On Properties of Royalty and Tax Regimes in Alberta's Oil Sands

Simulation models of stylized oil sands projects that include detailed representations of different royalty and tax regimes are developed. These models are then used to examine the distribution between developers and governments of net returns associated with the development and production of Alberta’s oil sands deposits. A specific focus is to assess the estimated effects on the level and distribution of net revenues associated with a number of changes in assumed revenue and expenditure conditions. The results suggest that developers, and especially surface mine operators, typically bear a greater share of the consequences of variations in capital expenditures than they do of changes in operating expenditures, prices, and exchange rates. A comparison across royalty and tax regimes suggests, among other things, that there is a positive relationship between the level of net revenues estimated to accrue to either developers or governments and the share of the consequences of changes in revenue and expenditure conditions borne by that party. Some differences in royalty and tax treatment and the distribution of the consequences of changes in revenue and expenditure conditions are noted across production technologies. It is also clear that the role of the federal government as a fiscal player in oil sands development has shrunk over time. In contrast, under the regime currently in effect, the Government of Alberta captures a higher share of net returns and typically bears a greater proportion of the consequences of changes in conditions than at any time since the introduction of an explicit oil sands royalty and tax regime in 1997.oil sands; fiscal systems; risk incidence

BACK TO KATZ: REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY IN THE FACEBOOK AGE

Part I of this Note discusses the evolution of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in reaction to advancing technology, the Supreme Court and circuit courts’ disposition in dealing with electronic “beeper” tracking (the technology that predated GPS), and the legal doctrine governing the government’s use of cellular phones to conduct surveillance of individuals both retroactively and in real-time. Part II examines the developing split among the federal circuits and state courts over whether GPS surveillance of vehicles constitutes a search, as well as the parallel concerns raised in recent published opinions by magistrate judges as to whether government requests for cell-site information from third party service providers require a warrant. Part III of this Note argues for the adoption of a rule that GPS surveillance constitutes a search and seizure and should require a warrant because the privacy expectation—that the government is not tracking its citizens twenty-four hours per day—is still one that society considers legitimate. It also argues that increasing public use or consent to third party use of GPS technology does not destroy an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements, nor indicate that society no longer views these expectations as reasonable. In fact, increased public awareness of recent technological invasions of privacy may be producing an increased demand for control over information

Oil and Gas in the Canadian Federation

This paper provides an overview of key governance issues of relevance to the upstream oil and gas industry in Canada. The focus is on implications of Canada’s constitutional organization as a federation of ten provinces and three territories. Regulatory structures and provisions are described, as are revenue-sharing arrangements. Challenges for the environmental regulation of activities relating to oil and gas exploration, development, and production are highlighted. Implications of the evolving understanding of the rights of Canada’s aboriginal peoples are discussed. Special attention is paid to issues of importance to the federation as a whole and to the potential for the emergence of inter-governmental tensions and conflicts.Canadian oil and gas policy; federalism; energy revenue-sharing

Uncertainty in Fisheries Economics: The Role of the Discount Rate

Standard models of management of a single-species fishery generally assume that the biomass is of known size and that it is generated by a well-specified deterministic growth law. In reality the biomass is of uncertain size and usually subject to random growth. Several authors have addressed the problem of random growth assuming a known initial biomass and have shown that lowering the planning discount rate proportional to the variance is an optimal planning procedure assuming small perturbations. In this paper we assume that the growth function is nonrandom but dependent upon a biomass stock of unknown size. We shall show that a planner should raise the discount rate relative to the certainty equivalent case by an amount related to society's distaste for risk in order to manage the biomass optimally over time. As is to be expected, the optimal steady-state biomass will be less than would occur in a situation of certainty.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Harvesting of a Transboundary Replenishable Fish Stock: A Noncooperative Game Solution

In this study we use a N-person differential game structure to represent a renewable resource industry in which the decision agents are few in number and noncooperative (as would be the case, for example, in international fishing wars). As an illustration we assume an environment similar to that presented by Levhari and Mirman (1980) to derive a set of tractable strategies. Although there is no guarantee that the stock size would always be positive with human harvesting in the Levhari and Mirman case, our model provides growth dynamics that rule out negative stocks. Explicit solutions of equilibrium game strategies and a steady-state level of stock are derived. Finally, we demonstrate that in situations when stock size enters the production function, combined maximization such as an international treaty is more "conservative" than individual maximization.Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Spanning with Zero-Price Investment Assets

Regression-based testing techniques has long been used to quantify whether the efficient frontier of a set of assets spans the frontier of a larger collection of investments. This work derives regression-based spanning tests for the case in which the investment possibilities set contains, or is constituted by, zero-investment assets. An empirical example illustrates that ignoring the zero-cost qualification of these assets might lead to wrong spanning propositions.mean-variance spanning; diversification benefits; portfolio choice; futures markets

Superconducting microstrip amplifiers with sub-Kelvin noise temperature near 4 GHz

We present measurements of an amplifier operating at 3.8 GHz with 150 MHz of bandwidth based on the microstrip input-coil resonance of a dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) with submicron Josephson junctions. The noise temperature is measured using two methods: comparing the signal-to-noise ratio of the system with and without the SQUID in the amplifier chain, and using a modified Y-factor technique where calibrated narrowband noise is mixed up to the SQUID amplifier operating frequency. With the SQUID cooled to 0.35 K we observe a minimum system noise temperature of 0.55 $\pm~0.13$ K, dominated by the contribution from the SQUID amplifier

Crop Sharing in the Fishery and Industry Equilibrium

This article presents a model of commercial fishing in a stochastic environment that focuses on the labor-employment contract. In a partial equilibrium context, the authors show that when boat owners and crew members are risk-averse, crop sharing is the optimal contract, and the resultant labor employment level will be greater than with a (suboptimal) wage contract. Industry effects and steady-state resource growth limitations are introduced into a market equilibrium model. In this extended model, market equilibria will also involve sharing contracts. These will result in greater employment, which comes at the expense of reduced resource stocks and higher-than-necessary harvesting costs. The article also examines how industry regulation such as licensing, quotas, and subsidies will differ if the prevailing contract is cropsharing as compared with a wage. Despite the fact that cropsharing contracts are privately optimal in a regulated setting, they may not be socially optimal.wage contracts, crop-sharing contracts, equilibrium, fisheries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Labor and Human Capital, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,