Marginal Damage Research Articles

Endogenous choice of environmental corporate social responsibility in a mixed duopoly

AbstractThis paper constructs green managerial delegation contracts in a mixed duopoly wherein either or both public and private firms may adopt environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR). We demonstrate that the public (private) firm owner positively (negatively) adopts ECSR incentives under Cournot, whereas the incentives are reversed under Bertrand. We also examine an endogenous ECSR choice game and discover that unilateral ECSR adopted by a public firm appears under Cournot, whereas bilateral ECSR where both firms adopt ECSR incentives appears under Bertrand. Our findings show that coordination of competition mode may be harmful to society if both marginal damage and product substitutability are sufficiently high.

Head and Neck Airbag Penetrating Injuries.

Airbags have significantly decreased fatalities in frontal vehicle accidents, but their deployment can lead to more severe injuries and rarely death. The authors present a case of a penetrating injury causing tissue loss in the left cheek, an "explosion" of the zygomatic arch, and facial nerve damage, discussing the management in the contest of literature examining similar injuries in the head and neck region. Reviewing English literature from 1995 to 2023, 9 patients experienced severe airbag-related penetrating head and neck injuries, in 3 cases resulting in death. In addition, we describe the case of a young male reporting a deep cheek laceration with facial nerve damage, tissue loss, and comminuted maxilla-zygomatic fracture; 48 hours after trauma, he underwent surgical reconstruction using a bilobed flap, direct suture of the resected masseter muscle, closed reduction of the comminuted zygomatic arch fracture, and direct neurorrhaphy of the lacerated facial nerve. Five months after surgery, facial nerve function recovery was observed. Mouth opening was restored, but a mixed low-medium hearing loss persisted for high frequencies. In another case marginal nerve damage was reported, but management is not described. The use of seat belts and airbags has led to a significant reduction in the incidence of facial fractures and fatalities after motor vehicle accidents, but at the same time, in some cases, complex facial trauma and/or penetrating injury can be observed. In case of suspected or certain facial nerve damage, it is mandatory to perform exploration and eventual reconstruction within 72 hours.

Emissions taxes under double-sided environmental externalities

It is well established that if a polluter exercises market power, the optimal emission tax should be set below the Pigouvian level, i.e., the marginal damage of pollution. In this paper, we show that relying on this intuition can be misleading if pollution is generated by both production and consumption. Specifically, we build a partial equilibrium model based on a monopoly power exerted over a final product, where the production and consumption of this product impose an environmental externality. We find that the first best can be attained by a combination of taxes on pollution from production and consumption, where the tax on the polluting monopoly is set precisely at the Pigouvian level, whereas the tax on (price-taking) consumers is set below the Pigouvian level.

Consumers' environmental awareness and endogenous managerial delegation choice between sales and environmental incentives

This study considers consumers' environmental awareness (CEA) and examines firms' managerial delegation contracts between sales and environmental performance incentives under different competition modes. Under sales delegation contracts, quantity competition yields higher sales incentives and better environmental performance, whereas welfare depends on marginal environmental damage. Under environmental delegation contracts, however, price competition yields higher environmental incentives and welfare, whereas environmental performance depends on CEA. Then, we discover that environmental delegation contracts result in higher abatement levels and better environmental and social performances than sales delegation contracts, regardless of competition modes; bilateral environmental (sales) delegation contracts can be an equilibrium in an endogenous delegation choice game when CEA is high (low). Finally, we examine a successive endogenous competition mode choice game and determine that unless CEA is sufficiently high, firms choose a quantity contract followed by either sales or environmental delegation contracts, leading to socially undesirable outcomes.

Environmental R&D risk choices with network externalities and emission tax in a differentiated duopoly

AbstractThis paper investigates the optimal choice of firms’ environmental R&D (ER&D) risk in a duopoly market with network externalities and emission tax. Considering consumers’ expectations on the overall network size, we analyze two cases in our model: rational expectations and output commitments. The analysis shows that the ER&D risk increases with the intensity of network externalities and emission tax rate under both rational expectations and output commitments. We also find the ER&D risk is higher under output commitments than under rational expectations. Moreover, whether the private optimum is higher or lower than the social optimum depends on the relationship between the emission tax rate and the marginal environmental damage. Finally, the aforementioned conclusions remain unaffected by alterations in the manner in which competition is carried out, and the ER&D risk is higher under Bertrand competition than under Cournot competition.

