The research examines what drives Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) using a theoretical and empirical approach. The theoretical part uses flexible optimal policies which adjust to changes in the market structure following a merger. The empirical part tests the major theoretical predictions to identify determinants of M&As in advanced economies. Chapters 1 and 2 consider M&As among firms in a pollution-intensive sector. Chapter 1 shows that identical polluting firms engage in M&As only if environmental policies are flexible. Chapter 2 shows that the flexibility of environmental policy increases the incentive to merge among heterogeneous firms. In addition, with flexible policy highly polluting firms have the highest incentive to merge than less polluting firms in a given sector. The empirical evidence suggests that the decision of manufacturing firms to engage in M&As is affected by environmental policy and firms may engage in merger deals in anticipation of a change in policy. Chapter 3 shows that with a flexible consumption tax firms in a bigger, more efficient country takeover firms in a smaller, less efficient country. The incentive to merge increases with the efficiency and market size of the host country. The empirical result obtained from 7 OECD countries shows that market size and firm efficiency play a major role in triggering international mergers.

本論文主要係以三個主題所組成。 除第1章為緒論外，第2章係討論「政府效率支出與經濟成長」之關係。本章係以內生成長模型為主，並基於政府部門係一生產單位之假設，重新檢驗政府活動對經濟成長的影響。同時，亦提出政府支出是否具有效率之觀念，探討政府部門內部若發生無效率活動時對經濟體系可能產生的衝擊。 第3章為考慮外溢效果存在並以定額稅融通之補貼政策。本章主要討論： 若廠商之防污努力的投入具有外溢效果，則政府在訂定最適補貼率時，有無將外溢效果納入考量對補貼率訂定之影響。其次，本章亦討論當政府訂定補貼率時，外溢效果存在的考量與否，對廠商之最適產量及污染排放量之影響與傳統文獻不同。 第4章為考慮外溢效果下，污染稅和污染投入補貼併行的最適環境政策。 本章假設政府係採課徵污染稅來融通對廠商防治污染投入之補貼財源，分析比較不同環境政策的產出效果、污染排放效果，並藉此分析當一國政府面對廠商的防污技術具有外溢效果時，應如何修正其環境政策，以獲得較高的褔利水準。同時，在本章中亦將建構一個兩階段的賽局進行分析。

經濟快速發展帶來的環境衝擊，近年來逐漸成為全球關注的焦點，為了達成環境與經濟永續發展的目標，各國政府如何透過政策的實行，提高有關污染減量的研發誘因以調整產業結構亦為重要的課題，大部分的文獻著重於策略性環境政策與貿易之間的關係，並進一步分析福利的變化，本文主要係從產業組織的觀點出發，將產業研發決策與環境政策作連結，探討環境政策與污染減量之研發投入間的關係，並進一步分析研發投入在兩國合作與非合作之環境政策的影響。 透過兩國三地模型的應用並輔以二階段賽局之分析方法，本文發現環境政策對污染減量之研發投入水準的影響，取決於消費者對產品的需求與研發的外溢效果大小而定，至於兩國在環境政策上，在廠商之研發投入為外生變數的前提下，各別訂定的污染稅隨著廠商研發的投入而調降，而共同訂定的污染稅反而隨著研發的投入而提高。 / There has been a growing concern about the impact of economic development on the global environment which has deeply influenced by the uncontrolled pollution emissions. In order to reduce pollution emissions, governments have incentives to use environmental policies to encourage the private R&D spending which targets on reducing pollutions. Therefore, in this paper we develop a three-country model to examine the relationship between environmental policy and the level of the private R&D. And we also investigate the effects of the private R&D investments in the environmental agreements between countries. A principal finding is that when governments levy tax on pollution emissions, it turns out that firms may or may not increase its level of the R&D spending. In addition, in setting the R&D spending as the exogenous variable, ceteris paribus, the non-cooperative emission-tax will decrease when the R&D spending increases. However, on the contrary, the increased R&D spending will lead to the increasing of the cooperative emission-tax.

