The first essay of this dissertation analyzes the claim that a Marshallian total surplus optimum characterizes a second-best Pareto optimum in a general equilibrium model with price makers. The main result of this essay is that a Marshallian total surplus optimum corresponds to a second-best Pareto optimum when (i) the consumer's preferences are quasi-linear with respect to a numeraire, and (ii) for all other markets except the one under consideration, first-best (or Paretian) optimality conditions are satisfied. The second essay characterizes the optimal regulatory policy for point-source pollution emissions when firms are competing in Cournot fashion in the product market and have private information about their own cost. It is shown that the optimal regulatory policy benefits from the strategic interaction between the firms in the output market even though the firms' private information is uncorrelated. The firms strategic interaction in the output market acts as an information correlation externality that mitigates the wellknown "rent-extraction efficiency" trade-off. Each firms' opportunity to over-report their costs is reduced because the output market's strategic interaction reduces the profitability of infra-marginal units if they do. The main result shows that optimal environmental regulations discriminate between firms of given industry. Moreover, it is shown that if the regulator believes that firm A is always more likely to be efficient than firm B (in the sense of first-order stochastic dominance) and that both firms are equally efficient ex post, then firm A faces a higher marginal tax than its competitor. In light of this result, it is argued that the model provides theoretical foundations for grandfather clauses in environmental regulations.

Univ., Fak. Wirtschafts- und Sozialwiss., Diss.--Hamburg, 2005.

The first essay of this dissertation analyzes the claim that a Marshallian total surplus optimum characterizes a second-best Pareto optimum in a general equilibrium model with price makers. The main result of this essay is that a Marshallian total surplus optimum corresponds to a second-best Pareto optimum when (i) the consumer's preferences are quasi-linear with respect to a numeraire, and (ii) for all other markets except the one under consideration, first-best (or Paretian) optimality conditions are satisfied. The second essay characterizes the optimal regulatory policy for point-source pollution emissions when firms are competing in Cournot fashion in the product market and have private information about their own cost. It is shown that the optimal regulatory policy benefits from the strategic interaction between the firms in the output market even though the firms' private information is uncorrelated. The firms strategic interaction in the output market acts as an information correlation externality that mitigates the wellknown "rent-extraction efficiency" trade-off. Each firms' opportunity to over-report their costs is reduced because the output market's strategic interaction reduces the profitability of infra-marginal units if they do. The main result shows that optimal environmental regulations discriminate between firms of given industry. Moreover, it is shown that if the regulator believes that firm A is always more likely to be efficient than firm B (in the sense of first-order stochastic dominance) and that both firms are equally efficient ex post, then firm A faces a higher marginal tax than its competitor. In light of this result, it is argued that the model provides theoretical foundations for grandfather clauses in environmental regulations. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Submitted by Helena Laneuville Teixeira Garcia (laneuvillehelena@gmail.com) on 2017-05-26T19:21:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Final.pdf: 698751 bytes, checksum: a42e995534698e498fe856b2bc63c1d1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2017-05-30T13:36:26Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Final.pdf: 698751 bytes, checksum: a42e995534698e498fe856b2bc63c1d1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-30T13:36:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Final.pdf: 698751 bytes, checksum: a42e995534698e498fe856b2bc63c1d1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-24 / This thesis develops a simple model to represent a procurement situation with two main features. The first is that the optimal level of production cannot be fully anticipated when suppliers build their plants due to demand shocks. The second is that producers competing for a supply contract typically have different technologies within an efficient frontier, characterized by a trade-off between the marginal cost of production and the fixed cost per unit of capacity. With this framework in mind, we investigate how the shape of the frontier and the distribution of shocks affect efficient technology choices when the planner knows firms' technologies (first-best) and when she doesn't (second-best). In addition, we characterize how and when a well established real-life mechanism such as a quasi-linear score auction may implement second-best social welfare. We find that, if there is a strict preference over technologies in first-best, a quasi-linear score auction may implement second-best allocations. However, there is a non-neglectable case in which countervailing incentives arise, i.e. firms' allocations may be distorted either upwards or downwards with respect to first-best depending on their technologies. In that case, the planner may optimally choose to hire more than one firm, and there is no quasi-linear score auction that provides the social welfare achieved in second-best.

