Voluntary Pollution Abatement and Regulation

Altruism, Voluntary Pollution Abatement, Regulation, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q52, Q58, K32,

Fighting coal — Effectiveness of coal-replacement programs for residential heating in China: Empirical findings from a household survey

Household fuel substitution has been a crucial step for controlling air pollution in China, but the performance evaluation of household fuel substitution policies is overlooked. This study capitalized on the opportunity to use data collected during the household coal-replacement program in North China to evaluate the effect of a mandatory policy on fuel substitution at the micro-level. The results indicate that there is a significant effect of the coal-replacement program on fuel substitution, as we expected. The coal-to-electricity policy is effective in achieving the goal of a clean winter but not a warm winter due to the decline of delivered energy, while the high-quality coal replacement policy results in better performance in delivered energy but no improvement in indoor air quality. It is recommended to prioritize supporting measures on both the supply and demand sides before implementation, along with undertaking differential measures during the implementation phase to better address energy inequality

Corporate Defendants and the Protections of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis

Corporations are frequently treated as “persons” under the law. One of the fundamental questions associated with this treatment is whether corporations should receive the same Constitutional protections and guarantees as natural persons. In particular, should corporations receive the Constitutional protections of Criminal Procedure? After all, corporations cannot be sent to jail so the sanctions they face are essentially the same as in civil proceedings. If so, then why not have the same procedural protections for corporate defendants in civil and criminal cases? Little scholarly analysis has focused on this issue from an economic perspective and this article aims to fill that gap. My analysis concludes that the concerns animating most procedural protections in the corporate context (i.e., reducing the costs of adjudicative errors and abusive prosecutorial behavior) would require procedural protections that differ for corporate defendants depending on the identity of the moving party (e.g., government or private litigant), and the type of sanction the corporation is facing, but not on the type of proceedings (criminal or civil) against the corporation. The analysis thus calls for a reorientation of procedural protections for corporate defendants along these lines rather than on the current criminal – civil dichotomy. The implications of such a reorientation are sketched in this paper and may, at times, suggest having stronger protections for corporations in civil proceedings than in criminal proceedings

Collision of spinning black holes in the close limit

In this paper we consider the collision of spinning holes using first order perturbation theory of black holes (Teukolsky formalism). With these results (along with ones, we published in the past) one can predict the properties of the gravitational waves radiated from the late stage inspiral of two spinning, equal mass black holes. Also we note that the energy radiated by the head-on collision of two spinning holes with spins (that are equal and opposite) aligned along the common axis is more than the case in which the spins are perpendicular to the axis of the collision.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR

Corporate Defendants and the Protections of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis

Corporations are frequently treated as “persons” under the law. One of the fundamental questions associated with this treatment is whether corporations should receive the same Constitutional protections and guarantees as natural persons. In particular, should corporations receive the Constitutional protections of Criminal Procedure? After all, corporations cannot be sent to jail so the sanctions they face are essentially the same as in civil proceedings. If so, then why not have the same procedural protections for corporate defendants in civil and criminal cases? Little scholarly analysis has focused on this issue from an economic perspective and this article aims to fill that gap. My analysis concludes that the concerns animating most procedural protections in the corporate context (i.e., reducing the costs of adjudicative errors and abusive prosecutorial behavior) would require procedural protections that differ for corporate defendants depending on the identity of the moving party (e.g., government or private litigant), and the type of sanction the corporation is facing, but not on the type of proceedings (criminal or civil) against the corporation. The analysis thus calls for a reorientation of procedural protections for corporate defendants along these lines rather than on the current criminal – civil dichotomy. The implications of such a reorientation are sketched in this paper and may, at times, suggest having stronger protections for corporations in civil proceedings than in criminal proceedings