A MODEL OF ENVIRONMENTAL COMPROMISE BETWEEN REGULATORS AND REGULATED PARTIES

Environmental regulations implemented by administrative agencies have often been met with fierce political resistance from regulated parties. In some instances, regulated parties have turned to legislative and judicial bodies for relief from environmental regulation. As these political and legal battles have escalated, several forms of compromises have evolved. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in its administration of the Endangered Species Act, has often utilized the tool of "Habitat Conservation Planning" as a means by which some regulatory relief is granted in exchange for an agreement by the regulated party to undertake mitigation measures to aid endangered or threatened species. As a further inducement for regulated parties to enter into the Habitat Conservation Planning process, the Service has also adopted a "No Surprises" policy of guaranteeing regulated parties that if certain additional mitigation measures are taken, then if in the future any further mitigation measures are deemed necessary to protect endangered or threatened species, they will only be undertaken at the expense of the Service. This paper develops simple models of the conditions under which such compromise agreements are offered by a regulator, and the conditions under which the regulated party either accepts such an offer or pursues a strategy of appealing to legislative or judicial bodies for relief from regulation.Environmental Economics and Policy,

ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURAL RESOURCE POLICY AND THE OPTIMAL DISPERSION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

Environmental policies generally address problems associated with ill-defined property rights. Our framework describes property rights "regimes" as functions of the degree of consolidation of rights to an asset and of the parties holding those rights. Efficient resource use occurs if welfare gains from regime switches offset endogenous transaction costs.Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Estimation Schemes for Networked Control Systems Using UDP-Like Communication

In this work we consider a class of networked control systems (NCS) when the control signal is sent to the plant via a UDP-like communication protocol, the controller sends a communication packet to the plant across a lossy network but the controller does not receive any acknowledgement signal indicating the status of reception/delivery of the control packet. Standard observer based estimators assume the estimator has knowledge of what control signal is applied to the plant, but under the UDP-like communication scheme the estimator does not know what control is applied. Continuing previous work, we present a simple estimation algorithm consisting of a state estimator and mode observer. For single input systems we can add an extra control signal that guarantees recovery of the fate of the control packet. Using a modified state feedback with the added input we can guarantee the estimation error is bounded as is the expected value of the state. This extra input is removed and sufficient conditions on the system properties are given to assure the estimation remain bounded. Comparisons are made between the algorithm presented and the method of unknown input observer. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the algorithm

Kalman Filtering Over A Packet Dropping Network: A Probabilistic Approach

We consider the problem of state estimation of a discrete time process over a packet dropping network. Previous pioneering work on Kalman filtering with intermittent observations is concerned with the asymptotic behavior of E[P_k], i.e., the expected value of the error covariance, for a given packet arrival rate. We consider a different performance metric, Pr[P_k ≤ M], i.e., the probability that P_k is bounded by a given M, and we derive lower and upper bounds on Pr[P_k ≤ M]. We are also able to recover the results in the literature when using Pr[P_k ≤ M] as a metric for scalar systems. Examples are provided to illustrate the theory developed in the paper

On the Emergence and Evolution of Mark-up Middlemen: An Inframarginal Model

This paper is aimed to provide an economic interpretation on the emergence and evolution of the specialised middlemen whose duty is to facilitate the transactions of goods and services in an economy. In a general equilibrium framework, the emergence and evolution of the specialised middlemen conforms to Adam Smith’s insight of deepening specialisation and the division of labour with the improvement in institutions and/or transaction technologies. Consequently, the emergence and the growth of the intermediation sector in both absolute and relative terms, the expansion of the network which provides transaction services, the evolution of market structure from autarky towards division of labour, the improvement in productivity, the reduction in wholesaling-retailing price dispersion, will be realised in concurrencymiddlemen, transaction efficiency, inframarginal economics

Kalman Filtering Over a Packet-Dropping Network: A Probabilistic Perspective

We consider the problem of state estimation of a discrete time process over a packet-dropping network. Previous work on Kalman filtering with intermittent observations is concerned with the asymptotic behavior of E[P_k], i.e., the expected value of the error covariance, for a given packet arrival rate. We consider a different performance metric, Pr[P_k ≤ M], i.e., the probability that P_k is bounded by a given M. We consider two scenarios in the paper. In the first scenario, when the sensor sends its measurement data to the remote estimator via a packet-dropping network, we derive lower and upper bounds on Pr[P_k ≤ M]. In the second scenario, when the sensor preprocesses the measurement data and sends its local state estimate to the estimator, we show that the previously derived lower and upper bounds are equal to each other, hence we are able to provide a closed form expression for Pr[P_k ≤ M]. We also recover the results in the literature when using Pr[P_k ≤ M] as a metric for scalar systems. Examples are provided to illustrate the theory developed in the paper