In the first chapter, I quantify the welfare effect of eliminating the U.S. capital income tax under international financial integration. I employ a two-country, heterogeneous-agent incomplete markets model calibrated to represent the U.S. and the rest of the world. Short-run and long-run factor price dynamics are key: after the tax reform, post-tax interest rate increases less under financial openness relative to autarky. Therefore the wealth-rich households gain less. Post-tax wages also fall less, so the wealth-poor are hurt less. Hence, the fraction in favor of the reform increases, although the majority still prefers the status quo. Aggregate welfare effect to the U.S. is a permanent 0.2 % consumption equivalent loss under financial openness which is 85.5 % smaller than the welfare loss under autarky. The second chapter aims to answer two questions: What helps forecast U.S. inflation? What causes the observed changes in the predictive ability of variables commonly used in forecasting US inflation? In macroeconomic analysis and inflation forecasting, the traditional Phillips curve has been widely used to exploit the empirical relationship between inflation and domestic economic activity. Atkeson and Ohanian (2001), among others, cast doubt on the performance of Phillips curve-based forecasts of U.S. inflation relative to naive forecasts. This indicates a difficulty for policy-making and private sectorâs long term nominal commitments which depend on inflation expectations. The literature suggests globalization may be one reason for this phenomenon. To test this, we evaluate the forecasting ability of global slack measures under an open economy Phillips curve. The results are very sensitive to measures of inflation, forecast horizons and estimation samples. We find however, terms of trade gap, measured as HP-filtered terms of trade, is a good and robust variable to forecast U.S. inflation. Moreover, our forecasts based on the simulated data from a workhorse new open economy macro (NOEM) model indicate that better monetary policy and good luck (i.e. a remarkably benign sample of economic shocks) can account for the empirical observations on forecasting accuracy, while globalization plays a secondary role. / text

本文採文獻歸納方式，針對全球暖化問題，以國際公共財理論作為議題緣起，分析京都彈性機制—清潔發展機制之運作。全球暖化為一純粹國際公共財問題。而京都議定書要求各國履行排放減量之標的，可作為提供公共財依據。並以排放減量份額作為供給數量之評估。而CDM即為促進各國均能參與溫室氣體減量活動之機制，達成經濟永續發展之目標。 當就不對稱關係以賽局討論國際公共財之供給，邊際成本較低國家，應從事較多公共財貢獻行動；邊際成本較高的國家則發生搭便車行為。但卻與CDM文獻結論有所不同。CDM計畫中的開發中國家因不受約束，反而有搭便車行為。多數的減量行動仍由已開發國家在境內進行。故國際公共財賽局可否用於研究CDM之運作，仍有待評估。 有關CDM在模型理論上可利用動態規劃之最適模型，研究投資國與被投資國之行為。當排放權證交易為不完全競爭市場時，可以Stackelberg模型進行。若不僅以經濟分析，尚可加入生態研究作成整合模型。在CDM執行成效方面，必須審慎評估CDM計畫型式，並考量是否合乎額外性準則。而CERs之境內分配政策，則可能會因利益交換，導致勾結行為相繼發生。此外，排放基線與CERs具有密切關聯，基線設定遂成為CDM之核心議題。有效建立CDM法則，強化合作的透明度，對於減少交易成本將佔有關鍵性地位。又CERs以選擇權出售；CDM與IIA的衝突及CDM資訊不對稱問題，都可再作研究。 儘管台灣非京都議定書締約國，無法作為CDM之地主國。僅能間接參與投資。不過國內學者多已提出產業因應措施作為諮詢。並以TAIGEM-E模型推算排放基線，建立從事溫室氣體減量行動之數據。受限於台灣國際地位，CDM計畫成效可能難以進行實證分析。不過中國和日本有許多CDM計畫，可針對較具爭議性之議題作延伸討論，並研讀相關文獻作為參考。本文即為發掘核心議題，提供文獻彙整，協助擬研究清潔發展機制者作為參議。