美国国家环保局(EPA)温室气体清单编制机制

美国虽拒签《京都议定书》,但仍积极编制本国的温室气体清单。本文基于对IPCC和EPA温室气体清单方法学的比较研究,并通过对EPA温室气体清单编制的演变过程、流程和特点的系统分析,揭示其内在机制。以期借鉴较为成熟的温室气体清单编制方法,完善我国温室气体排放的核算体系。

Crisis of Solidarity in the European Union No More Dreams of Europe＇s Competitive Advantage？

The European Union has been experiencing the whole set of serious crises undermining European integration. The most important ones have been： financial and economic crisis, immigration crisis, crisis of nationalistic radicalization, Brexit, crisis of security caused by terrorism, strengthening of the Islamic State （ISIS）, and destabilization of regions around Europe （mainly in the Middle East）. The main thesis of this article is that all of them have weakened not only the EU as a whole but also the Member States. This has caused serious consequences being the main topics of this analysis, namely, （1） the value of solidarity lying upon the European integration concept being challenged by the crises; and （2） undermining by the crises the EU＇s pursuit of achieving the competitive advantage, stated in the strategy Europe 2020. The lack of solidarity is strongly visible in the EU Member States＇ differentiated attitudes towards the crises the EU has been facing. The paper will focus on analysis of solidarity in the light of intergovernmental approach supported by constructivism. The main research questions are： （1） To what extent have the EU crises strengthened the intergovernmental approach in the EU integration？ （2） How has the meaning and scope of the solidarity as the main EU value changed over time in the EU＇s citizens perception due to the EU crises？ （3） To what extent have strong intergovernmental approach and instrumentalization of the solidarity value influenced pursuit for competitive advantage in the EU？ （4） Does solidarity have a potential to contribute to efficient reform of the EU leading to strengthening its striving for competitive advantage in the future？ The main research approach is intergovernmentalism while the dominating methods are a process-tracing supported by a systemic method. The main conclusion of the article is necessity for redefining the rule of solidarity in order to efficiently strive for competitive advantage.

Carbon Footprint Analyses of Wastewater Treatment Systems in Puducherry

Carbon footprint analysis is a method to quantify the life cycle Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions and identify the measure to reduce climate change impacts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified that the global warming and climate change which is one of the most important issues in the domain of environment are caused by the excessive emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) mainly constituting Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4) and Nitrous oxide (N2O). The municipal wastewater treatment plant receives wastewater for treatment and finally discharges the treated effluent. The emissions of GHG during the treatment of wastewater as well as during the treatment process of sludge and also for energy generation are known to be on-site GHG emissions. Off-site GHG emissions are generated due to transportation and disposal of sludge, off-site energy and chemical production. In Puducherry, the municipal wastewater is being treated using oxidation ponds, Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) and Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR). Wastewater treatment using Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) technology is one of the state-of-the art wastewater management systems. In this technology equalization, biological treatment and secondary clarification are performed in a single reactor in a time control sequence. The emissions of GHG from the Oxidation ponds of 12.5 MLD, UASB reactor of 2.5 MLD and SBR of 17 MLD were assessed based on the IPCC guidelines and the total emissions of GHG in terms of equivalent of CO2 were compared. The performance of the SBR is more efficient and the emissions of GHG are less than the emissions in the UASB as well as in oxidation ponds. The emission of GHG in SBR is about 60% of the existing treatment systems of oxidation ponds and UASB thus a reduction of 40% GHG emission could be achieved.

An Examination of Institutional Bias in Providers of Legal Advisory Technical Assistance on Selected Trade and Investment Issues

Developing countries sometimes request the assistance of intergovernmental organizations to help write new laws, policies, and regulations where they did not exist, to review draft legislation, or to assist in the updating and amendment of outdated laws and policies. This paper seeks to examine the extent to which policy advice provided by intergovernmental organizations differs depending upon the provider, and assesses the extent to which developing countries are conscious of those biases when they request technical assistance. Advice on the sensitive topics of intellectual property, investment, and competition that have been provided to policy makers of developing countries by different multilateral agencies is examined. On the supply side, the paper draws upon advisory reports published by the secretariats of international organizations. On the demand side, this review is complemented by a survey of the extent to which those requesting advice in developing countries are conscious of policy bias when they ask for advisory services.

China's Local-Central Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations

For a large country like China, the handling of intergovernmental fiscal relations must create compatible incentives to central and local governments. China initially created a fiscal management system characterized by tax sharing in 1994, basically meeting the needs of its socialist market economic system. Yet further improvements must be made to the assignment of administrative authority and expenditure responsibilities, revenue allocation and the fiscal transfer payment system. In handling intergovernmental fiscal relations, great attention must be given to the system＇s stability to give play to its function of incentives and restraints. China must create a hierarchical fiscal management system in line with its modern fiscal system. According to the requirements of this system, China should further standardize the division between administrative authority and expenditure responsibilities, standardize the division of government revenues, formalize a fiscal transfer payment system, and develop a hierarchical fiscal management system encompassing the sharing of tax, rents and profits.

