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It is a hardly disputable fact that one can get scientific reports in favour of (and against) nearly every policy a government wants to perform. One of the reasons for this is that economic theory is in many relevant cases so weak that it is possible for different economists to defend pretty contrary positions with the claim of scientific truth. This makes empirical research necessary. However, using the ecological tax reform as an example, it is shown that researchers can often easily obtain their ‘esired’ empirical results without (obvious) violations of the rules of scientific work. To detect such manipulations, a critical discussion of theoretical approaches and empirical results is necessary. Finally, we discuss how it is possible that despite all these problems the process of policy advice may lead to something like ‘objectivity’, why even economists who are not corrupt in most cases promote the objectives of their clients, and why economic policy advice is demanded at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firstly, the paper describes and compares the evolution — in theory — and the application in practice of various market-based approaches and instruments, inter alia the Ecological Tax Reform (ETR). Secondly, it provides insights in the history and the more than 20 years of debate on a potential ETR in Germany. Thirdly, the design and the phase of implementation of the ETR in Germany from 1999 on are described and analysed. Fourthly, the manifold and ambivalent experiences with the ETR are presented. Finally, conclusions for political considerations, design, implementation and marketing aspects are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of energy market reforms and recent electricity market incidents and failures, the paper recalls the principles of economic regulation and highlights the methodological difficulties of any ex-post regulatory impact analysis. It synthesises theoretical contributions on regulation and describes the regulatory toolbox, with reference to the electricity market. After definitions and a discussion of the rationale of regulation, the various theories of regulation are described, distinguishing public-interest theories and private-interest theories. The normative regulatory concepts are divided up into the categories of price-based regulation, cost-based regulation (rate-on-return, sliding-scale and returnon-cost regimes), performance-based regulation (price-cap, revenue-cap, yardstick mechanism, Vogelsang-Finsinger and Sibley mechanisms, incremental surplus subsidy scheme), new regulatory economics and benchmarking. The paper reviews attempts in the literature to link electricity market reforms in the United Kingdom and particular market outcomes which reveal that methodological difficulties persist and comparatively little attention has been given to regulatory impact analysis. Notably, the ex-ante design of a potential ex-post impact analysis would be a useful addition to any new regulatory process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European decisions in general, and in the energy field in particular, are often scientifically supported. Already before the formal “impact assessment”, which has to accompany all the major policy initiatives launched by the European Commission since 2003, EU energy socio-economic research was used to develop tools and methods (models, software, database) able to evaluate scientifically the expected economic, social and environmental impacts of the proposed energy-related policy. This paper deals with empirical examples highlighting the role of the researchers in supporting EU policies regarding CO2-emission trading, energy taxation, renewable electricity targets and energy efficiency potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas the other contributions focused on regulatory issues of electricity and gas markets from the point of view of economic efficiency, this paper tries to broaden the view to the future context of all energy markets, or even all energy-related markets. It will not consider energy supply policies and specific market regulation or re-regulation needs, but it starts from the basic human needs leading to material and energy demand and the challenges humankind is likely to be increasingly faced during the next decade. These may influence not only energy research and policy agendas, but rather change its isolated policy understanding into a concept as part of innovation policy designed for sustainable development. Several suggestions are made to enlarge the R & D energy policy agenda as well as to improve the effectiveness of energy and climate policies, and analytical methods and tools are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past there was hardly any use of economic theory and instruments in environmental policy, mainly command and control measures dominated. More recently, ecological taxes became increasingly popular and have been proposed but not implemented with an ecological effect. Thus, the situation has not changed, and we must ask for the reasons of this situation and the prevailing nonacceptance of these instruments. The purpose of this paper is to give some answers on these questions using the Public Choice approach. The proposition of an ecological tax reform and road pricing measures are taken to discuss how actual environmental policy deviates from economic prescriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport policy assessment is usually based on a comparative static Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) using a transport network model. However, transport policies exert impacts also outside the transport system. These impacts exhibit different dynamic characteristics and affect other systems than the transport system itself like the economic system or vehicle purchase decisions. Hence to improve transport policy assessment it would be required to integrate those systems into the analysis and to model the dynamic interactions between them. Following these suggestions transport policy assessment could be based on or accompanied by measuring indirect effects (e.g. change of GDP or employment). The paper describes a dynamic integrated system model to measure indirect effects of transport policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper identifies three key challenges for current energy