Moments of alignment between devolved political ideology and policy design: the case of Wales

The devolution of power and responsibility from central to sub national levels of governance over the past half century marks a paradigm shift in forces shaping social policy across much of Western Europe. Scholarship in this field is often concerned with a binary analysis of before and after the advent of devolution, with insufficient attention paid to transitory changes over time. Through attention to Wales’ flagship community regeneration programme, Communities First, a striking instance of divergent devolved social policy, we highlight the need to attend to the dynamics of devolution across time. Drawing on empirical data charting the programme’s conception, implementation, evolution, distortion and eventual demise, we argue that a moment of alignmentbetween ideology and policy design was visible at conception but eroded over 16 years, as the programme increasingly came to bear the hallmarks of neoliberalism. Using this case study, we consider the extent to which newly devolved states can implement ideological policy visions that resist the restraints put upon sub-state governance on the one hand and forces of central state ideologies and logics on the other

Climate Policy Design Under Uncertainty

The uncertainty surrounding both costs and benefits associated with global climate change mitigation creates enormous hurdles for scientists, stakeholders, and decisionmakers. A key issue is how policy choices balance uncertainty about costs and benefits. This balance arises in terms of the time path of mitigation efforts as well as whether those efforts, by design, focus on effort or outcome. This paper considers two choices—price versus quantity controls and absolute versus relative/intensity emissions limits—demonstrating that price controls and intensity emissions limits favor certainty about cost over climate benefits and future emissions reductions. The paper then argues that in the near term, this favoritism is desired.carbon, climate, policy, intensity, global warming, uncertainty, price, quantity

Principles of regulatory policy design

The author contrasts command-and-control regulation (tight control of water purification, for example) with more flexible forms, including incentive regulation (such as price cap regulation), potential regulation (providing for closer scrutiny if enough customers complain), and reactive rather than proactive policies (the firm proposing actions, the regulatory saying yes or no). He contrasts informing regulation (for example, requiring that consumers be informed about ingredients in a product) and enforcing regulation (for example, prohibiting the use of certain chemicals in foods). A country's institutional structure can limit the regulators'potential for commitment, he says -- especially if regulators are limited in their ability to deliver rewards or penalties. The scope and function of regulation may also be fairly limited when technological conditions allow competition to discipline producers. Sophisticated buyers with economic power may reduce the need for regulatory control, and rapid technological change can render comprehensive command-and-control regulation ineffective or debilitating. Many forces operate simultaneously, making regulatory design a complex undertaking. Inertia is one such influence. Regulatory policies that once served an important purpose sometimes persist even though they no longer serve that purpose -- sometimes because they favor a constituency that convinces the regulator to keep the control in place. Subsidies and tariff protection often continue long past the time needed to promote the development of an infant industry, for example. When there is limited public outcry against continuing the special treatment, and the affected firms strongly urge its continuance, the regulator may be convinced to continue special treatment that no longer serves the public interest. Regulation may also be affected by the regulators'personal ambition. When regulators are"captured"by regulated firms -- diverted from the goal of protecting consumers through the promise of personal rewards for favorable treatment of the firms -- regulation may not serve society's best interest. Even if regulators are not motivated by self-interest, their ideas of what is best for society may differ from those of other government officials or of society at large. When that happens, which goals are pursued depends largely on the autonomy regulators that are granted and on the balance of power among government bodies.Regulation should be viewed in this large context to be understood fully.Administrative&Regulatory Law,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Economic Theory&Research,Insurance&Risk Mitigation

Optimal policy design for the sugar tax

Healthy nutrition promotions and regulations have long been regarded as a tool for increasing social welfare. One of the avenues taken in the past decade is sugar consumption regulation by introducing a sugar tax. Such a tax increases the price of extensive sugar containment in products such as soft drinks. In this article we consider a typical problem of optimal regulatory policy design, where the task is to determine the sugar tax rate maximizing the social welfare. We model the problem as a sequential game represented by the three-level mathematical program. On the upper level, the government decides upon the tax rate. On the middle level, producers decide on the product pricing. On the lower level, consumers decide upon their preferences towards the products. While the general problem is computationally intractable, the problem with a few product types is polynomially solvable, even for an arbitrary number of heterogeneous consumers. This paper presents a simple, intuitive and easily implementable framework for computing optimal sugar tax in a market with a few products. This resembles the reality as the soft drinks, for instance, are typically categorized in either regular or no-sugar drinks, e.g. Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero. We illustrate the algorithm using an example based on the real data and draw conclusions for a specific local market

