Optimal Trade and Environmental Policies in a Polluted Small Open Economy

Using a pollution-trade general equilibrium model I investigate the theoretical relationship between trade and environmental policies and their welfare effects in a perfectly competitive small open economy, facing trade and pollution distortions. Pollution does harm consumers but does not affect the productivity of neighboring firms and is generated as a by-product of the production process through the industrial use of a pure intermediate input. The final tradable good and the intermediate input are produced with a constant returns to scale technology where non-tradable primary factors of production are offered inelastically. In this framework there are three instruments considered: a tariff on a final good, a pollution tax and a tariff on the imports of the pollution-creating intermediate input.optimal policies, intermediate pollutant input, welfare, small open economy

Managed Trade, Trade Liberalisation and Local Pollution

The current paper addresses the relationship between trade and endogenous pollution levels. The main focus is quite different from the previous literature. The mechanism linking pollution and trade is that trade provides the home government with a credible threat that helps motivate domestic firms to adopt cleaner technologies. This credible threat comes from the fact that the government has a greater incentive to protect a clean industry than to protect a very polluting one. In that sense, the existence of trade helps reduce domestic pollution compared to what would prevail in a situation of autarky. On the other hand, a commitment to free trade would be counterproductive: it limits the government's ability to credibly threaten its domestic firms. In fact we show that any trade liberalisation hurts the welfare of the home country. In terms of world welfare, moderate trade liberalisation is helpful but only as long as it does no affect the technology choices of the firms.

Managed Trade, Trade liberalisation and Local Pollution

The current paper addresses the relationship between trade and endogenous pollution levels. The main focus is quite different from the previous literature. The mechanism linking pollution and trade is that trade provides the home government with a credible threat that helps motivate domestic firms to adopt cleaner technologies. This credible threat comes from the fact that the government has a greater incentive to protect a clean industry than to protect a very polluting one. In that sense, the existence of trade helps reduce domestic pollution compared to what would prevail in a situation of autarky. On the other hand, a commitment to free trade would be counterproductive: it limits the government ‘s ability to credibly threaten its domestic firms. In fact we show that any trade liberalisation hurts the welfare of the home country. In terms of world welfare, moderate trade liberalisation is helpful but only as long as it does no affect the technology choices of the firms

Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.15.4 Bootstrap Process

The IEEE 802.15.4 is a popular standard used in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and the Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In these networks, devices are organized into groups formally known as personal area networks (PAN) which require a bootstrap procedure to become operational. Bootstrap plays a key role in the initialization and maintenance of these networks. For this reason, this work presents our implementation and performance analysis for the ns-3 network simulator. Specifically, this bootstrap implementation includes the support of three types of scanning mechanisms (energy scan, passive scan, and active scan) and the complete classic association mechanism described by the standard. Both of these mechanisms can be used independently by higher layers protocols to support network initialization, network joining, and maintenance tasks. Performance evaluation is conducted in total network association time and packet overhead terms. Our source code is documented and publicly available in the latest ns-3 official release

Uptake of acid black 210 dye by organo-montmorillonite clay minerals

Two clays rich in montmorillonite were modified and used as adsorbents. The clay minerals were modified with hexadecylpyridinium cation (HDP+) in order to obtain organo-montmorillonites, which were used for retaining acid black 210 dye from water solution. This dye is frequently used in tanning industry. The retentions of the anionic dye by organo-montmorillonites were evaluated by using complete UV-visible spectrum, analyzing the concentrations of dye solutions before (50 mg/L) and after the contact with the adsorbent. The solids were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and infrared analyses (FT-IR). The interlayer spacing of the montmorillonites increased, after organic cation exchange, from 13.0-14.9 Å to 19.0-22.0 Å and allowed the uptake of acid black 210 dye. The most disordered arrangement of HDP in montmorillonite, deduced by XRD and FT-IR analyses, was better for higher retentions of acid black dye

Zone-Based Energy Aware Data Collection Protocol for WSNs

In this paper we propose the Zone-based Energy Aware data coLlection (ZEAL) protocol. ZEAL is designed to be used in agricultural applications for wireless sensor networks. In these type of applications, all data is often routed to a single point (named “sink” in sensor networks). The overuse of the same routes quickly depletes the energy of the nodes closer to the sink. In order to minimize this problem, ZEAL automatically creates zones (groups of nodes) independent from each other based on the trajectory of one or more mobile sinks. In this approach the sinks collects data queued in sub-sinks in each zone. Unlike existing protocols, ZEAL accomplish its routing tasks without using GPS modules for location awareness or synchronization mechanisms. Additionally, ZEAL provides an energy saving mechanism on the network layer that puts zones to sleep when there are no mobile sinks nearby. To evaluate ZEAL, it is compared with the Maximum Amount Shortest Path (MASP) protocol. Our simulations using the ns-3 network simulator show that ZEAL is able to collect a larger number of packets with significantly less energy in the same amount of time

Managed Trade and Environmental Policy under Imperfect Competition

El objetivo de este artículo es profundizar sobre la relación teórica entre el comercio internacional y el medio ambiente. Mediante un modelo duopolístico, una empresa doméstica y otra extranjera compiten en el mercado doméstico produciendo un bien homogéneo con tecnologías de producción diferenciadas. En este contexto, examino el efecto de la protección administrada sobre la decisión de la empresa doméstica por adoptar o no una tecnología medioambientalmente limpia. La autoridad comercial elige el nivel de protección mediante un arancel específico antes de que la empresa doméstica decida su nivel de producción, pero después de que ésta opta por la adopción. Al ser una política de segundo mejor, la protección administrada genera pérdida de bienestar. Pese a esta distorsión, con la adopción, la disminución en la externalidad compensa el costo de adoptar la tecnología más limpia. Para la autoridad comercial, el conservar la credibilidad de la protección administrada, evita efectos negativos que exacerban procesos de apertura comercial sobre el medio ambiente: una política de libre comercio podría ser nociva para la empresa doméstica, ya que los incentivos para adoptar, son nulos.This paper aims to deepen the theoretical relationship between international trade and the environment. I design a duopolistic competition model where a domestic and a foreign firm compete in the domestic market with homogeneous products and differentiated production technologies. In this context, I examine the effect that managed trade has on the domestic firm's choice to adopt or not an environmental-friendly technology. The commercial authority decides the level of protection applying a specific trade tax before the domestic firm determines its production level, but after the domestic firm makes its choice to adopt or not the cleaner technology. This second-best policy leads to welfare losses. Nevertheless, the decrease in the monopolistic distortion and the production externality, compensates for the costs associated with the adoption of the cleaner technology. For the policy maker, to remain credible regarding the managed trade protection, avoids negative effects that may exacerbate opening trade processes upon the environment: a free-trade policy could be counterproductive for the domestic firm to adopt, since the incentives to adopt are null