3,472 research outputs found
The Trade and Climate Change Joint Agenda. CEPS Working Document No. 295/June 2008
Climate change, international trade, investment and technology transfer are all issues that have intersected in diverse institutional contexts and at several levels of governmental activity to form a new joint agenda. The purpose of this paper is to advance understanding of this joint agenda by identifying the specific issues that have emerged, the policies that have been adopted, especially in the EU and US, and the options that are available for further policy-making
International Energy Technology Transfersfor Climate Change Mitigation - What, who, how, why, when, where, how much ⊠and the Implications for International Institutional Architecture
The goal of the paper is to expand and refine the international technology transfer negotiating and analytic agendas and to reframe the issues. The paper presents concepts, indicators, illustrations and data that identify and measure international transfers of energy technologies that can be used to mitigate climate change. Among the questions on that agenda are how much technology transfer there has been to date, and how much will be needed in the future, especially to assist non-Annex I developing countries in their efforts to mitigate climate change. Before the how much questions can be answered, however, there are several prior questions, and hence the many other elements of the subtitle of the paper: what, who, how, why, when, where. These aspects of international technology transfer vary significantly among three existing institutional settings and among the associated analytic paradigms: North-South Official Development Assistance, Global Private International Investment and Trade, and International Public-Private Cooperation Agreements. The principal sections of the paper focus on features of international technology transfers in these institutional settings and on illustrations drawn from the biodiesel industry, especially the use of jatropha tree as the source of the feedstock. The conclusions are summarized as follows: (i) Technologies include intangible know-how and services, as well as tangible goods in the form of production process equipment and finished products. (ii) International transfers of some types of technology are much easier to measure than others. (iii) International technology transfers are highly industry-specific. (iv) Even for individual industries, it is necessary to use multiple indicators of technology transfers. (v) Patterns in the types of technology and methods of transfer vary across the three institutional settings examined in the paper. (vi) All three of the institutional arrangements are probably under-performing and inadequa
Ex ante risk and ex post collapse of S&Ls in the 1980s
Savings and loan associations ; Deposit insurance
Development of a Quadruped Robot and Parameterized Stair-Climbing Behavior
Stair-climbing is a difficult task for mobile robots to accomplish, particularly for legged robots. While quadruped robots have previously demonstrated the ability to climb stairs, none have so far been capable of climbing stairs of variable height while carrying all required sensors, controllers, and power sources on-board. The goal of this thesis was the development of a self-contained quadruped robot capable of detecting, classifying, and climbing stairs of any height within a specified range. The design process for this robot is described, including the development of the joint, leg, and body configuration, the design and selection of components, and both dynamic and finite element analyses performed to verify the design. A parameterized stair-climbing gait is then developed, which is adaptable to any stair height of known width and height. This behavior is then implemented on the previously discussed quadruped robot, which then demonstrates the capability to climb three different stair variations with no configuration change
THE KYOTO PROTOCOL AND THE WTO: INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION AND ADAPTATION. CEPS Policy Brief No. 28/December
Overview. Questions about the interface between the multilateral climate regime embodied in the Kyoto
Protocol and the multilateral trade regime embodied in the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
have become especially timely since the fall of 2001. At that time, ministerial-level meetings
in Marrakech and Doha agreed to advance the agendas, respectively, for the implementation
of the Kyoto Protocol and for negotiations on further agreements at the WTO. There have
been concerns that each of these multilateral arrangements could constrain the effectiveness
of the other, and these concerns will become more salient with the entry into force of the
Kyoto Protocol. There are questions about whether and how the rights and obligations of the
members of the WTO and the parties to the Protocol may conflict. Of particular concern is
whether provisions in the Protocol, as well as government policies and business activities
undertaken in keeping with those provisions, may conflict with the WTO non-discrimination
principles of national treatment and most-favoured nation treatment.
The WTO agreements that are potentially relevant to climate change issues include many of
the individual Uruguay Round agreements and subsequent agreements as well. The principal
elements of the Kyoto Protocol that are particularly relevant are its provisions concerning
emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism, Joint Implementation, enforcement,
and partiesâ policies and measures. In combination, therefore, there are numerous potential
points of intersection between the elements of the Kyoto Protocol and the WTO agreements.
