Karel Husník: Economic and Legal Position of the Czech National Bank in the Environment of Inflation and Deflation The aim of this thesis is to analyse the position of the Czech National Bank (CNB) from the legal and economic point of view and to analyse the monetary policy instruments which the central bank can use efficiently in inflation targeting. The primary criterium is macroeconomic environment of inflation, respectively deflation. The thesis newly divides the monetary policy instruments on conventional and non-conventional. The thesis uses multidisciplinary approach, it combines economic and legal point of view. The methodology of this thesis is analysis, description in historical projection and comparation. The laws of the Czech Republic and the documents of CNB, which are available online, are used. Author also worked with data from the Czech Statistical Office and with various economic studies and papers. The first chapter of the thesis analyses position of independent Czech National Bank in its constitutional and lawful position. The Law of the Czech National Bank and the Constitution of the Czech Republic defines the purpose of the CNB and her relationship with other components of state power. The CNB's monetary policy objective is set forth in Article 98 of the Constitution of the...

The choice of policy design has crucial implications for a policy’s efficiency. Plastic as a material is an important issue because of its fossil origin and because it often ends up as litter and spreads microplastics. Consequently, policies regarding plastic are vital to examine to understand how we can reduce the environmental consequences of plastic. This study has examined the design of the plastic carrier bag policy and especially focused on the choice of policy instrument, the actors involved, and if the desired change in behaviour occurred. By utilising Schneider and Ingram’s policy design theory, and Howlett and Vedung’s works on policy design and policy instruments, the study built an analytical framework to examine the plastic carrier bag policy. The result showed that the design of a policy was largely dependent on who governed, reflecting the government’s political culture, aims, and goals. The outcome of the policy showed that tax as an economic instrument was efficient in changing the public’s behaviour in the use of plastic carrier bags.

Sweden has one of the highest biogas potentials in the world and has been a leader in reducing fossil fuels in the transportation industry. With a goal of achieving a 70% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in domestic transport by 2030 compared to 2010 levels and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, despite the potential advantages of biogas implementation, its adoption in the Swedish transport sector has been limited. Sweden's transportation sector is a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions, accounting for approximately 31% of the country's total emissions. Making it an important sector to address the efforts of Sweden in reducing its carbon footprint. The slow progress of biogas uptake in the sector has been attributed to several factors, but policy incoherence appears to be a key issue. By using qualitative methods, this study investigates the identified problem and involves four interviews. The results indicate that the challenges associated with the problem are tax exemption, limited support for exported biogas, unequal competition between biogas and other renewable alternatives, lack of knowledge regarding biogas benefits and a lack of political will. The solutions to these issues on the other hand involve increasing awareness, supporting imported and exported biogas, promoting collaboration between different actors, and ensuring equal competition between biogas and other renewable alternatives.

Recognized as one of the main obstacles to sustainable development, climate change is caused and accelerated by the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated from all energy end-user sectors. The building sector alone consumes around 40% of all produced energy worldwide. Reducing this sector’s energy consumption has therefore come into focus as one of the key issues to address in order to meet the climate change challenge.Implementing sustainable construction practices, such as LEED, can significantly reduce the building’s energy and water consumption. Prescribing these practices may however encounter several barriers that can produce other than intended results. Since the beginning of 2008 Dubai mandates a LEED certification for the better part of all new constructions developed within the emirate, nevertheless the success of this regulation is debatable.This thesis identifies the barriers the introduction of the sustainable construction practices in Dubai faced and analyses the reasons why the regulatory and voluntary policy instruments were not effective in dealing with these barriers. Understanding these barriers as well as the merits and weaknesses of the policy instruments will help future attempts to introduce sustainable construction practices.To put the research into context a literature review of relevant printed and internet sources has been performed. In order to further understand the barriers the construction market in Dubai faced, qualitative observational research methods have been used. In addition the input of different key stakeholders with unique knowledge of the construction market was deemed to be necessary. Finally, for purposes of verification, the research relied on quantitative methods using different databases that provide detailed information about construction projects in the United Arab Emirates.The thesis concludes that several barriers, such as a) financial, b) market related, c) behavioral and organizational, d) political and structural, d) technical and e) information barriers hindered the introduction of sustainable construction practices in Dubai. Furthermore the introduced policy mechanisms were not effective in providing clarity on the scope of the policies and environmental goals, failed to provide financial incentives to investors or developers and considered only weak enforcement mechanisms.As a final outcome the thesis presents a number of suggestions that should increase the number of LEED certified projects. These suggestions include changes in the current regulations, the introduction of new policy mechanism such as a building code and major changes to the energy policy such as the correction of the utility prices and the liberalization of the energy market.

