结果表明:企业环境研发投入越多,政府最优碳排放税越低;碳排放对环境造成的损害越大,政府最优排放税越高,企业越致力于环境研发。对关键参数赋值和模拟后进一步发现,总体而言,环境研发卡特尔策略要优于独立环境研发策略,但随着产品差异化程度的缩小和环境研发溢出程度的降低,环境研发卡特尔策略优于独立环境研发策略的程度也在缩小。因此,本文的研究可为外资企业和东道国企业产品策略选择和环境研发策略选择提供理论依据,也可为政府政策制定提供参考。     

Tax Structure and Female Labour Supply: Evidence from Ireland

How great an effect does the structure of income taxes have on female labour supply? This issue is investigated using a discrete‐choice static labour supply model for married couples in Ireland. The model incorporates fixed costs of working and simultaneously explains participation decisions and preferred hours of work. The model is estimated using data from the 1994 wave of the Living in Ireland Survey. Simulations examine the labour supply effects of introducing greater independence in the tax treatment of married couples, compared with an income‐splitting system, and alternative forms of tax cuts.     

OPTIMAL EXCHANGE RATES: A MARKET MICROSTRUCTURE APPROACH

Motivated by the observation that exchange‐rate management resembles market‐making, we use microstructure theory to conduct a welfare analysis of exchange‐rate management, including the “corner solutions” of a free float and a fixed peg. We show that a policy that smoothes out exchange‐rate fluctuations needs to trade off the welfare gain due to lower risk exposure of local producers against the trading losses that the policy would generate due to speculation. We identify the conditions under which exchange‐rate management can increase welfare and argue that these conditions are more likely to be satisfied in illiquid markets, mainly small economies and emerging markets. We also explore the role of a Tobin tax (assuming enforceability) in facilitating exchange‐rate management. (JEL: E58, F31, G14, O24)     

Compliance Strategies under Permits for Emissions

We characterize the trade‐offs among firms' compliance strategies in a market‐based program where a regulator interested in controlling emissions from a given set of sources auctions off a fixed number of emissions permits. We model a three‐stage game in which firms invest in emissions abatement, participate in a share auction for permits, and produce output. We develop a methodology for a profit‐maximizing firm to derive its marginal value function for permits and translate this value function into an optimal bidding strategy in the auction. We analyze two end‐product market scenarios independent demands and Cournot competition. In both scenarios we find that changing the number of available permits influences abatement to a lesser extent in a dirty industry than in a cleaner one. In addition, abatement levels taper off with increasing industry dirtiness levels. In the presence of competition, firms in a relatively clean industry can, in fact, benefit from a reduction in the number of available permits. Our findings are robust to changes in certain modeling assumptions.     

Quality‐Speed Competition in Customer‐Intensive Services with Boundedly Rational Customers

We consider a system in which two competing servers provide customer‐intensive services and the service reward is affected by the length of service time. The customers are boundedly rational and choose their service providers according to a logit model. We demonstrate that the service provider revenue function is unimodal in the service rate, its decision variable, and show that the service rate competition has a unique and stable equilibrium. We then study the price decision under three scenarios with the price determined by a revenue‐maximizing firm, a welfare‐maximizing social planner, or two servers in competition. We find that the socially optimal price, subject to the requirement that the customer actual utility must be non‐negative, is always lower than the competition equilibrium price which, in turn, is lower than the revenue‐maximizing monopoly price. However, if the customer actual utility is allowed to be negative in social optimization, the socially optimal price can be higher than the other two prices in a large market.     

The Role of Automatic Stabilizers in the U.S. Business Cycle

Most countries have automatic rules in their tax‐and‐transfer systems that are partly intended to stabilize economic fluctuations. This paper measures their effect on the dynamics of the business cycle. We put forward a model that merges the standard incomplete‐markets model of consumption and inequality with the new Keynesian model of nominal rigidities and business cycles, and that includes most of the main potential stabilizers in the U.S. data and the theoretical channels by which they may work. We find that the conventional argument that stabilizing disposable income will stabilize aggregate demand plays a negligible role in the dynamics of the business cycle, whereas tax‐and‐transfer programs that affect inequality and social insurance can have a larger effect on aggregate volatility. However, as currently designed, the set of stabilizers in place in the United States has had little effect on the volatility of aggregate output fluctuations or on their welfare costs despite stabilizing aggregate consumption. The stabilizers have a more important role when monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound, and they affect welfare significantly through the provision of social insurance.     

Redistribution Through Education and Other Mechanisms Under Capital‐Market Imperfections and Uncertainty: A Welfare Effect Analysis

Abstract. This paper considers a two‐period model of endogenous human capital formation under the credits‐market imperfection and uncertainty assumptions. We compare in the first part of the paper ex‐ante and ex‐post general‐equilibrium effects of the education subsidy policy to those of the negative income tax and the unskilled wage subsidy regimes. We show that the education subsidy policy raises an efficiency‐inequality trade‐off issue, and therefore it is optimal unless the degree of inequality aversion is relatively high and financing the subsidy is not too distorsive. Public loans are generally claimed to provide a solution for such issue. We explore the implications of implementing the public loan under several schemes in the second part of the paper. We show that combining between a pure public loan and education subsidies provides higher levels of welfare than these two policies taken separately provided that the inequality aversion degree is high. For low degrees of inequality aversion, the pure public loan is the optimal policy.