Environmental Compliance by Firms in the Manufacturing Sector in Mexico

To date, little empirical evidence exists to help regulators understand why some firms comply even when there is little financial incentive to do so and others continually violate environmental regulations. This paper examines data on compliance with environmental regulations within the manufacturing sector in Mexico. The probability of complying depends, among other factors, on the kind of management practices of the firm and the level of environmental training. Some firms in the manufacturing sector over-comply with regulations. Our results show that providing environmental training to employees in the firm increases the probability of over-compliance. Local community has a positive impact on over-compliance however the magnitude of its impact is not as strong as is often suggested in the literature.Environmental regulation, Compliance, Mexico

Formal Verification of Full-Wave Rectifier: A Case Study

We present a case study of formal verification of full-wave rectifier for analog and mixed signal designs. We have used the Checkmate tool from CMU [1], which is a public domain formal verification tool for hybrid systems. Due to the restriction imposed by Checkmate it necessitates to make the changes in the Checkmate implementation to implement the complex and non-linear system. Full-wave rectifier has been implemented by using the Checkmate custom blocks and the Simulink blocks from MATLAB from Math works. After establishing the required changes in the Checkmate implementation we are able to efficiently verify the safety properties of the full-wave rectifier.Comment: The IEEE 8th International Conference on ASIC (IEEE ASICON 2009), October 20-23 2009, Changsha, Chin

Does the Size of the Action Set Matter for Coorperation

We use the voluntary contribution mechanism to investigate whether smaller action sets lead to higher cooperation rates. We ?nd that this is the case for groups of four players.action set; voluntary contribution mechanism; prisoner?s dilemma

Impact of Risk and Uncertainty in the Provision of Local and Global Environmental Goods : An Experimental Analysis

Uncertainties and risks in the decision making process are abundant in the area of environmental economics, irrespective of whether the problems being discussed are local or global. This paper uses laboratory evidence from public goods games to examine how in payoff equivalent situations, decision makers contribute towards local or global environmental goods, in the presence of risk and uncertainties in the provision of these goods. We use a within subject design that allows for comparisons across seven different treatments in which subjects are exposed to internal (strategic) and external (environmental) risk and uncertainty. Our results show that the location of the risk and uncertainty matters, with subjects moving away from the external uncertainty in favor of internal uncertainty, when that uncertainty is associated with the local environmental good. When the uncertainty relates to the global environmental good, subjects face both external and internal uncertainty on the same good leading to a significant drop in contributions. We find that in the presence of risk and uncertainty subjects use feedback from other members of their group when deciding about future contributions. The reward for research and development and innovation is captured in the experimental design by the increased probability of obtaining the desired outcome in the endogenous probability treatment. Subjects seem to understand this incentive and contribute more towards global goods in this treatment.Experiments, Public Goods, Local and Global Environmental Problems, Risk, Uncertainty.

Integration in the European Research Area by means of the European Framework Programmes. Findings from Eigenvector filtered spatial interaction models

One of the main goals of the European Research Area (ERA) concept is to improve coherence and integration across the European research landscape by removing barriers for collaborative knowledge production in a European system of innovation. The cornerstone of policy instruments in this context is the European Framework Programme (FP) that supports pre-competitive collaborative R&D projects, creating a pan-European network of actors performing joint R&D. However, we know only little about the contribution of the FPs to the realisation of ERA. The objective of this study is to monitor progress towards ERA by identifying the evolution of separation effects, such as spatial, institutional, cultural or technological barriers, which influence cross-region R&D collaboration intensities between 255 European NUTS-2 regions in the FPs over the time period 1999-2006. By this, the study builds on recent work by Scherngell and Barber (2009) that addresses this question from a static perspective. We employ Poisson spatial interaction models taking into account spatial autocorrelation among residual flows by using Eigenvector spatial filtering methods. The results show that geographical distance and country border effects gradually decrease over time when correcting for spatial autocorrelation among flows. Thus, the study provides evidence for the contribution of the FPs to the realisation of ERA.

Economic Viability of Rainwater Harvesting by Renovating Village Ponds in Small Agricultural Watershed of Johranpur (HP)

The study has evaluated the benefits and financial structure of the project in the village Johranpur, district Solan (Himachal Pradesh) where a project under the NATP on ‘Rainwater Management on Micro Watershed basis’ was undertaken in the year 2000. It has also studied the extent of employment generated by the project and has assessed the changes in the land-use pattern in the project area. The results have revealed that technology of diverting run-off from agricultural fields to renovated ponds and its recycling to the same area with peoples’ participation and other technological interventions could produce remarkable results and have tripled the net agricultural income. The project was implemented at an initial cost of 9.21 lakhs and farmers incurred additional annual cost on inputs ranging from Rs 4963 to Rs 6346 per hectare due to supplemental irrigation, increased cropping intensity and higher input-use. The benefit cost ratio has been found as 1.71 using a discount value of 10 per cent for the project-life of 10 years. The project has also helped in generating additional employment opportunities on casual as well as regular basis.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Emissions Variability in Tradable Permit Markets with Imperfect Enforcement and Banking

Unexpected variation in emissions can have a substantial impact on the prices and efficiency of tradable emission permit markets. In this paper we report results from a laboratory experiment in which subjects participate in an emissions trading market in the presence of emissions uncertainty. Subjects face exogenous, random positive or negative shocks to their emission levels after they make production and emission control plans. In some sessions we allow subjects to bank their unused permits for future use. In all sessions, subjects can trade in a reconciliation period to buy or sell extra permits following the shock realization. Subjects then report their emissions to the regulatory authority and they are placed in different inspection groups depending on their compliance history. The design of our experiment allows us to identify important interactions between emission shocks, banking, compliance and enforcement. We find that the relationship between emission shocks and price changes is significantly stronger without banking, so banking helps smooth out the price variability arising from the imperfect control of emissions. This greater price stability comes at a cost, however, since noncompliance and emissions are significantly greater when banking is allowed.Emissions Trading, Correlated Shocks, Banking, Laboratory Experiments.