Increased Marginal Damages of Air Emissions Following Improvements in Air Quality in the United States

Increased Marginal Damages of Air Emissions Following Improvements in Air Quality in the United States

Environmental taxation of plastic bags and substitutes: Balancing marine pollution and climate change

Several countries have imposed either a ban or a tax on single-use plastic packaging, motivated by their contribution to marine plastic pollution. This may lead consumers to opt for similar unregulated substitutes, potentially undermining or even counteracting the intended effect of the policy instrument. The purpose of this study is to theoretically and empirically compare the environmental and welfare effects of the first-best Pigouvian taxes on both plastic bags and a substitute (paper bags), with two alternative second-best policy instruments: a tax on plastic products alone, and a common uniform tax on all packaging materials. The empirical analysis accounts for two different types of environmental externalities from the use of both bag types: marine pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It also compares results for two countries, Denmark and the USA, which differ in the demand for plastic and paper bags. The theoretical analysis shows that a unilateral tax on plastic bags should equal the marginal environmental damage of plastic bags minus a fraction of the marginal environmental cost of paper bags, hence being lower than the Pigouvian tax. The optimal common tax should equal a weighted average of the marginal environmental damage of the two bag types and would be lower than the Pigouvian tax on plastics if the marginal external cost of plastic bags exceeds that for paper bags. The empirical analysis shows that for default parameters, the variation in tax level across the studied scenarios is small. It also shows that if Pigouvian taxes cannot be implemented, a common uniform tax on both bag types would result in a higher welfare gain than a tax on plastic bags alone. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the level of the second-best taxes and their associated environmental and welfare impacts are sensitive to assumptions regarding the littering rate and decay rate of plastic bags in the marine environment.

The Design of Emission Taxes in Markets with New Firm Acquisitions

In the 1990s there was a great deal of interest in the study of the role of endogenous market structure under oligopoly in the characterization of emission taxes. This interest was instrumental in providing policy guidance on the design of emission taxes based on market characteristics. However, the literature has been silent on offering policy recommendations on the design of emission taxes under endogenous market structure in the presence of new firm acquisitions. We build a model where new firms enter the market where some are acquired by an incumbent multi-plant firm, altering the initial market structure. In this framework, we characterize the second-best emission tax and examine the role of the resulting market structure, in particular the role of acquiring more/fewer of the new firms, in the optimal design of emission tax. We argue that, under certain conditions, the acquisition of new firms may lead to higher taxation consistent with the Pigouvian rule or even exceed marginal damages. Our contribution is at the intersection of emission tax design and M &A (new firm acquisition) literature.

Carbon tariffs and environmental policy: Taxes versus standards

AbstractThis paper compares different environmental policies under free‐trade and carbon tariffs. Our findings are as follows. First, taxes and standards of exporting countries become laxer under carbon tariffs than free trade. Next, if an importing country adopts free trade, its welfare is relatively lower (higher) under taxes when the marginal pollution damage is smaller (greater). Conversely, if an importing country implements a carbon tariff policy, its welfare is relatively higher under taxes. Last, the importing country's free‐trade (carbon tariff) policy leads the exporting country to have lower (higher) welfare under taxes than standards.

Cyclic behavior of existing RC bridge piers strengthened by exterior ECC and BFRP/ECC composite jacketing at pier base

Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) are a class of high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites. This study proposes using ECC and BFRP grid-reinforced ECC (BFRP/ECC) as external jackets at the base of existing RC bridge piers to enhance seismic performance. Seven 1/5-scale RC bridge piers were tested under reversed cyclic loading, including one unmodified pier as reference and six reinforced piers with varying jacket thickness, height, interface, and BFRP grid mesh size. The test results demonstrate that both ECC and BFRP/ECC composite jacketing effectively enhance ductility. The hysteretic response of the reinforced piers with different interfacial properties, however, varied significantly. The piers with interfacial shear keys exhibited enhanced flexural strength, ductility, and energy dissipation capacity but sustained severe damage as jacketing thickness and height increased. Conversely, the piers with smooth interfaces showed insignificant improvements in flexural strength but significant enhancement in ductility with marginal damage. This behavior can be attributed to the fact that the exterior jacketing in specimens with interfacial shear keys was under bi-axial tension-compression stress state due to flexural compression and lateral expansion of the plastic hinge, while the jacket in specimens with smooth interfaces acted solely as lateral confinement.

