P. Truong

The Environmental and Economic Effects of European Emissions Trading

Abstract In this article, we analyse the effects of emissions trading in Europe, with special reference to Germany. We look at the value of the flexibility gained by trading compared to fixed quotas. The analysis is undertaken with a modified version of the GTAP-E model using the latest GTAP version 6 database. It is based on the national allocation plans (NAP) as submitted to and approved by the EU. We find that, in a regional emissions trading scheme, Germany, Great Britain and the Czech Republic are the main sellers of emissions permits, while Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden are the main buyers. The welfare gains from regional emissions trading—for the trading sectors only—are largest for Belgium, Denmark and Great Britain; smaller for Finland and Sweden, and smallest for Germany and other regions. When we take into account the economy-wide and terms-of-trade effects of emissions trading, however, (negative) terms-of-trade effects can offset the (positive) allocative efficiency gains for the cases of the Netherlands and Italy, while all other regions end up with positive net welfare gains. All regions, however, experienced increases in real GDP as a result of regional emissions trading.

An Australian Fuel Substitution Tax Model: Orani-LFT

ORANI is a general purpose short-run general equilibrium model of the Australian economy. ORANI-LFT extends this basic model to enable examination of tax issues and interfuel substitution in the industrial sector. The extended model is used to illustrate the effects of a substantial switch from crude oil levy revenue to petroleum products excise revenue. The fall in crude oil revenue is assumed to emanate from a 10% fall in the world price of crude oil. The aggregate and sectoral results presented are consistent with the broad qualitative conclusions derived from a partial equilibrium analysis. It is also pointed out how the model could be extended in future research to investigate issues associated with Australian oil market deregulation.

A Reassessment of the Characterisation of Congestion on an Urban Road Network — Some Theoretical Suggestions and Illustrative Experiments

In this paper we have developed an alternative approach for analysing the phenomenon of congestion within an urban road network. The framework differs from the traditional approach in that it separates out the speed and the density components in the flow variable and uses these to define the ‘price’ and ‘quantitity’ levels of travel demand and supply on a particular link. Having separated out the price and quantity components in demand and supply, we set out a theoretical model to represent the individual demand behaviour for travel activity across a link, based on the concept of a household production function, using a (congested) public infrastructure good (road capacity).

Europe's Twenties: A Study Using the WIATEC Model

In this paper, we use a computable general equilibrium model (WIATEC) to study the potential impact of implementing Europes 20-20-20 climate policy. The results show that the economic costs of implementing the policy are only moderate and within the range of recent empirical evidence. Furthermore, they also indicate that there is a possibility that the existing allocations to the Europena sectors participating in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) are on the low side, and therefore, there are still rooms for movement in the future.

Competition and Growth in Virtual Markets

This chapter attempts to provide some useful insights into the understanding of fundamental tradeoffs faced by B&M and Virtual firms competing in Virtual marketplaces for Type-2 customers. An innovation contained in the paper is the establishment of a link between firm relative locations within the Virtual market to investment and ultimately profits. This innovation enabled the derivation of some testable predictions. Some ways to move beyond current model assumptions could be the consideration of non-uniform distributions of Virtual consumers (in particular non-symmetric distributions due to the skewed age distribution of customers making purchases online), the introduction of market power and allowing both the B&M and Virtual markets to be made open to competition.