This doctoral dissertation examines the mode and efficacy of environmental and climate policy in China’s automotive sector. The ascent of China’s automobile market to the largest worldwide has detrimental effects on the country’s energy security situation, worsens environmental pollution, and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental and climate policy measures to ameliorate these repercussions are the most apt tools available to the Chinese government. The objective of this dissertation is to identify the dominant mode of environmental and climate policies in China’s automotive industry and to assess the efficacy of select policy instruments. It does so by asking whether a uniform national approach to policy instrument adoption can be discerned that reflects China’s institutional and administrative history or whether modal exceptions exist. Secondly, if modal differences exist, to what extent do different instruments confirm the current understanding of the advantages and pitfalls of individual policy instrument types? And finally, how do Chinese instruments compare to those in other ambits in terms of policy mode and instrument efficacy? The literature on policy instruments holds that, due to their alleged efficiency advantages, incentive-based instruments dominate the political agenda of industrialised countries and international organisations (environmental consensus). This favouring of flexible instruments in academic and political circles contrasts with an evident lack of incentive-based instruments in practice and an observed lack of efficiency of some of those instruments actually implemented. Moreover, the policy mode adopted in developing countries and emerging markets has not yet received sufficient academic attention despite significant differences in institutional design, enforcement capacities, resources, and development paths that may imply reason for modal deviation. Applying a blend of qualitative and quantitative social sciences research methods, I add the case of China to the comparative literature and show that command-and-control regulation indeed forms the backbone of environmental and climate policy in China’s automotive industry. At the same time, modal differences exist between national regulation and local/ municipal incentive-based policy as well as in the electric vehicle sector, which shows a trend towards more incentive-based instruments and flexibility mechanisms in conventional regulation. Compared to other ambits, China has established a relatively flexible policy regime, at least for the case of vehicle efficiency standards. For the time being, incentive-based instruments remain comparatively ineffective and flexibility mechanisms in conventional regulation have an erosive effect on instrument stringency.

This thesis explores the implications of democratisation on the regulation of health care providers. It examines the reforms in relation to two regulatory policies in the pharmaceutical market of the National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Korea – the separation of prescribing and dispensing (SPD) and the pharmaceutical pricing policy – conducted in two periods – the 1980s under the authoritarian regime and the 1990s under the democratised regime. The misuse and overuse of drugs had long been recognised as a problem for the NHI, and the tight regulation of the SPD and pharmaceutical pricing as potential solutions. Democratisation seems unlikely to tighten the government’s regulation of the SPD and pharmaceutical prices. On the one hand, the Korean authoritarian regime was known as being capable of conducting top-down regulation of societal groups, and democratisation as having liberalised the government-society relationship. On the other, pharmaceutical regulation is a sophisticated and detached issue, which restricts the ability of laypeople to mobilise and exert bottom-up pressure for regulation. Nevertheless, the authoritarian government failed to tighten, and even loosened these regulations, whereas the democratised government tightened them. This thesis explains this puzzle by focusing on the features of the agenda-setting process and the articulation of policy issues therein. In the 1980s, the SPD and the pharmaceutical reimbursement pricing policy were administrative issues, discussed exclusively between bureaucrats and the central associations of health care providers, which resulted in loose regulation. In contrast, in the 1990s, reform-oriented professionals and NGOs raised these issues and put them on the political agenda, which motivated the government to conduct tighter regulation. This thesis suggests some general implications of democratisation on the politics of regulation. The hierarchical and exclusive authoritarian policy network aims to realise policy goals set by ruling elites; however, for other policy issues, societal partners can utilise this network to promote their preferred policies. Democratisation, which promotes competitive elections and political rights, allows previously excluded policy actors to participate in policy-making networks. These new actors include professionals and activists who are able to understand regulatory issues and articulate them in ways that are salient to politicians and the general public, which will motivate the government to tighten the regulation governing its traditional policy partners.

The high number of working parents in the U.S. means that there are millions of child in need to care during working hours. Research shows that the quality of this care is of high importance in a child's development, both in the short-term and the long-term. States have used a variety of policy tools to regulate child care and to attempt to improve the quality of care. Louisiana has recently implemented a new policy called the Quality Rating System. Directors of centers in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, were interviewed to determine the impact of participation in QRS. Centers are struggling to meet the requirements and feel that changes need to be made for the program to have a better outcome.

