Emission reduction potentials for academic conference travel

Air travel, including academic conference travel, is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and must be limited to achieve climate change targets. To model reduction potentials, we analyzed travel emissions for three global conferences of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. Travel emissions were 722–955 t CO2e per conference and averaged 1.3–1.8 t CO2e per attendee. A shift to land transport for short flights has a maximum reduction potential of only 5% because long‐haul flights contribute most of the emissions. A carbon tax of 100$/t CO2e could reduce emissions by 4–14% but students face the largest relative increase in the cost of conference attendance. Having the 10% of attendees who travel furthest attend virtually reduces conference travel emissions by 20–30%. A multi‐site conference with two video‐linked locations yields a reduction of 25–50%; a three‐site conference yields a reduction of 46–75% and combined with a shift to land transport a reduction of up to 82%. A virtual conference would yield zero travel emissions. We conclude that the effectiveness of the reduction options mostly depends on how international the conference is and whether the longest flights are eliminated. We call on conference organizers, universities, academic societies, and funders to further develop, support, and implement multi‐site and virtual conference models. This article met the requirements for a gold–silver JIE data openness badge described in http://jie.click/badges

Contingent Commercial Policies and the Credibility of Financial Market Liberalization

The focus of this essay is on the rationales for, and potential implications of, applying contingent commercial policies to trade in financial services. This is a neglected issue in the international finance literature, which tends to focus on the effects of (usually exogenous) monetary and fiscal policies on output and relative prices (especially exchange and interest rates). The existence of accessible contingent commercial policies is likely to have important implications for the credibility and feasibility of further liberalization of financial markets. While attention will center primarily on financial services, the issues addressed here are quite general, in that they pertain to most types of traded services, particularly those subject to regulatory oversight.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100768/1/ECON231.pd

Spurious Injury as Indirect Rent Seeking: Free Trade Under the Prospect of Protectionism

In the literature on directly unproductive profit seeking or rent seeking, intervention-seeking by labor and industry groups is generally restricted to direct lobbying activity. However, import-competing producters may have an additional instrument to influence the decision to grant protection. Under well-establishaed injury criteria for protection import-competing producers have an incentive, either collectively or individually, to feign injury. To the extent that the free-rider problem can be overcome, orchestrating the appearance of injury is an intervention-seeking activity that may be complementary to DUP lobbying. When the established indicators of industry well-being include variables controlled by the prospective beneficiaries, tehrefore, free trade under prospect of protection is potentially accompanied by a concomitant spurious-injury distortion. Some of the positive and welfare implications of the theory of spurious injury are investigated in both a partial equilibrium framework and in the Heckscher-Ohlin model.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100848/1/ECON303.pd

Antidumping for Services?

This paper focuses on the relevance of the trade policy concepts embodied in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and in particular on the possibility and likely consequences of applying existing antidumping rules and practices to trade in services.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100761/1/ECON225.pd

Vertically Related Markets and Protectionist Pressure Under Unfair Trade Laws

The central purpose of this paper is to analyze endogenous protection-seeking activity under the institutional foundation set by unfair trade laws.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100766/1/ECON229.pd

Dumping, Antidumping, and Emergency Protection

Much in this article is at odds with the popular perception of AD laws. In large part this is because a systemic point of view is taken, which focuses on the economy-wide effects of AD. The hypothesis of this article is that a substantial proportion of AD actions are substitutes for safeguard actions, and that much of the remainder reflect rent-seeking behavior on the part of the domestic import-competing industry. While this is not a new thought, the importance and relevance of of this hypothesis for the future of the multilateral trading system is often overlooked, especially by those who take a purely legal view of dumping and AD. Unfortunately, this appears to be the case for many policymakers involved. One of the justifications for writing wht is largely a review article is to provide a contrasting view to those who see AD as a crucial - and GATT-sanctioned and thus legitimate - weapon in the arsenal of policies to protect a nation's industries from "excessive" foreign competition.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100762/1/ECON226.pd

Policy Responses to Shifting Comparative Advantage: Designing a System of Emergency Protection

Often procedures exist through which industries may petition their government for protection, contingent on the satisfaction of specific preconditions. The goal of this paper is to provide some guidance to policymakers wishing to create a system of contingent protection. The two major components of such a system are the preconditions and the instrument of protection to be applied. To be effective, efficient, and equitable, contingent protection needs to be nondiscriminatory and compensate affected exporters. As the existence of specific preconditions will create incentives to satisfy them, the scope for such "indirect" lobbying for protection must be minimized.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100764/1/ECON228.pd

Production Effects of Price- and Cost-Based Anti-Dumping Laws Under Flexible Exchange Rates

This paper investigates the production response of an exporting firm when faced with the threat of an antidumping action. The firm's production decision is sensitive to market conditions at home and abroad, as well as to the definition of dumping. The authors examine the incentives facing the exporting firm under price-based, marginal-cost-based, and average-total-cost-based antidumping laws. Depending on the nature of the antidumping rules and market conditions, a firm's production may rise, fall, or remain unchanged in reponse to antidumping legislation.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100847/1/ECON302.pd

Inter-Industry Linkages and Cascading Contingent Protection

This paper extends the literature on the incentive effects of contingent protection by identifying and analyzing the vertical linkages that may exist across instances of contingent trade policy. That is, to what extent does it matter that there may be import-competing sectors at various stages along the production stream, and that at each stage firms have potential access to an array of instruments of contingent protection? In this connection two paradoxes arise. First, upstream firms sometimes seek protection which stands to severely injure, and perhaps destroy, their downstream customers. Second, there have been examples of unaffiliated downstream firms (customers) supporting, rather than opposing, such bids for potentially destructive protection. The analysis of this paper rationalizes such behaviour.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100763/1/ECON227.pd

Use of co-solvents in hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of microalgae

This study reviewed and summarized the literature regarding the use of alcohols during hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of algal biomass feedstocks. The use of both pure alcohols and alcohol-water co-solvents were considered. Based upon this review, laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the impacts of different alcohol co-solvents (ethanol, isopropanol, ethylene glycol, and glycerol) on the HTL treatment of a specific saltwater microalga (Tetraselmis sp.) at two temperatures: 300 ?C and 350 ?C. Based on their performance, two co-solvents, isopropanol and ethylene glycol, were selected to explore the effects of varying solvent concentrations and reaction temperatures on product yields and biocrude properties. The type and amount of added alcohol did not significantly affect the biocrude yield or composition. Biocrude yields were in the range of 30-35%, while a nearly constant yield of 21% insoluble products was observed, largely resulting from ash constituents within the algal feedstock. The benefits of using alcohol co-solvents (especially isopropanol) were the reduced viscosity of the biocrude products and reduced rates of viscosity increase with biocrude aging. These effects were attributed mainly to the physical properties of the co-solvent mixtures (solubility, polarity, density, etc.) rather than chemical processes. Under the reaction conditions used, there was no evidence that the co-solvents participated in biocrude production by means of hydrogen donation or other chemical processes. Recovery and recycling of the co-solvent present various challenges, depending upon the type and amount of the co-solvent that is used. For example, glycol solvents are recovered nearly completely within the aqueous product stream, whereas simple alcohols are partitioned between the biocrude and aqueous product streams. In commercial applications, the slight benefits provided by the use of co-solvents must be balanced by the challenges of co-solvent recovery and recycling. - 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).This research received funding from the Qatar National Priorities Research Program (NPRP grant, grant number 8-646-4-727 from the Qatar National Research Fund).Scopu