Trade and investment liberalization as determinants of multilateral environmental agreement membership

Environmental agreements represent voluntary coalitions which mostly regulate emissions and the exhaustion of natural resources. The analysis of why and under which conditions countries (or policy makers) may be inclined toward ratifying such agreements or not has been the focus of a body of theoretical work at the interface of environmental economics and the economics of coalition games. Traditional theoretical work predicted that environmental agreements are hard to sustain due to the lacking enforceability of associated contracts and the incentive to free-ride. This hypothesis is at odds with the enormous surge of such agreements in reality over the last few decades. Recent work by Rose and Spiegel (J. Money, Credit Bank. 41:337-363, 2009) suggests that environmental agreements will be signed and are stable, because they work as a signal and help economies to get access to export (and possibly other) credits. Hence, the reason for a ratification of such agreements is their interdependence with other policies, especially ones that are related to international business. This paper sheds light on the determinants of multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) participation. In particular, we pay attention to the role of a country's international openness by means of chosen trade and investment policies for such participation. The results support the view that wealthier countries with a strong inclination towards trade and investment liberalization are more in favor of committing themselves voluntarily to environmental standards, pollution reduction, and other means of environmental protection through MEA memberships than other countries, all else equa

Experimental Investigation of an Optimized Mechanically Assisted Suction Reed Valve of a Hermetic Reciprocating Compressor

Reed valves are widely used in hermetic reciprocating compressors for domestic refrigeration. They are crucial components in terms of efficiency, cooling performance, noise and reliability of the compressor. While reed valves already cause a significant proportion of the thermodynamic losses in fixed speed compressors, they induce even more challenges in variable speed compressors. Especially in variable speed compressors, a further improvement of the reed valve dynamics requires the consideration of a new valve concept. In this work, a new design concept of a mechanically assisted suction valve is experimentally investigated. A mechanically actuated spiral spring generates a variable supporting force on the surface of a conventional reed valve. Experiments are conducted over a wide compressor speed range to determine how the new valve design contributes to the thermodynamic requirements of a variable speed compressor, which are high efficiency from low to medium compressor speed and high cooling capacity at high compressor speed. In addition, acoustic measurements will show the influence of the new design concept on noise, vibration and suction gas pulsation of the compressor

Offshoring and Job Polarisation between Firms

We set up a general equilibrium model, in which offshoring to a low-wage country can lead to job polarisation in the high-wage country. Job polarisation is the result of a reallocation of labour across firms that differ in productivity and pay wages that are positively linked to their profits by a rent-sharing mechanism. Offshoring involves fixed and task-specific variable costs, and as a consequence it is chosen only by the most productive firms, and only for those tasks with the lowest variable offshoring costs. A reduction in those variable costs increases offshoring at the intensive and at the extensive margin, with domestic employment shifted from the newly offshoring firms in the middle of the productivity distribution to firms at the tails of this distribution, paying either very low or very high wages. We also study how the reallocation of labour across firms affects economy-wide unemployment. Offshoring reduces unemployment when it is confined to high-productivity firms, while this outcome is not guaranteed when offshoring is also chosen by low-productivity firms

The Exporter Wage Premium When Firms and Workers are Heterogeneous

We set up a trade model with heterogeneous firms and a worker population that is heterogeneous in two dimensions: workers are either skilled or unskilled, and within each skill category there is a continuum of abilities. Workers with high abilities, both skilled and unskilled, are matched to firms with high productivities, and this leads to wage differentials within each skill category across firms. Self-selection of the most productive firms into exporting generates an exporter wage premium, and our framework with skilled and unskilled workers allows us to decompose this premium into its skill-specific components. We employ linked employer-employee data from Germany to structurally estimate the parameters of the model. Using these parameter estimates, we compute an average exporter wage premium of 5 percent. The decomposition by skill turns out to be quantitatively highly relevant, with exporting firms paying no wage premium at all to their unskilled workers, while the premium for skilled workers is 12 percent

Braucht Europa eine Koordinierung der nationalen Lohnpolitiken?

In der aktuellen wirtschaftspolitischen Diskussion wird häufig auf stärkeren Koordinierungsbedarf in der Lohnpolitik hingewiesen. Nach Ansicht von Hartmut Egger und Daniel Etzel, Universität Bayreuth, sind eine stärkere Koordinierung arbeitsmarktpolitischer Maßnahmen und eine kritische Debatte über gemeinsame arbeitsmarktpolitische Ziele innerhalb der Europäischen Union grundsätzlich sinnvoll. Allerdings können Regelungen in diesem Bereich jeweils nur unter Berücksichtigung der vorherrschenden Tarifautonomie getroffen werden. Ob aber eine derartige Koordination auch die gesamtwirtschaftliche Wohlfahrt erhöhen könne, sei bisher nicht Gegenstand der wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung gewesen. Hagen Lesch, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, hält eine Korrektur der Lohnstückkosten der Defizitländer relativ zu denen der Überschussländer für sinnvoll, um die Leistungsbilanzungleichgewichte abzubauen. Eine Koordinierung der nationalen Lohnpolitiken könnte diesen Prozess beschleunigen. Es bestehe derzeit aber weder ein Koordinationsanreiz noch eine allgemein akzeptierte Koordinationsregel. Holger Zemanek, Universität Leipzig, lehnt eine direkte bzw. supranationale Koordinierung der Lohnpolitik ab. Ein europäischer Konsens, dass Lohnsteigerungen nicht das Produktivitätswachstum übersteigen sollten, sei aber zu begrüßen. Die europaweit restriktiven Fiskalpolitiken sowie die lohnpolitische Stabilität Deutschlands stellen, seiner Meinung nach, aber bereits eine marktwirtschaftliche, indirekte Koordinierung der Lohnpolitiken in Europa dar. Auch Christoph Moser, ETH Zürich, findet eine Koordinierung der nationalen Lohnpolitik in Europa nicht förderlich für den Abbau der innereuropäischen Ungleichgewichte.Lohnpolitik Wirtschaftspolitik Koordination Ungleichgewichtstheorie Interregionaler Handel Lohnstückkosten Preiswettbewerb EU-Staaten Deutschland

Suicide assisted by right-to-die associations: a population based cohort study

Background: In Switzerland, assisted suicide is legal but there is concern that vulnerable or disadvantaged groups are more likely to die in this way than other people. We examined socio-economic factors associated with assisted suicide. Methods: We linked the suicides assisted by right-to-die associations during 2003-08 to a census-based longitudinal study of the Swiss population. We used Cox and logistic regression models to examine associations with gender, age, marital status, education, religion, type of household, urbanization, neighbourhood socio-economic position and other variables. Separate analyses were done for younger (25 to 64 years) and older (65 to 94 years) people. Results: Analyses were based on 5 004 403 Swiss residents and 1301 assisted suicides (439 in the younger and 862 in the older group). In 1093 (84.0%) assisted suicides, an underlying cause was recorded; cancer was the most common cause (508, 46.5%). In both age groups, assisted suicide was more likely in women than in men, those living alone compared with those living with others and in those with no religious affiliation compared with Protestants or Catholics. The rate was also higher in more educated people, in urban compared with rural areas and in neighbourhoods of higher socio-economic position. In older people, assisted suicide was more likely in the divorced compared with the married; in younger people, having children was associated with a lower rate. Conclusions: Assisted suicide in Switzerland was associated with female gender and situations that may indicate greater vulnerability such as living alone or being divorced, but also with higher education and higher socio-economic positio