Previous studies have clarified many issues, as they have focused on particular aspects of the
regimesâ relationships. Yet, some analyses suggest that the two regimes are largely
compatible and even mutually reinforcing, while others suggest that there are significant
conflicts between them. Those and other studies are referenced in the âsuggestions for further
readingâ section at the end of the paper.1
The present paper seeks to expand on those studies by providing additional breadth and depth
to understanding of the issues. The analysis gives special attention to key issues on the agenda
â i.e. issues that are particularly problematic because of the likelihood of occurrence of
specific conflicts and the significance of their economic and/or political consequences. The
paper adopts a modified âtriageâ approach, which classifies points of intersection as (a) highly
problematic and clearly in need of further attention, (b) perhaps problematic but less urgent,
and (c) apparently not problematic, at least at this point in time.
The principal conclusions are that:
· The missions and objectives of the two regimes are largely compatible, and their
operations are potentially mutually reinforcing in several respects. · Some provisions of the multilateral agreements that may superficially seem at odds are
not likely to become particularly problematic in practice.
· âDomestic policies and measuresâ that governments may undertake in the context of
the Protocol could pose difficult issues in the context of WTO dispute cases.
· Recent WTO agreements and dispute cases acknowledge the legitimacy of the
âprecautionary principleâ and are thus consistent with the environmental protection
objectives of the Protocol.
· The relative newness of the climate regime creates opportunities for institutional
adaptation, as compared with the constraints of tradition in the trade-investment
regime.
· The prospect of largely independent evolutionary paths for the two regimes poses a
series of issues about future international regime design and management, which may
require new institutional arrangements.
In sum, the present paper thus finds that although there are some areas of interaction that are
problematic, the two regimes may nevertheless co-exist in relative harmony in other respects
âmore like âneighboursâ than either âfriendsâ or âfoesâ, as Krist (2001) has suggested
Implications of the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program for Young Adults
On December 17, 1999, President Clinton signed the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act (P.L. 106-170) into law establishing in section 101(a) the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program (Ticket to Work Program) as well as several other provisions to support the movement of beneficiaries with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) into employment.
The Ticket to Work Program was established to expand the universe of providers available to beneficiaries with disabilities as they are afforded the opportunity to choose from whom they access their needed employment services and supports. The Ticket to Work Program also increased provider incentives to serve these individuals. The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers this new program with the support of Maximus, Inc, the entity contracted with by the SSA to serve as the program manager.
The SSA is currently contracting with agencies to serve as Employment Networks (EN). These ENs perform an array of duties under the law, including providing employment services, vocational rehabilitation (VR) services, and other support services to assist individuals with disabilities to obtain and maintain employment. Under this program, the SSA is directed to provide to beneficiaries with disabilities who meet certain eligibility criteria a Ticket they may use to obtain employment services, VR services and/or other support services from an EN of their choice.
âA Ticket under the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program is a document that provides evidence of SSAâs agreement to pay an EN or a State VR agency for providing employment services, VR services and/or other support services to a Ticket recipient who requests such services.â (SSA 2001, p. 12) The Ticket to Work Program will be phased in nationally over a three-year period beginning in January, 2002, with beneficiaries in 13 states: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Wisconsin. The remaining states will be included by January, 2004
The Role of Monitoring in Reducing the Moral Hazard Problem Associated with Government Guarantees: Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry
State guaranty funds provide partial protection to life insurance holders in the event of an insolvency, thus creating a moral hazard problem akin to the one associated with deposit insurance in the banking industry. We find that differences across states in the financing of these government guaranty systems affects risk taking by life insurance companies (LICs). In states where taxpayers do not pay for the costs of resolving insolvencies, LICs hold portfolios with lower overall stock market risk. These portfolios, however, are characterized by higher levels of both capital and risky assets. These empirical findings have policy implications for improving monitoring of financial intermediaries receiving government liability guarantees. We also examine the effects of franchise value, size and ownership structure on portfolio risk. We find that larger LICs and LICs with more franchise value take less risk. We also find that risk decreases with insider holdings until insiders own about 25 percent of the firm and increases thereafter. This paper was presented at the Financial Institutions Center's May 1996 conference on "
ALGEBRAIC PROPERTIES OF FORMAL POWER SERIES COMPOSITION
The study of formal power series is an area of interest that spans many areas of mathematics. We begin by looking at single-variable formal power series with coefficients from a field. By restricting to those series which are invertible with respect to formal composition we form a group. Our focus on this group focuses on the classification of elements having finite order. The notion of a semi-cyclic group comes up in this context, leading to several interesting results about torsion subgroups of the group. We then expand our focus to the composition of multivariate formal power series, looking at similar questions about classifying elements of finite order. We end by defining a natural automorphism on this group induced by a group action of the symmetric group
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