A novel computational approach for assessing system reliability and damage detection delay: Application to fatigue deterioration in offshore structures

Fatigue cracks in welded components can cause loss of structural integrity and failures of structural systems. To ensure the safety and reliability of deteriorating structural systems, system damage should be detected as early as possible through inspection, and timely maintenance or repair is required. Delays in damage detection lead to maintenance or repair delays, which adversely affect structural integrity and functionality. In this study, a probabilistic approach to quantify the reliability of deteriorating structural systems with explicit damage detection delay computations was developed for the first time and applied to an offshore structural system. To obtain the system damage detection delay, the system damage occurrence and detection times were rationally defined. Subsequently, the effects of different inspection strategies on system damage detection delay were studied. Finally, the relationship between system reliability and system damage detection delay was investigated. The results show that the system damage detection delay decreases as the inspection quality, number of inspections, or number of components inspected simultaneously increases. It is interesting to determine the law of diminishing marginal system damage detection delay. In addition, there is an approximately negative linear relationship between the system reliability index and system damage detection delay.

Malingering assessment after severe traumatic brain injury in forensic psychology with a potential embedded symptom validity indicator of Symptom Checklist 90.

Malingering of neuropsychological damage is common among traumatic brain injury patients pursuing disability compensation in forensic contexts. There is an urgent need to explore differences in neuropsychological assessment outcomes with different levels of cooperation. A total of 420 participants with severe traumatic brain injury were classified into malingering group, partial cooperation group, and complete cooperation group according to the Binomial forced-choice digit memory test. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, event-related potential component, and Symptom Checklist 90 were applied subsequently to assess the psychological status of participants. Participants in the malingering group presented lower scores in the binomial forced-choice digit memory test and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, lower P3 amplitude, and simultaneously higher scores in the Symptom Checklist 90 than the other two groups. The actual intelligence quotient of participants with malingering tendencies ranged mostly between normal and marginal damage, and they often reported elevated whole scale scores in the Symptom Checklist 90. The Cooperation Index (defined as the ratio of positive symptom distress index to global severity index, CI) was proposed and validated to function as an embedded validity indicator of the Symptom Checklist 90, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.938. When valued at 1.28, CI has the highest classification ability in differentiating malingering from non-malingering. Combined with the CI and P3 amplitude, the area under the ROC curve for malingering diagnosis further reached 0.952. Any non-optimal effort in a forensic context will lead to unexpected deviation in psychology evaluation results. CI is a potential candidate to act as an embedded validity indicator of the Symptom Checklist 90. The combination of CI and P3 amplitude can help to identify malingering in participants after severe traumatic brain injury.

Trade, Transport Emissions and Multimarket Collusion with Border Adjustments

We analyze the impact of border adjustment policies on trade, pollution and welfare when firms, located in different countries, sell differentiated products in geographically-separated markets. Transportation of goods not only incurs a cost, but also generates emissions. We compare outcomes under competition and multimarket collusion. Cooperating governments can implement the first-best using appropriate border adjustments regardless of the market structure. When governments set policies non-cooperatively, the border adjustment tariffs exceed the marginal damage from emissions. While it is expected that colluding firms would reduce trade flows relative to competition, trade increases under collusion, resulting in higher welfare. This highlights the possibility of allowing firms to collude and taxing (part of) their profits, which can be redistributed to citizens or used to mitigate the effects of pollution.

