Instant Efficient Pollution Abatement under Non-Linear Taxation and Asymmetric Information: The Differential Tax Revisited

This paper analyzes incentives for polluting firms to exchange abatement cost information under the non-linear pollution tax scheme (‘differential tax’) introduced by Kim and Chang [J. Regul. Econom. 5, 1993, 193-197]. It shows that polluting firms have - under mild conditions - an incentive to join a coalition whose members mutually truthfully exchange information as well as commit themselves with respect to their abatement decisions. As a result, the differential tax triggers instantly - i.e. no abatement adaptation is needed – efficient abatement levels without the regulator knowing marginal abatement costs. Consequently, this paper shows that differential taxation results in lower social costs than traditional non-linear taxation which triggers efficient emissions only after a period of non-efficient abatement.Externalities, Pollution taxes, Coalition formation, Non-linear taxation, Asymmetric information, Co-operative game theory

A comment on "An arbitrage-free approach to quasi-option value" by Coggins and Ramezani

In their article ?An Arbitrage-Free Approach to Quasi-Option Value? [J. Environm. Econom. Management 35, 103-125, 1998], Coggins and Ramezani interpreted the concept of quasi-option value introduced by Arrow and Fisher [Quart. J. Econom. 88, 1974, 312-319] as being identical to Dixit and Pindyck?s real option value. This means their approach differs from the approach by Fisher and Hanemann [J. Environm. Econom. Management 14, 183-190, 1987] who formalized the concept of quasi-option value a decade before. By indirectly characterizing Dixit and Pindyck?s real option value Coggins and Ramezani confirmed classic results in the field of real options theory. --

Spectral Purity Enhancement via Polyphase Multipath Circuits

The central question of this paper is: can we enhance the spectral purity of nonlinear circuits by using polyphase multipath circuits? The basic idea behind polyphase multipath circuits is to split the nonlinear circuits into two or more paths and exploit phase differences between these paths to cancel undesired distortion products.\ud It turns out that it is very well possible to use polyphase multipath circuits to cancel distortion products produced by a nonlinear circuit. Unfortunately, there are also some spectral components that cannot be canceled with the polyphase multipath circuits

The Dixit-Pindyck and the Arrow-Fisher-Hanemann-Henry option values are not equivalent

Fisher [2000, this journal] offers a unifying framework for two concepts of (quasi-) option value suggested by Arrow, Fisher, Hanemann, and Henry (AFHH) on the one hand, and by Dixit and Pindyck (DP) on the other, and claims these two concepts to be equivalent. We show that this claim is not correct and point out the flaws in Fisher's proof. We further suggest a decomposition of the DP option value into two components, one of which corresponds exactly to the AFHH option value which captures the value of obtaining new information, and a second one which captures the postponement value irrespective of uncertainty. --option value,quasi option value,decision under uncertainty,irreversible investment

Distortion Cancellation via Polyphase Multipath Circuits

The central question of this paper is: can we enhance the spectral purity of nonlinear circuits with the help of polyphase multipath circuits. Polyphase multipath circuits are circuits with two or more paths that exploit phase differences between the paths to cancel unwanted signals. It turns out that it is very well possible to cancel distortion products produced by a nonlinear circuit. Unfortunately, there are also some spectral components that cannot be cancelled with the polyphase multipath circuits. In this paper tables are presented that can easily be used to predict which spectral components are cancelled and which are not cancelled for a certain polyphase multipath circuit

Video Stream Retrieval of Unseen Queries using Semantic Memory

Retrieval of live, user-broadcast video streams is an under-addressed and increasingly relevant challenge. The on-line nature of the problem requires temporal evaluation and the unforeseeable scope of potential queries motivates an approach which can accommodate arbitrary search queries. To account for the breadth of possible queries, we adopt a no-example approach to query retrieval, which uses a query's semantic relatedness to pre-trained concept classifiers. To adapt to shifting video content, we propose memory pooling and memory welling methods that favor recent information over long past content. We identify two stream retrieval tasks, instantaneous retrieval at any particular time and continuous retrieval over a prolonged duration, and propose means for evaluating them. Three large scale video datasets are adapted to the challenge of stream retrieval. We report results for our search methods on the new stream retrieval tasks, as well as demonstrate their efficacy in a traditional, non-streaming video task.Comment: Presented at BMVC 2016, British Machine Vision Conference, 201