Regional versus Multilateral Trade Liberalization, Environmental Taxation and Welfare

We consider strategic trade among identical countries and compare the impacts of multilateral versus regional tariff reduction on equilibrium pollution tax and social welfare. While both forms of trade liberalization increase production and consumption in the tariff-reducing countries, regional trade liberalization also reduces production in a non-participating country and may decrease its consumption. When pollution is local, regional and multilateral trade liberalization have similar impacts in the tariff-reducing countries. In contrast, when pollution is perfectly transboundary, regional (multilateral) trade liberalization (i) weakens (may strengthen) environmental protection in the tariff-reducing countries, and (ii) in the neighbourhood of free trade, may increase (decreases) welfare of the tariff-reducing countries.

RECYCLING WITH ENDOGENEOUS CONSUMER PARTICIPATION

We show that the cost of sorting and the network effects jointly determine the rate of participation of consumers in the process of recycling. The dominant producer of virgin material takes into account the recycling activities when it makes its pricing decision. The network effects can create multiplicity of steady-state equilibria. The government can improve welfare by influencing equilibrium selection.

Recycling With Endogeneous Consumer Participation

We show that the cost of sorting and the network effects jointly determine the rate of participation of consumers in the process of recycling. The dominant producer of virgin material takes into account the recycling activities when it makes its pricing decision. The network effects can create multiplicity of steady-state equilibria. The government can improve welfare by influencing equilibrium selection. On montre que le coût de triage et les effets de réseau déterminent le taux de participation des consommateurs au processus de recyclage. La firme dominante tient compte des activités de recyclage en choisissant le prix du produit primaire. Les effets de réseau peuvent créer la multiplicité d’équilibres stationnaires. Le gouvernement peut améliorer le bien-être social par son influence sur le choix d’équilibres.dominant firm, multiple equilibria, network effect, recycling, effet de réseau, firme dominante, multiplicité d’équilibres, recyclage

Essays on environmental policies, corruption, and energy

This thesis consists of four essays. The first essay looks at pollution taxation under capital mobility, and analyzes the role of pre-commitment by countries to their pollution tax rate. A polluting firm sells its product in two countries, and can locate and produce in a single country or in both countries. Due to the discrete-choice nature of the firm's location problem, the countries' welfare functions are discontinuous in their pollution tax rate. We show that when the countries cannot pre-commit to their pollution tax, the firm can still engender tax competition between them by strategically locating in both the countries. Moreover, pre-commitment pollution taxation may not be welfare improving for the countries, although it always makes the firm better off.The second essay studies the effect of liberalization on corruption. Corruptible inspectors enforce an environmental regulation on firms, and are monitored by an honest regulator. Liberalization not only increases the variety of goods and the marginal utility of accepting a bribe, but also puts pressure on the regulator to curb corruption. The interaction of these two effects can cause corruption to initially increase with liberalization, and then decrease beyond a threshold. Moreover, equilibrium corruption is lower when the regulator is able to pre-commit to her monitoring frequency.The third essay analyzes optimal labeling (information revelation) procedures for hidden attributes of credence goods. Consumers are heterogeneous in their preference for the hidden attribute, and producers can either self-label their products, or have them certified by a third party. The government can impose self or third-party labeling requirements on either the "green" or the "brown" producers. When corrupt producers can affix spurious labels, the government needs to monitor them. A mandatory self-labeling policy is shown to generally dominate mandatory third-party labeling.The fourth essay develops formulas for computing the economy-wide energy intensity decline rate by aggregating sectoral energy efficiency improvements, and sectoral shifts in economic activities. The formulas are used to (i) construct plausible scenarios for the global rate of energy intensity decline, and (ii) show the restraining role of the "electricity generation" sector on the energy intensity decline rate

Quantum Implementation of ASCON Linear Layer

In this paper, we show an in-place implementation of the ASCON linear layer. An in-place implementation is important in the context of quantum computing, we expect our work will be useful in quantum implementation of ASCON. In order to get the implementation, we first write the ASCON linear layer as a binary matrix; then apply two legacy algorithms (Gauss-Jordan elimination and PLU factorization) as well as our modified version of Xiang et al.\u27s algorithm/source-code (published in ToSC/FSE\u2720). Our in-place implementation takes 1595 CNOT gates and 119 quantum depth; and this is the first in-place implementation of the ASCON linear layer, to the best of our knowledge

Recycling With Endogeneous Consumer Participation

On montre que le coût de triage et les effets de réseau déterminent le taux de participation des consommateurs au processus de recyclage. La firme dominante tient compte des activités de recyclage en choisissant le prix du produit primaire. Les effets de réseau peuvent créer la multiplicité d'équilibres stationnaires. Le gouvernement peut améliorer le bien-être social par son influence sur le choix d'équilibres.We show that the cost of sorting and the network effects jointly determine the rate of participation of consumers in the process of recycling. The dominant producer of virgin material takes into account the recycling activities when it makes its pricing decision. The network effects can create multiplicity of steady-state equilibria. The government can improve welfare by influencing equilibrium selection

The impact of liberalization on bureaucratic corruption

Liberalization increases the number of goods available for consumption within a country. Since bureaucrats value variety, this raises the marginal utility of accepting a bribe. This "benefit effect" is counteracted by an increasing "cost effect" from corruption deterrence activities that arise due to greater international pressure to curb corruption. The interaction of these two effects can lead to a non-monotonic relation between liberalization and corruption. Moreover, pre-commitment to deterrence activities is shown to be more effective in controlling corruption. Empirical evidence supports the existence of a non-monotonic relation between economic openness and corruption among developing countries.Corruption Bribery Bureaucracy Monitoring Liberalization