Green Payments and Dual Policy Goals

We use a mechanism design framework to analyze the optimal design of green payment policies with the dual goals of conservation and income support for small farms. Each farm is characterized by two dimensions of attributes: farms size and conservation efficiency. The policymaker may not be able to use the attributes as an explicit criterion for payments. We characterize optimal policy when conservation efficiency is unobservable to policy-makers, and when farm size is also unobservable. An income support goal is shown to reduce the conservation distortion caused by asymmetric information. The cost of optimal green payment mechanisms is shown to depend crucially on whether large or small farms have greater conservation efficiency.

A 2+1-Dimensional Non-Isothermal Magnetogasdynamic System. Hamiltonian-Ermakov Integrable Reduction

A 2+1-dimensional anisentropic magnetogasdynamic system with a polytropic gas law is shown to admit an integrable elliptic vortex reduction when $\gamma=2$ to a nonlinear dynamical subsystem with underlying integrable Hamiltonian-Ermakov structure. Exact solutions of the magnetogasdynamic system are thereby obtained which describe a rotating elliptic plasma cylinder. The semi-axes of the elliptical cross-section, remarkably, satisfy a Ermakov-Ray-Reid system

Factors influencing CDM locations in China

Environmental Economics and Policy,

Financial interaction networks inferred from traded volumes

In order to use the advanced inference techniques available for Ising models, we transform complex data (real vectors) into binary strings, by local averaging and thresholding. This transformation introduces parameters, which must be varied to characterize the behaviour of the system. The approach is illustrated on financial data, using three inference methods -- equilibrium, synchronous and asynchronous inference -- to construct functional connections between stocks. We show that the traded volume information is enough to obtain well known results about financial markets, which use however the presumably richer price information: collective behaviour ("market mode") and strong interactions within industry sectors. Synchronous and asynchronous Ising inference methods give results which are coherent with equilibrium ones, and more detailed since the obtained interaction networks are directed.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

When Should Uncertain Nonpoint Emissions be Penalized in a Trading Program?

When nonpoint source pollution is stochastic and the damage function is convex, intuition might suggest it is more important to control a nonpoint pollution source than a point source. Earlier research has provided sufficient conditions such that the permit price for a unit of ex-ante expected emissions should be higher than the permit price for a unit of certain emissions. Herein we provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions such that this is the case. An approach to testing for the validity of the condition set is available, and has been applied to a related problem.agricultural pollution, multiple inputs, permit trading, social optimality, trading ratio, water quality, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q1, Q2, D2, D8,

Consequences of Co-Benefits for the Efficient Design of Carbon Sequestration Programs, The

In this paper, we study the social efficiency of private carbon markets that include trading in agricultural soil carbon sequestration when there are significant cobenefits (positive environmental externalities) associated with the practices that sequester carbon. Likewise, we investigate the efficiency of government run conservation programs that are designed to promote a broad array of environmental attributes (both carbon sequestration and its cobenefits) for the supply of carbon. Finally, policy design and efficiency issues associated with the potential interplay between a private carbon market and a government conservation program are studied. Empirical analyses for an area that represents a significant potential source of carbon sequestration and its associated cobenefits illustrate the magnitude and complexity of these issues in real world policy design.