policies: Internalisation of externalities, efficient operation of markets and investment adequacy in liberalised markets. The corresponding research issues are then discussed, focusing on the simultaneous achievement of efficient market operation and investment adequacy in electricity markets. The paper points at the need for applied stochastic models in this field and provides some directions for the construction of such models. Furthermore it raises the question whether there is an underlying challenge: a trade-off between robustness and efficiency in the design of markets. Robustness as a control-theoretic concept is briefly sketched and its potential relevance is illustrated using several examples from environmental economics and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sketches pontential research topics concerning “Transportation and the Environment”, emphasising those questions to which economist can contribute. It also briefly discusses to which extent these topics have been addressed in earlier literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of this intervention is to respond to the presentation of three authors in the session on transport and environment. The choice of areas for research proposed by these authors is generally supported. Five general areas for possible further research are highlighted: the real world as opposed to abstractions; the spatial aspects of transport costs and benefits; further research on environmental externalities; a more sophisticated approach to cost-benefit analysis; and the economic implications of transport innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congestion, environmental and health problems are all rising in the transport sector. This article focuses on the contribution of economics, particularly environmental economics, to the analysis, and in particular to the quantitative analysis of transport systems and transport policy in tackling such problems. Starting out with a historical review of transport perspectives, the importance of both overall coherence as well as the time period it may take for a particular vision to materialise are then illustrated. Promising current research issues are identified, and related developments in quantitative modelling and data availability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper demonstrates that with imperfect competition on world markets, a government acting as a Stackelberg leader should impose stricter environmental policy on the exposed sector of the economy than on the sheltered sector, if it pursues the maximisation of social welfare. This is illustrated by means of a model a large class of economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to other areas of environmental policy there has been little research addressing the cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation policies. One important reason is that meaningfully applying the traditional neoclassical analysis of environmental policy instruments to conservation issues often requires combining it with ecological knowledge. The paper gives an overview of existing research which analyses cost-effectiveness issues of conservation policies integrating ecological and economic knowledge in models and outlines some research opportunities where ecological-economic models could be usefully applied in the future. Furthermore, the paper reflects on the integration of ecological and economic knowledge in models with a particular focus on a topic that certainly complicates co-operation between ecologists and economists but has received little attention so far and needs to be better understood if integration is to be improved: different modelling cultures in economics and ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any serious attempt to research impacts of corporate sustainability performance on corporate financial performance has to follow a consistent and thorough research agenda. The research agenda is described in this article. The description may serve as blueprint for any research effort in the SRSI area that is geared towards creating value added, and not just towards serving value sets. If corporate sustainability orientation and performance can be shown to impact corporate financial performance, a gradual and persistent integration of SRSI research into mainstream investment analysis could evolve. But without any sound evidence, if not proof, that there is indeed a link between corporate sustainability performance and corporate financial performance SRSI research will not be able to serve the investment industry at large. The research and investment approach described in the article lists and addresses a set of recommendations for SRSI research on how to serve the investment industry at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Council will review in 2005 the Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) which was adopted in Gothenburg in 2001. Indicators for measuring the progress will be needed to assess whether the unsustainable trends identified in 2001 have been overcome and whether international commitments like those taken with the plan of implementation of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development have been translated into facts. This paper presents the contribution of the European Statistical System to the drawing-up of a first set of Sustainable Development Indicators for the purpose of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys and evaluates the possibilities and limitations of sustainability indices from the point of view of meaningfulness. A sustainability index is defined as meaningful if it allows unambiguous orderings of the relevant ‘situations’ over time independent of the measurement units in which the variables describing the situations are expressed. The cases of commensurability and incommensurability are distinguished. In the former, the comparison of situations is unambiguous be-cause all legitimate choices of measurement units can be accommodated on the basis of exogenously given relationships among the variables. These relationships may define a monetary welfare-metric or a bio-physical effects-metric. In the case of incommensurability, common approaches (both cardinal and ordinal) may fail to yield meaningful indices. A systematic assessment of which indices are meaningful in which circumstances is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]