O escopo deste trabalho é investigar a natureza e as funções dos ônus de argumentação em suas relações com o sistema jurídico e com a argumentação jurídica. O pano de fundo para o desenvolvimento dessas análises é o triplo condicionamento do direito. De acordo com essa visão, o direito e a argumentação jurídica são condicionados extrínseca, intrínseca e institucionalmente. Nesse cenário, defende-se, por um lado, que os ônus argumentativos são componentes necessários de um sistema jurídico que compreende regras e princípios. Analisados estruturalmente, os ônus argumentativos são compreendidos, por outro lado, como efeitos de regras e standards que consolidam relações de prioridade normativas. A partir dessas relações, defende-se que ônus de argumentação são mecanismos de redução e controle da incerteza que caracteriza necessariamente a subidealidade do sistema jurídico ao (i) facilitarem a manutenção das relações de prioridade que os sustentam na solução de casos concretos, (ii) dificultarem a inversão dessas relações e (iii) instituírem pontos de parada na argumentação jurídica em situações nas quais o desenvolvimento de cadeias argumentativas não é capaz de garantir se, em determinado caso concreto, certa relação de prioridade deve ser mantida ou invertida. / The goal of this thesis is to analyze the nature and functions of burdens of argumentation, within the context of their relationship with the structure of the legal system and their role in legal reasoning. Such analysis understands law as limited domain, subject to constraints that can be analytically represented by a three-level approach. According to this view, law and legal reasoning are extrinsically, intrinsically and institutionally constrained. In this complex scenario, the argument of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it claims that burdens of argumentation are necessary components of a legal system that contains rules and principles. On the other hand, by looking at their structure, it claims that these burdens can be understood as effects of rules and standards that establish normative priority relations. On the basis of these analyses, I argue that burdens of argumentation are mechanisms of control and stabilization of the uncertainty that characterizes the suboptimal character of law. First, they make it easier to justify the maintenance in concreto of a preexistent relationship of priority between different principles. Second, they make it harder to invert these relationships of priority. Lastly, burdens of argumentation create stopping points in legal reasoning whenever there is uncertainty about whether the development of new chains of arguments is enough to justify the maintenance or the inversion, in a concrete case, of a given normative relationship of priority.

O escopo deste trabalho é investigar a natureza e as funções dos ônus de argumentação em suas relações com o sistema jurídico e com a argumentação jurídica. O pano de fundo para o desenvolvimento dessas análises é o triplo condicionamento do direito. De acordo com essa visão, o direito e a argumentação jurídica são condicionados extrínseca, intrínseca e institucionalmente. Nesse cenário, defende-se, por um lado, que os ônus argumentativos são componentes necessários de um sistema jurídico que compreende regras e princípios. Analisados estruturalmente, os ônus argumentativos são compreendidos, por outro lado, como efeitos de regras e standards que consolidam relações de prioridade normativas. A partir dessas relações, defende-se que ônus de argumentação são mecanismos de redução e controle da incerteza que caracteriza necessariamente a subidealidade do sistema jurídico ao (i) facilitarem a manutenção das relações de prioridade que os sustentam na solução de casos concretos, (ii) dificultarem a inversão dessas relações e (iii) instituírem pontos de parada na argumentação jurídica em situações nas quais o desenvolvimento de cadeias argumentativas não é capaz de garantir se, em determinado caso concreto, certa relação de prioridade deve ser mantida ou invertida. / The goal of this thesis is to analyze the nature and functions of burdens of argumentation, within the context of their relationship with the structure of the legal system and their role in legal reasoning. Such analysis understands law as limited domain, subject to constraints that can be analytically represented by a three-level approach. According to this view, law and legal reasoning are extrinsically, intrinsically and institutionally constrained. In this complex scenario, the argument of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it claims that burdens of argumentation are necessary components of a legal system that contains rules and principles. On the other hand, by looking at their structure, it claims that these burdens can be understood as effects of rules and standards that establish normative priority relations. On the basis of these analyses, I argue that burdens of argumentation are mechanisms of control and stabilization of the uncertainty that characterizes the suboptimal character of law. First, they make it easier to justify the maintenance in concreto of a preexistent relationship of priority between different principles. Second, they make it harder to invert these relationships of priority. Lastly, burdens of argumentation create stopping points in legal reasoning whenever there is uncertainty about whether the development of new chains of arguments is enough to justify the maintenance or the inversion, in a concrete case, of a given normative relationship of priority.

The aim of this study was to propose a new model of charging for water use which considers the granted rights, the capitation volumes, and the discarded domestic sewage. For this purpose, the main charging models applied in federal river basins, implemented by the ANA, were analyzed: ParaÃba do Sul river, Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaà rivers, and SÃo Francisco river. After defining the model that better adapts to the reality of Cearà State, considering simplicity and applicability of each model, the valuation of water as an economic good was performed in the Salgado river basin, in Cariri region. Optimal prices for water supply and domestic sewage was calculated based on the economic theory of general equilibrium, known as second best. The results showed that elasticity of demand, for each purpose of use, is inelastic reinforcing the results of other studies on water charging. The calculated optimal prices were R$ 0,0148/m3 for water supply, and R$ 0,1914/kg DBO for domestic sewage. / O objetivo deste estudo à propor um novo modelo de cobranÃa pelo uso da Ãgua que considere volumes outorgados, captados e lanÃamento de efluentes domÃsticos. Para tanto, foram analisados os principais modelos de cobranÃa adotados nas bacias hidrogrÃficas de rios federais, implementados pela AgÃncia Nacional de Ãguas (ANA): rio ParaÃba do Sul, rios Piracicaba, Capivari e JundiaÃ, e rio SÃo Francisco. ApÃs a definiÃÃo do modelo que melhor se adÃqua à realidade do CearÃ, considerando os aspectos de simplicidade e aplicabilidade, procedeu-se à valoraÃÃo da Ãgua como bem econÃmico na bacia hidrogrÃfica do rio Salgado, na regiÃo do Cariri. A determinaÃÃo dos preÃos Ãtimos pelo uso da Ãgua, para os usos de abastecimento pÃblico e esgoto domÃstico, foi calculada com base na teoria econÃmica de equilÃbrio geral em second best. Os resultados demonstraram que a elasticidade-preÃo da demanda, em cada um dos usos, à inelÃstica, reforÃando os resultados de outros estudos sobre a cobranÃa. Os preÃos Ãtimos calculados foram de R$ 0,0148/m3 para o abastecimento pÃblico, e R$ 0,1914/kg DBO para o lanÃamento de efluentes domÃsticos.