Ultrasound diagnostics in the assessment of traumatic peripheral nerve damage in combat trauma

BACKGROUND: Traumatic peripheral nerve damage is a significant clinical and social problem, which is characterized by a high level of disability in young patients.
 AIM: To assess the diagnostic efficiency of ultrasound in the diagnosis of peripheral nerve damage in combat trauma.
 METHODS: A total of 163 patients (362 peripheral nerves) were examined. The duration of traumatic nerve damage was 2273 days. All patients were men aged 2048 years. Ultrasound was performed with 717 MHz linear transducers on an ACUSSON S2000 device using standard technique in B-mode, in longitudinal and transverse scanning planes, with the use of Doppler techniques. Statistical analysis was conducted to assess diagnostic efficiency. Calculation of operational (sensitivity and specificity) and integral (accuracy) characteristics was performed by the qualitative assessment of the reference method (surgical intervention) and the method under study (ultrasound).
 RESULTS: Peripheral nerve damage resulted from combat trauma. In 120 (73.6%) cases, injuries of the limbs were accompanied by injuries of the osteoarticular apparatus and vessels. A total of 274 (75.7%) nerves had signs of traumatic damage. Multiple nerve injuries were observed in 95 (58.3%) people. Nerves of the upper extremities were damaged more frequently (185 [67.5%]) compared to nerves of the lower extremities (89 [32.5%]). Contusional structural changes were observed in 181 (66%) nerves. Impairment of anatomical integrity was diagnosed in 46 (16.8%) nerves, while complete impairment was found in 29 (10.6%) cases with the presence of diastasis between the nerve ends. Early after injury, a wound canal and hematomas were visualized near the nerve. In 4 cases, a foreign body of metallic density was visualized in the nerve sheath. After 3 weeks from the moment of injury, terminal neuromas were observed. The neuroma sizes for the proximal and distal ends were 0.50.3 to 1.60.6 cm and 0.40.2 to 1.30.6 cm (avascular), respectively. Adjacent sections of the nerve over 35 cm were thickened and characterized by echo structure, however, with thickening of all fasciculi and blood flow observed along the periphery of the nerve. Marginal nerve damage was observed in 17 (6.2%) people. In case of marginal neuroma, a significant nerve thickening of 1.43.2 times over a short distance (from 0.4 cm to 1.5 cm) with loss of bundle differentiation of the part of the nerve, pronounced decrease in echogenicity, and absence of Doppler signal was detected. Nerve compression in 47 cases (17.1%) was accompanied by 1.22.3 times thickening of nerve trunks, indistinct contours, decreased echogenicity, and significant changes in the nerve structure. Compression was due to cicatricial changes, hematomas, foreign bodies, bone fragments, and in 2 cases spokes from external fixation devices. A total of 106 patients underwent surgery.
 CONCLUSIONS: The ultrasound sensitivity and specificity were 96% and 67%, respectively. The peculiarities of the examination included extensive soft tissue defects and external fixation devices, which significantly complicated the examination. The diagnostic accuracy was 91%. A pronounced cicatricial process (70%) was the main cause of false-positive (6.6%) and false-negative (2.8%) results.

Cost Benefit Analysis and Determination of Liquid Waste Tax Rates Commercial Buildings in DKI Jakarta

This study aims to analyze the cost benefits of wastewater treatment and the determination of liquid waste tax rates on commercial buildings in the DKI Jakarta area. The variables used are (i) positive externalities that are proxied through labor and the benefits of wastewater treatment, (ii) concentration of liquid waste which includes Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Organic (KMnO4), and Total Suspended Solid (TSS), (iii) Liquid waste processing costs, (iv) Costs incurred by the community due to pollution. This research was conducted using an explanatory research approach and descriptive research. The samples used were commercial buildings X, Y and Z and communit affected liquid waste in central Jakarta. The analytical method used is Extended Cost and Benefit Analysis, Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC), Marginal Damage Cost (MDC) and Pigovian Tax. For marginal damage costs using economic valuation and determining the optimum tax rate using the Pigovian Tax approach. The results of the dissertation analysis show that buildings that have Liquid Waste Treatment Plants produce positive externalities, namely employment and the reuse of liquid waste processing results in the form of gardening, car wash, cooling tower, and reverse osmosis. In addition, commercial buildings that carry out liquid waste treatment have economic feasibility due to cost efficiency and are also environmentally feasible with the allocation of liquid waste treatment costs. For buildings that haven’t implemented WWTP and only use the services of PAL Jaya DKI Jakarta, directly shows that it is feasible from an environmental aspect because there is an allocation of costs for wastewater treatment and the benefits obtained are that operational activities can run Liquid waste processing by companies that have WWTPs have not reached usage standards drinking water so that it has an impact on additional damage costs incurred by the community (Marginal Damage Cost/MDC). Used the Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC) and Marginal Damage Cost (MDC) equilibrium, the determination of the waste tax rate on commercial buildings produces the optimum tax value to be paid by pplluters and the optimum concentration of liquid waste that can be discharged into rivers.