Experimentation in policy design: Insights from the building sector

The current article questions how experimentation in policy design plays out in practice. In particular, it is interested in understanding how the content and process of policy-design experiments affect their outcomes. The article does so by building on an original study into 31 real-world examples of experimentation in policy design in the building sector in Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States. All examples aim to improve the environmental sustainability of the building sector. The article finds that these 31 examples have attracted moderate to substantial numbers of participants (policy outcome HO.i), but have not achieved substantial numbers of buildings built or retrofitted with high levels of sustainability (policy outcome HO.ii). By carefully unpacking these policy designs into a number of key characteristics, it finds that this mismatch between the two outcomes may partly be explained by flawed policy-design processes. The article concludes with the main lessons learnt and provides some suggestions on how to improve experimentation in policy design

Policy Design for International Greenhouse Gas Control

In this heart-searching, process based thesis, I want to find out who I am in the field of Architecture. Trough my urge to create, I am discovering and searching by making and producing objects by hand to feel and be present with the materiality, construction and art of architecture. My production of objects are divided in three parts based on scale, context and time, giving me a richer understanding about my will, intent and qualities.   "Two truths approach each other, one comes from within, one coming from the outside and where they meet there is a chance to see yourself” Tomas Tranströmer, Preludium II I detta hjärtsökande, processbaserade Xjobb, vill jag ta reda på vem jag är inom området arkitektur. Genom min lust att skapa, upptäcker och söker jag genom att göra och producera objekt för hand för att känna och vara närvarande med materialiteten, konstruktionen och konsten i arkitekturen. Min produktion av objekt är uppdelad i tre delar baserad på skala, kontext och tid, vilket ger mig en rikare förståelse om min vilja, avsikt och kvaliteter.   “Två sanningar närmar sig varann, en kommer inifrån, en kommer utifrån och där de möts har man en chans att få se sig själv”     To­mas Tran­strö­mer, Pre­lu­dium I

Environmental Consideration in Tax Policy Design

This paper discusses how environmental considerations will affect tax policy in the decades ahead. It argues that in the future, interactions between tax and environmental policy are likely to go well beyond recent discussion of double dividend issues and internalization of environmental externalities via tax policy will be the goal, which inevitably will involve the particular rather than the general. As a result, notions of neutrality which dominate current thinking on tax design will come under challenge; and in ways which will go well beyond current discussion of special treatment for particular goods and industries on environmental grounds. Special treatment of methods of production, more so than of goods, will be the name of the game. Moreover, the informational requirements of such an approach to tax policy are likely to be large. The paper concludes by pointing out that if environmental quality, as many suppose, is a luxury good with income elasticity of demand greater than one, then high income households will gain disproportionately from internalization of the externalities at issue. This may fuel pressures for more redistribution elsewhere in the tax system than is currently the case.Tax policy design

Double Irreversibility and Environmental Policy Design

The design of environmental policy typically takes place within a framework in which uncertainty over the future impact of pollution and two different kinds of irreversibilities interact. The first kind of irreversibility concerns the sunk cost of environmental degradation; the second is related to the sunk cost of environmental policy. Clearly, the two irreversibilities pull in opposite directions: policy irreversibility leads to more pollution and a less/later policy while environmental irreversibility generates less pollution and a more/sooner policy. Using a real option approach and an infinite time horizon model, this paper considers both irreversibilities simultaneously. The model first is developed by paying particular attention to the option values related to pollution and policy adoption. Solving the model in closed form then provides solutions for both the optimal pollution level and the optimal environmental policy timing. Finally, the model is "calibrated" with the purpose of appraising which irreversibility has the prevailing effect and what is the overall impact of both irreversibilities on pollution and policy design.Environmental Policy, Environmental Irreversibility, Policy Irreversibility

Adaptive learning and monetary policy design

We review the recent work on interest rate setting, which emphasizes the desirability of designing policy to ensure stability under private agent learning. Appropriately designed expectations based rules can yield optimal rational expectations equilibria that are both determinate and stable under learning. Some simple instrument rules and approximate targeting rules also have these desirable properties. We take up various complications in implementing optimal policy, including the observability of key variables and the required knowledge of structural parameters. An additional issue that we take up concerns the implications of expectation shocks not arising from transitional learning effects.commitment, interest rate setting, adaptive learning, stability, determinacy, expectations shocks