Hedging Housing Risk

An unusually rich source of data on housing prices in Stockholm is used to analyze the investment implications of housing choices. This empirical analysis derives market-wide price and return series for housing investment during a 13-year period, and it also provides estimates of the individual-specific, idiosyncratic, variation in housing returns. Because the idiosyncratic component follows an autocorrelated process, the analysis of portfolio choice is dependent upon the holding period. We analyze the composition of household investment portfolios containing housing, common stocks, stocks in real estate holding companies, bonds and t-bills. For short holding periods, the efficient portfolio contains essentially no housing. For longer periods, low risk portfolios contain 15 to 50 percent housing. These results suggest that there are large potential gains from policies or institutions that would permit households to hedge their lumpy investments in housing. We estimate the potential value of hedges in reducing risk to households, yet yielding the same investment returns. The value is surprisingly large, especially to poorer homeowners.Portfolio Risk; House Price Index; Hedging

Superadditivity in trade-off capacities of quantum channels

In this article, we investigate the additivity phenomenon in the dynamic capacity of a quantum channel for trading classical communication, quantum communication and entanglement. Understanding such additivity property is important if we want to optimally use a quantum channel for general communication purpose. However, in a lot of cases, the channel one will be using only has an additive single or double resource capacity, and it is largely unknown if this could lead to an superadditive double or triple resource capacity. For example, if a channel has an additive classical and quantum capacity, can the classical-quantum capacity be superadditive? In this work, we answer such questions affirmatively. We give proof-of-principle requirements for these channels to exist. In most cases, we can provide an explicit construction of these quantum channels. The existence of these superadditive phenomena is surprising in contrast to the result that the additivity of both classical-entanglement and classical-quantum capacity regions imply the additivity of the triple capacity region.Comment: 15 pages. v2: typo correcte

Rent-Seeking in Noxious Weed Regulations: Evidence from US States

Many non-native insect, disease, and weed pests of food, fiber, and nursery crops pose threats to the U.S. environment, agricultural production, and exports. In this study we focus on regulations controlling the spread of noxious weeds, especially the regulatory differences among US states and investigate the determinants of such regulations. With a simple game-theoretic framework, we derive cross-state regulatory congruence as a function of ecological and agronomic characteristics and stakeholder lobbying through political contributions. Empirical results suggest ecological and agronomic dissimilarities drive large cross-state differences in noxious weed regulation across states. However, evidence of stakeholder interests in shaping these regulations is found to be statistically significant. In particular, the seed industry appears to favor more uniform regulations among US states.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Ecocriticism in Taiwan

Key words: sustainable development, globalization, environmental justice, environmental disasters This brief article provides an overview of the recently established chapter of ASLE-Taiwan, the result of efforts and contributions made by scholars from leading universities interested in environmental issues and specializing in ecocriticism and environmental literature for more than a decade. Worthy of my special mentioning is the contributions made by the English Department of Tamkang University, one of the leading institutions focusing on ecocriticism in its PhD program. Tamkang University has held four international conferences on ecocriticism since 2000. The fifth international conference is scheduled to be held in December 2010. Many world-renowned ecocritics have been invited to attend the conferences and their papers are published in the Tamkang Review. Moreover, I’ll introduce some of the prominent ecocritics in Taiwan and their achievements in ecocriticism. Finally, I’ll deal with the impact of globalization on Taiwan and the conflict between a sustainable economy and a market-oriented economy currently confronting Taiwan. Many eco-scholars call attention to the devastating effects of the long-time pursuit of a market economy on the environment and try to push for the adoption of sustainable development as an alternative. In the wake of the tragic disaster caused by Typhoon Morakot in 2009, environmental issues are being taken more seriously in the press and are more widely debated in Taiwanese society in general. Environmental justice thus is beginning to play a more important role in ecocriticism in Taiwan right now.   Palabras clave: desarrollo sostenible, globalización, justicia medioambiental, desastres medioambientales Este breve artículo proporciona una visión general del grupo de ASLE Taiwán creado recientemente, resultado de esfuerzos y contribuciones de investigadores de universidades punteras, interesados en cuestiones medioambientales y especializados en ecocrítica y literatura medioambiental desde hace mas de una década. Merecen mención especial las contribuciones del departamento de inglés de la Universidad de Tamkang, una de las instituciones punteras que centran sus programas de doctorado en la ecocrítica. La Universidad de Tamkang ha organizado cuatro congresos internacionales de ecocrítica desde el año 2000. El quinto congreso internacional tendrá lugar en diciembre del 2010. Se ha invitado a muchos ecocríticos reconocidos mundialmente a participar y sus ponencias se publicarán en el Tamkang Review. Además, presentaré a algunos de los ecocríticos más importantes en Taiwan y sus logros en ecocrítica. Finalmente, trataré del impacto de la globalización en Taiwán y del conflicto entre una economía sostenible y una economía de mercado que Taiwán está afrontando actualmente. Muchos eco investigadores están llamando la atención sobre los efectos devastadores de la extensa búsqueda de una economía de mercado como alternativa. Tras el trágico desastre causado por el tifón Morakot en 2009, las cuestiones medioambientales están siendo tomadas más en serio en la prensa y se están debatiendo más ampliamente en la sociedad taiwanesa en general. Así, la justicia medioambiental está comenzando a representar un papel más importante en la ecocrítica de Taiwán en estos momentos.&nbsp

Rediscovering Local Environmentalism in Taiwan

In his article Rediscovering Local Environmentalism in Taiwan Peter I-min Huang challenges the domination of the global and the marginalization of the local. Huang argues that by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century globalism seemed to have toppled localism in ecocriticism debates. Ecocritics embraced enthusiastically such concepts as Ursula K. Heise\u27s eco-cosmopolitanism and the arguments associated with it that spoke for global forms of environmental thinking and practice. Yet, arguments for the local persist in part because of Heise\u27s constructive criticisms of it. Focusing on local environmental movements in Taiwan, Huang identifies and discusses scholarly work showing that the local is a durable concept and practice and not likely to disappear despite the denunciation of it. Moreover, referring to other recent studies, Huang argues that the global environmental imagination is indebted to local environmental movements

Canon Formation in the Study of the Environment in China and Taiwan

In his article Canon Formation in the Study of the Environment in China and Taiwan Peter I-min Huang discusses how the canon of ecocriticism taught in English studies in China and Taiwan is becoming increasingly of a local perspective by scholars who publish in Mandarin, address environmental issues specific to Mainland China and Taiwan, and thus engage with ecocriticism based on local perspectives rather than Western ones. The study and teaching of English-language literature in China and Taiwan inevitably encounters charges of neocolonialism or other argumentation that it is being used in ways that betray the legacy of past colonialist and imperialist projects. However, a growing number of ecocritics, animal studies scholars, environmental justice scholars, and ecofeminists are resisting using English for the promotion of social and political equality and they call for a middle ground between both human and other-than-human interests, capacities, and creativities