Environmental Regulation: Choice of Instruments under Imperfect Compliance

Compliance is an important issue in environmental regulation. In this paper, we discuss some of the key elements of the problem and analyze a situation where emissions are not random and firms are risk-neutral. We study the firm's decision on emissions and compliance when the environmental regulation is based on standards and the enforcement agency audits the firm with a certain probability. We then compare total emissions when environmental regulation is based on different instruments: standards, taxes, and tradable permits. We show that when compliance is an issue, environmental taxes are superior to the other instruments. We also analyze the (static) efficiency of the solution.environmental regulation, audits and compliance, environmental standards, other instruments.

WINNERS AND LOSERS FROM THE GRADUAL FORMATION OF TRADING BLOCS

Although global free trade is efficient, each country’s benefit from free trade depends on the path that leads to the global free trade agreement. Using a dynamic model of trading bloc formation, we show that when global free trade is reached gradually, the countries that are initially excluded gain less than the rest and may be even made worse-off by the final free trade agreement, compared with the initial state of no trading blocs.

Commercial Incentives in Academia

This paper investigates the effects of monetary rewards from commercialisation on the pattern of research. We build a simple repeated model of a researcher capable to obtain innovative ideas. We analyse how academic and market incentives affect the allocation of the researcher’s time between research and development. We argue, however, that technology transfer objectives also affect the choice of research projects. Although commercialisation incentives reduce the time spent in research, they might also induce researchers to conduct research that is more basic in nature, contrary to what the “skewing problem” would presage. Monetary rewards induce a more intensive search for (ex-post) path-breaking innovations, which are more likely to be generated through (ex-ante) basic research programs. These results are shown to hold even if development delays publication

On the joint production of research and training

Universities and research institutions have the responsibility to produce science and to provide training to new generations of researchers. In this paper, we propose a model to analyze the determinants of a senior scientist's decisions about allocating time between these tasks. The results of this decision depend upon the characteristics of the research project, the senior scientist's concern for training and the expected innate ability of the junior scientist involved. We analyze the role that a regulator can play in defining both the value of scientific projects and the future population of independent scientists.Allocation of time between tasks; research and training; senior and junior scientists

A Theoretical Approach to Dual Practice Regulations in the Health Sector

Internationally, there is wide cross-country heterogeneity in government responses to dual practice in the health sector. This paper provides a uniform theoretical framework to analyze and compare some of the most common regulations. We focus on three interventions: banning dual practice, offering rewarding contracts to public physicians, and limiting dual practice (including both limits to private earnings of dual providers and limits to involvement in private activities). An ancillary objective of the paper is to investigate whether regulations that are optimal for developed countries are adequate for developing countries as well. Our results offer theoretical support for the desirability of different regulations in different economic environments.Dual practice, optimal contracts, physicians' incentives, regulations.

Incentius de les universitats per transferir les seves innovacions

La producció de coneixement a la universitat i la recerca troben la seva aplicació pràctica en l'empresa i en la indústria. Així, la recerca bàsica desenvolupada a la universitat es converteix en un element clau per al creixement d'un país. Aquest treball estudia com es pot incentivar la transferència de coneixement de la universitat a la societat sense que això provoqui en els centres d'investigació una disminució de la seva capacitat de formació i d'inversió en recursos humans.La producción de conocimiento en la universidad y la investigación encuentran su aplicación práctica en la empresa y en la industria. Así, la investigación básica desarrollada en la universidad se convierte en un elemento clave para el crecimiento de un país. Este trabajo estudia cómo se puede incentivar la transferencia de conocimiento de la universidad a la sociedad sin que por ello los centros de investigación pierdan capacidad de formación e inversión en recursos humanos

Incentives in University Technology Transfers

There are two main ways in which the knowledge created in universities has been transferred to firms: licensing agreements and the creation of spin-offs. In this paper, we describe the main steps in the transfer of university innovations, the main incentive issues that appear in this process, and the contractual solutions proposed to address them.

La conjecture de Baum-Connes pour un feuilletage sans holonomie de codimension un sur une variété fermée

In [C2], Baum-Connes state a conjecture for the K-theory of C* algebras of foliations . This conjecture has been proved by T . Natsume [N2] for C∞ -codimension one foliations without holonomy on a closed manifold. We propose here another proof of the conjecture for this class of foliations, more geometric and based on the existence of the Thom isomophism, proved by A. Connes in [C3] . The advantage of this approach is that the result will be valid for all Cº-foliations

Auditing with Signals

This paper is a first step in the analysis of the use of signals of taxpayer's incomes by tax audit authorities. In a very simple model, we consider the design of the audit strategy when the tax authority can commit to it and has free access to a signal correlated with the taxpayer's true income. We discuss the optimal enforcement policy and compare it with the optimal one when only self-reported income is considered. Our main result is that the well-known regressive bias of revenue-maximizing audit rules may be convert in a progressive one when signals are used.

Optimal Monitoring to Implement Clean Technologies when Pollution is Random

We analyze a model where firms chose a production technology which, together with some random event, determines the final emission level. We consider the coexistence of two alternative technologies: a “clean” technology, and a “dirty” technology. The environmental regulation is based on taxes over reported emissions, and on penalties over unreported emissions. We show that the optimal inspection policy is a cut-off strategy, for several scenarios concerning the observability of the adoption of the clean technology and the cost of adopting it. We also show that the optimal inspection policy induces the firm to adopt the clean technology if the adoption cost is not too high, but the cost levels for which the firm adopts it depend on the scenario.production technology, random emissions, environmental taxes, optimal monitoring policy