Agriculture causes large parts of global Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), with livestock contributing the greatest share. Livestock-based foods are thus associated to higher GHGE than plant-based foods. Additionally, they are harmful to health when consumed in excess. The focus of this work lies on determining the potential to reduce agricultural GHGE when healthy diets and lower meat intakes were adopted in the EU. lt is also examined how much feed crops and pastures would become available for the production of biofuels. An emission tax and an emission trading system are also examined. To assess the complex interactions in the agricultural sector, a modified version of the European Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model (EUFASOM) is used. The results show that a halved meat intake could reduce agricultural GHGE by a quarter and biofuel production could increase eightfold. The political instruments lack effectiveness though. The GHG tax has a low impact on nutrition and roughly 50% emission leakage. Emission trading has only a moderate effect on nutrition and over 100% emission leakage.:1 Introduction 2 Goal and scope definition 3 Methodology 3.1 Overview 3.2 Spatial resolution 3.3 Products under consideration 3.4 Base data 3.4.1 Base quantities 3.4.2 Base prices 3.4.3 Base areas 3.4.4 Demand elasticities 3.5 Production processes 3.5.1 Crop production 3.5.2 Pasture production 3.5.3 Plant oil production 3.5.4 Biofuel production 3.5.5 Sugar production 3.5.6 Livestock production 3.6 EUFASOM – Theoretical foundation 3.7 EUFASOM – Demand and supply functions 3.8 EUFASOM – Model description 3.8.1 Objective function 3.8.2 Identity and convexity constraints 3.8.3 Product balance 3.8.4 Land use restrictions 3.8.5 Nitrogen balance 3.8.6 Further accounting equations 3.9 Calibration 3.10 Integration of scenarios 4 Scenarios and results 4.1 Scenario 1: Technical potential of healthy diets 4.1.1 What are healthy diets? 4.1.2 Implementation of healthy diets 4.1.3 Scenario 1.1: Healthy diets with constant calorie intake 4.1.4 Scenario 1.2: Healthy diets with restricted calorie intake 4.1.5 Scenario 1.3: Healthy diets with restricted ruminant meat intake 4.1.6 Discussion on the potentials of healthy diets 4.2 Scenario 2: Greenhouse gas emission taxes 4.3 Scenario 3: Redistribution of emissions taxes as biofuel subsidy 4.4 Scenario 4: Emissions trading scheme for agriculture 4.4.1 Scenario 4.1: GHGE-cap on agricultural production 4.4.2 Scenario 4.2: Combined GHGE-cap on agricultural production and net-imports 4.4.3 Scenario 4.3: GHGE-cap on agricultural production and generation of allowances through producing biofuels 4.4.4 Scenario 4.4: GHGE-cap on agricultural production and imports and generation of allowances through producing biofuels 4.4.5 Discussion on ETS 5 Summary and conclusion References List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Annex 1 Base Solution Annex 2 Process parameters and associated information Annex 3 Lists of model variables, process parameters, equations and sets Annex 4 Demand elasticities Annex 5 Derivation of specific energy and protein demand of livestock Annex 6 Further assumptions for the livestock sectors

本論文由三篇獨立論文組成，討論的議題為經濟成長與環境保護。第一篇論文以環境顧至耐曲線研究1992至2004年中國大陸經濟發展與空氣品質的關係。第二篇論文分析綠色租稅改革的健康效果，與其對最適環境稅率的影響。第三篇論文研究在經濟體系扭曲之下的次佳最適排放稅稅率。 / This dissertation consists of three independent essays which focus on the issue of economic growth and environmental protection. The first essay examines the relationship between economic development and air quality by examining Environmental Kuznets Curves from 1992 to 2004 for Mainland China. The second essay analyzes the health effect of green tax reform and its impact on the optimal environmental taxes. The third essay examines the optimal second-best environmental tax rate in the presence of pre-existing distortions by taxing emissions.