A prática de Avaliação de Impacto (AI) mostra-se consolidada como elemento de suporte ao processo decisório ao redor do planeta. No entanto, apresenta uma série de limitações relacionadas à inclusão dos impactos sociais e efeitos cumulativos como objeto de análise, que se mostram mais intensas no contexto da implantação de grandes projetos de desenvolvimento. No Estado de São Paulo, a região do Litoral Norte se destaca pela perspectiva de intensificação dos processos de desenvolvimento econômico a partir da implantação de projetos ligados à exploração de óleo e gás e seus empreendimentos derivados. Ainda que as mudanças de caráter socioambiental venham sendo analisadas em estudos ambientais estratégicos e estudos de impactos ambientais de projetos, planos diretores municipais, dentre outros instrumentos, verifica-se uma lacuna em termos de seus aspectos cumulativos que, associada ao baixo grau de integração entre os instrumentos de planejamento aplicados na região, tem limitado a sua capacidade de influenciar as decisões tomadas. Nesse contexto, a presente pesquisa se utiliza de métodos de Avaliação de Impactos para a verificação de impactos sociais e seus efeitos cumulativos sobre o Litoral Norte paulista, considerando a implantação de projetos já em andamento e sua compatibilização com os cenários de desenvolvimento esperados para a região. De modo específico, foram aplicados os métodos da Rede de Impactos para identificação da relação de causalidade entre impactos sociais diretos e indiretos e verificação de sua cumulatividade, e da Sobreposição de Mapas para agregação de dados geográficos e visualização de sua distribuição espacial. A metodologia adotada favoreceu a identificação de impactos sociais indiretos, assim como a compreensão de sua cumulatividade sobre diferentes receptores e também sobre a área de estudo, mostrando-se útil para a inserção da dimensão social na AI voltada para grandes projetos de desenvolvimento. / Impact Assessment (IA) practice has different inadequacies, especially about identification and assessment of social impacts and cumulative effects. Hence, there is the demand of exploring methods for minding this gap, mainly in the context of impacts derived from large development projects in Brazil. The North Coast of São Paulo was used a case study, as the region was announced to receive different development projects related to oil and gas exploitation and logistic for exportation. There are many socioenvironmental changes predicted by different instruments such as Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) of projects, Master Plans, among others. This research aimed to verify the contributions of the use of Impact Network and Map Overlaying to consider the social dimension in Impact Assessment. The Impact Network method allowed to address the causality of direct and indirect social impacts, linking them to different receptors for comprehending its cumulativeness. The Map Overlaying method added spatial data from different sources, allowing to identify current and expected social impacts and its spatial and temporal cumulativeness. The main results are: identification of indirect social impacts, comprehension of cumulative social impacts in different receptors and the identification of spatial cumulativeness now and considering the planning future scenario. These methods are currently poorly applied and were important to deal with social impacts and cumulative effects. In the end, it was concluded that the approach contributed to better consider the social dimension in Impact Assessment of large projects.

Processos acelerados de globalização induzem a exploração intensiva de recursos naturais em grande escala e a construção de megaprojetos que muitas vezes transpassam as fronteiras dos países. Neste contexto, a Avaliação de Impacto Ambiental Transfronteiriça (AIA-T) se converte em uma ferramenta essencial da gestão ambiental, pois tem o potencial de apoiar a tomada de decisões que podem afetar mais de um país e assim contribuir para evitar conflitos internacionais. Contudo, a implementação desta ferramenta ainda encontra muitos desafios, por tratar de temas delicados e complexos como as relações internacionais ou a soberania dos estados. No contexto mundial, apenas a União Europeia apresenta um marco normativo claro e bem estabelecido para aplicação da AIA-T de projetos, restando às demais regiões um longo caminho a ser percorrido. A América do Sul passa atualmente por um intenso processo de integração física baseado em um amplo programa de investimentos denominado \"Iniciativa para a Integração da Infraestrutura Regional Sul-Americana\" (IIRSA), que vem promovendo alterações ambientais significativas em toda a região, sobretudo no âmbito dos países amazônicos, sem contar com um arcabouço institucional que assegure a avaliação dos impactos transfronteiriços e a sua incorporação aos procedimentos de aprovação e implantação dos projetos associados. Sendo assim, a presente pesquisa de Mestrado visou investigar a existência de marcos institucionais e metodológicos que pudessem fornecer suporte para a aplicação da AIA-T nos países amazônicos e avaliar sua proximidade com os princípios e boas práticas desta ferramenta em nível mundial. Através de revisão bibliográfica, documental e estudos de caso, os resultados encontrados indicam que a AIA-T deve integrar os procedimentos de tomada de decisão que envolvem os países amazônicos, de modo a assegurar o cumprimento dos compromissos internacionais já assumidos em torno da proteção do ecossistema amazônico e o gerenciamento adequado dos impactos ambientais transfronteiriços. / Intensive natural resources exploitation has been accelerated at large scale by globalization processes in the last years, and its impacts might overstep political boundaries. In this scenario, the transboundary environmental impact assessment (hereafter TEIA) has become an integrated approach and essential tool for international environmental management, supporting decision taking processes with the potential to prevent cross border conflicts. Nonetheless, the implementation is still challenging due to the political and social complexity of international relationships and sovereignty of the countries involved. Hitherto just the European Union has been consolidated a clear normative framework in the implementation of TEIA. Conversely in South America this framework is not clear, due to the lack of institutional structure to set up an appropriate environmental assessment scheme, despite that nowadays several megaprojects have been established under the denominated \"Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sur-Americana\" (IIRSA) – the South-American regional integrative infrastructure initiative- and serious pervasive effects associated in the environment have been recorded, being more notorious in the Amazon region, due to the inherent vulnerability of this biome. In this context, the present master dissertation discussed from a comprehensive literature and policies review and study cases, the institutional and methodological framework as the normative base of the TEIA, as well as to assess good practices for environmental impact assessment of development projects in countries within the Amazon biome. In overall TEIA must integrate the decision taking procedures of countries with influence of the Amazon biome in order to guarantee fulfil previously undertaken international agreements that protect the Amazon ecosystem, and the suitable management of environmental impacts at frontiers, and consequently to prevent future scenarios of international dispute.