This dissertation consists of two independent essays on public economics. The first essay studies the consequences of fiscal decentralization on poverty and income inequalities. This essay describes the possible channels through which fiscal decentralization might affect poverty and income inequalities, and carries out an empirical analysis with data of a large number of countries at different stages of development, for the period 1971-2000. Fiscal decentralization is found to have significant effects on poverty and income inequalities. These findings are important because they suggest, contrary to the traditional public finance theory, that sub-national governments can play an important role in the reduction of poverty and income inequalities. The second essay studies the second best solution to the public expenditures’ problem in the presence of a proportional labor income tax. By allowing the tax base to vary with the taxpayers’ behavioral responses to taxation, we derive the “effective” budget constraint faced by the government, which describes the set of affordable combinations of public and private goods. We show that the optimal solution to the government problem corresponds to the point of tangency between the effective budget constraint and the highest attainable social indifference curve. The traditional normative prescription for public expenditures under a second-best scenario does not satisfy this condition, and therefore it provides a suboptimal solution. Finally, we use the same analytical framework in order to explain the flypaper effect, an empirical regularity that has for long challenged the conventional theory.

Over the last 10 years, the solar photovoltaic (PV) market has experienced tremendous growth due in part to government incentive programs. However the effect and welfare analysis of these policy instruments remain ambiguous. In the first chapter of my dissertation, we estimate a dynamic model of households investment decisions on rooftop PV systems to understand the impact of these programs on residential solar installations and evaluate the outcome of alternative incentive policies. The model separately evaluates the effect of system prices, up-front subsidies, tax credits and production revenues using a 5-year data set collected by the California Solar Initiative program, which subsidized solar installations in California. The results indicate that capacity-based subsidies are equally effective as production-based subsidies, but that the latter are more efficient. With a $100 social cost of carbon, the total subsidies in California would be welfare neutral. If California were only as sunny as Frankfurt, Germany, this value has to be $200 to be welfare neutral. We find that without subsidies, 85% of the existing installations would not have occurred. The second chapter of my dissertation is on the political economics of corruption. This is a relevant question in the Environmental Economics due to the human factors involved in government regulations. We investigate the effects of unhindered corruption in the entry-certifying process of an industry on market structure and social welfare. To gain entry, a firm must pay a bribe-maximizing official an exogenous percentage of anticipated profit, in addition to the usual set up cost. This would lead to a monopoly, but only in markets without pre-existing firms. A benevolent social planner may use bribery to the benefit of society by either manipulating the number of pre-existing firms in the market, or by setting up independent (corrupt) licensing authorities. A socially optimal number of firms in the market may be reached by choosing the right number of pre-existing firms or by having exactly two licensing authorities. These mechanisms may be seen as restoring second-best efficiency in settings characterized by two major sources of distortion: Imperfect competition and corruption.

The goal of the research is to devise an equitable road pricing system which would leave the majority of routes free of tolls, so that low income people would suffer no cash loss although they would probably suffer loss of time. The aims of the dissertation are twofold. The first is to provide a numerical analysis of how urban commuters with differing abilities to pay would respond to additional road user charges. The welfare implications of such differential responses are examined and their policy implications analysed. The second aim is to develop a practical framework to model congestion pricing policies in the context of heterogeneous users. To achieve these aims, the following objectives have been set: (a) Using a simple network with two parallel competing routes, determine both welfare maximising and revenue maximising tolls under the constraint that only one route can be priced. In this setting, determine the allocation of traffic between the alternative routes, the efficiency gain, the revenue, the changes in travel cost and the distributional effects. (b) Establish a realistic model of an actual urban area to examine the impacts of selectively tolling congestible routes. As in the simple network case, assess the effects of toll policy on traffic distribution, network efficiency, revenues, and the welfare of the individual consumer and society. (c) Evaluate whether the non-identical treatment of users will enhance the acceptability of congestion pricing as a transport policy. Results from the simulations indicate that non-identical treatment of drivers? responses to toll charges provides better understanding of the differential impacts of various pricing policies. Allowing for heterogeneity in time valuation provides a better assessment of the efficiency of pricing policies and of the welfare impacts of toll charges, as it is able to capture their differential effects. More importantly, it shows that low-income commuters may not be significantly worse off with pricing especially when there is a free alternative route. This research demonstrates the need to adopt appropriate analytical techniques and assumptions when modelling the traffic equilibrium in a network with tolls. These include relaxing the homogeneity assumption, examining sensitivity to supply function parameter values and to the effect of vehicle operating cost, and using a route rather than link based measure of consumer surplus