Incorporating learning into direct policy search for flood risk management.

Direct policy search (DPS) is a method for identifying optimal policies (i.e., rules) for managing a system in response to changing conditions. In this article, we introduce a new adaptive way to incorporate learning into DPS. The standard DPS approach identifies "robust" policies by optimizing their average performance over a large ensemble of future states of the world (SOW). Our approach exploits information gained over time, updating prior beliefs about the kind of SOW being experienced. We first run the standard DPS approach multiple times, but with varying sets of weights applied to the SOWs when calculating average performance. Adaptive "metapolicies" then further improve performance by specifying how control of the system should switch between policies identified using different weight sets, depending on our updated beliefs about the relative likelihood of being in certain SOWs. We outline the general method and illustrate it using a case study of efficient dike heightening that simultaneously minimizes protection system costs and flood damage resulting from rising sea levels and storm surge. The solutions identified by our adaptive algorithm dominate the standard DPS on these two objectives, with an average marginal damage reduction of 35.1% for policies with similar costs; improvements are largest in SOWs with relatively lower sea level rise. We also evaluate how performance varies under different ways of implementing the algorithm, such as changing the frequency with which beliefs are updated.

Environmental tax policy and optimal privatization in a polluting mixed duopoly

AbstractWe investigate the optimal privatization policy in a polluting mixed duopoly when environmental taxes are used. Firms adopt clean technology to reduce emissions. We consider the situation of exogenous tax and find that (i) partial privatization is always optimal under low marginal damage, while full nationalization may be optimal under high marginal damage; (ii) the optimal privatization level always increases with tax rate under low marginal damage, while it may decrease with tax rate under high marginal damage. As an extension, we consider the endogenous tax situation and show that full nationalization may be optimal under sufficiently high marginal damage.

Carbon capture and utilization: More than hiding CO2 for some time

Carbon capture and utilization: More than hiding CO2 for some time

Marginal Damage of Methane Emissions: Ozone Impacts on Agriculture

Methane directly contributes to air pollution, as an ozone precursor, and to climate change, generating physical and economic damages to different systems, namely agriculture, vegetation, energy, human health, or biodiversity. The methane-related damages to climate, measured as the Social Cost of Methane, and to human health have been analyzed by different studies and considered by government rulemaking in the last decades, but the ozone-related damages to crop revenues associated to methane emissions have not been incorporated to policy agenda. Using a combination of the Global Change Analysis Model and the TM5-FASST Scenario Screening Tool, we estimate that global marginal agricultural damages range from ~ 423 to 556 $2010/t-CH4, of which 98 $2010/t-CH4 occur in the USA, which is the most affected region due to its role as a major crop producer, followed by China, EU-15, and India. These damages would represent 39–59% of the climate damages and 28–64% of the human health damages associated with methane emissions by previous studies. The marginal damages to crop revenues calculated in this study complement the damages from methane to climate and human health, and provides valuable information to be considered in future cost-benefits analyses.

Optimal climate and fiscal policy in an OLG economy

AbstractThis paper develops a climate–economy model to study the joint design of optimal climate and fiscal policies in economies with overlapping generations (OLGs). I demonstrate how capital taxation, if optimal, drives a wedge between the market costs of carbon (the net present value of marginal damages using the market interest rate) and the Pigouvian tax (the net present value of marginal damages using the consumption discount rate of successive OLGs). In contrast to deterministic infinitely lived representative agent models, at the optimum, the capital income tax is positive, the carbon price equals the market costs of carbon but it falls short of the Pigouvian tax when (i) preferences are not separable over consumption and leisure; and (ii) labor income taxes cannot be age‐dependent. I also show that restrictions on climate change policy provide a novel rationale for positive capital income taxes.