O mecanismo de REDD+ tem sido colocado como central para incentivar medidas de mitigação das alterações climáticas globais envolvendo os ecossistemas florestais, sendo importante a definição das modalidades de financiamento a serem adotadas no âmbito da Convenção Quadro das Nações Unidas para as Mudanças Climáticas (UNFCCC, na sigla em inglês) para a viabilização destes incentivos. Buscando contribuir para este debate, o presente trabalho analisa a relação entre as características dos projetos de REDD+ no Brasil e suas modalidades de financiamento, baseadas em fundos públicos ou no mercado de carbono. A análise é feita aplicando-se estatística descritiva e testes de hipótese a dados coletados em bases de dados de acesso público, no período de janeiro a outubro de 2015, para 89 projetos piloto de REDD+ aprovados no mercado voluntário de carbono e no Fundo Amazônia. Para descrever as características dos projetos são utilizadas 21 variáveis, elaboradas a partir de informações referenciadas como relevantes na literatura sobre REDD+ e sobre instrumentos econômicos de política ambiental. Com base nos resultados foi possível identificar que os projetos sob cada modalidade de financiamento possuem claras diferenças, convergentes com distintas concepções teóricas sobre instrumentos econômicos baseados em incentivo, sendo que os Projetos financiados por fundos públicos estão mais alinhados aos conceitos propostos pela economia ecológica e os projetos financiados por mercados de carbono são mais aderentes às premissas da economia ambiental neoclássica. Por outro lado, foram identificadas também características em que o contraste entre as duas categorias de projetos não se mostrou tão evidente, representando a necessidade destes projetos de adaptar-se às complexidades do contexto florestal e à eficiência necessária para garantir resultados esperados do REDD+. Argumenta-se assim em favor da adoção de modalidades mistas de financiamento, capazes de gerar financiamento simultaneamente a projetos sob fundos públicos e sob mercados de carbono / The REDD+ mechanism is central to foster global forest-based climate change mitigation measures. And for it to work properly, it is of great relevance that financial mechanisms to be used for these incentives are defined within the UNFCCC. Aiming to contribute to this debate, this study analyses the relationship between the characteristics of REDD+ projects in Brazil and the financing mechanisms they use: public funds or carbon markets. The analysis is conducted using statistical descriptive analysis and hypothesis testing to 21 variables that describe core project characteristics. Data was collected from public access databases between January and October 2015 for 89 projects approved under the Voluntary Carbon Market and under the Amazon Fund. Based on the analysis results it is possible to identify that the projects under each category presents clear distinctions related to conceptual differences between the financial mechanisms: projects under public funds are aligned mainly with the ecological economics view and projects under the carbon market are more adherent to the neoclassical environmental economics view. On the other hand, there are some characteristics in which this contrast is not so clear, and that represent the projects efforts to adapt to the complexities of the forest sector and to the efficiency and efficacy requirements necessary achieve the expected REDD+ results. It is argued that that a mixed financial mechanism should be adopted, in order to enable simultaneous financing to both public fund and carbon markets projects