World Judicial Experts Discuss Strategies for Eradicating Violence Against Children——Summary of Intergovernmental Experts Meeting in Bangkok

From February 18-21, 2014, a panel of experts, which was established by a resolution of the United Nations Economic and Social Council to draft exemplary strategies and implementation measures for eradicating violence against children in crime prevention and criminal judicature, convened in Bangkok, Thailand, for an intergovernmental experts meeting mainly to discuss the draft. After general discussion, delib- eration by the presidium and detailed negotiations, the meeting produced the report, ＂Exemplary Strategies and Implementation Measures for Eradicating Violence Against Children in Crime Prevention and Criminal Judicature.＂

Social Policy Diffusion from the Perspective of Intergovernmental Relations： An Empirical Study of the Urban Subsistence Allowance System in China （1993-1999）

Universal access to China＇s social welfare system involves a process of diffusion from localities to the whole country on the basis of social policy innovations in which intergovernmental relations play a key role as a facilitator. The rapid establishment of the urban subsistence allowance system in more than 200 cities throughout the country in seven years （1993-1999） serves as a case for our empirical analysis of the diffusion mechanism of social policy innovations at different levels of government. Our findings show, firstly, that in adopting a new social policy, city governments have to respond to the social desire of local citizens while keeping fiscal constraints in mind; at the same time, they are affected by administrative orders from higher-level governments and the vertical fiscal relations between governments at different levels, and are also subject to competitive pressures from other cities at the same level. Secondly, city governments＇ policy innovations offer an opportunity for higher levels of government to learn from their experience. Thirdly, central government orders exert both a direct and indirect influence upon city governments, with provincial orders acting as intermediaries. And lastly, there is a clear difference in the time lag effect of orders from the central government and those at provincial level upon city governments＇ policy adoption.

Asymmetric Decentralization, Intergovernmental Transfers, and Expenditure Policies of Local Governments

Although China＇s asymmetric fiscal decentralization system has been criticized for many years, there have been few studies giving direct evidence of its negative incentives on local government spending policies. By introducing the mechanism of asymmetric decentralization and fiscal transfers to the objective function of local government, this paper studies the incentive effects of asymmetric decentralization and fiscal transfers on spending policies of local governments, and uses the provincial panel data to carry out an empirical test. The conclusion shows that the asymmetric decentralization significantly weakens the incentives of local government to increase social expenditure, and as a solution to asymmetric decentralization, fiscal transfers fail to play a good role. Due to the relatively large income effect, the financing mechanism of fiscal transfers not only significantly reduces the incentives of local government to provide social public goods, but also weakens the constraint effect of fiscal competition on expenditure policies of local governments because of the increase in the relative cost. Although the distribution mechanism of fiscal transfers has a significant positive incentive to local government in regions where the net inflow of fiscal resources is more than zero, because of common pooling effects, the comprehensive effects of fiscal transfers in the distribution of incentives of local governments to provide social public goods are negative in all regions.

Research on the sharing mechanism of drug price information in China-from the perspective of intergovernmental information sharing

Establishment of sharing mechanism for drug price information to guarantee the construction of a unified cross-departmental price information platform is a new national policy after Chinese government abandoned drug price control. Based on the theory of intergovernmental information sharing, this study aimed to investigate the drug price information sharing mechanism in China through literature research and stakeholder interviews, which included institution guarantee mechanism, department coordination mechanism and technical support mechanism.

How skillful was the projected temperature over China during 2002–2018?

Climate change has attracted significant attention due to its increasing impacts on various aspects of the world,and future climate projections are of vital importance for associated adaptation and mitigation,particularly at the regional scale.However,the skill level of the model projections over China in the past more than ten years remains unknown.In this study,we retrospectively investigate the skill of climate models within the Third(TAR),Fourth(AR4),and Fifth(AR5)Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC)for the near-term projections of near-surface(2 m)air temperature changes in China.Those models are revealed to be skillful in projecting the subsequent climatology and trend of the temperature changes in China during 2002-2018 from several to ten years ahead,with higher scores for the climatology than for the trend.The model projections display cold biases against observations in most of China,while the nationally averaged trend is overestimated by TAR models during 2002-2018 but underestimated by AR4 models during 2008-2018.For all emission scenarios,there is no obvious difference between the equal-and unequal-weighted averages based on the arithmetic averaging and reliability ensemble averaging method respectively,however the uncertainty range of projection is narrowed after weighting.The near-term temperature projections differ slightly among various emission scenarios for the climatology but are largely different for the trend.

Tax Sharing and Fiscal Imbalances:Reconstruction of the VAT Sharing System in China

Unreasonable distribution of regional fiscal revenue may lead to fiscal imbalance,while narrowing the fiscal gap will help to establish a modern fiscal relationship between the central government and local governments with fi nancial coordination and regional balance.This paper examines the 2016 VAT sharing reform to study the impact of tax sharing on fiscal imbalances,and puts forward a new plan to reconstruct the VAT sharing ratio.It has been found out in the study that the VAT sharing reform has alleviated the vertical fiscal imbalances caused by the reform of“replacing business tax with VAT”to some extent,but has aggravated the horizontal fiscal imbalances and widened the regional fiscal gaps.The deepening of horizontal fiscal imbalances is due to the aggravated differentiation of regional fiscal capacity after the VAT sharing reform.The adjustment of the principle on which the VAT is levied and the way by which it is shared is conducive to reducing interregional fiscal imbalances.This research is of reference to rationalizing the intergovernmental fiscal relationship,which is helpful to further clarify the implications of modern intergovernmental fiscal relationship and promote the construction of a modern fiscal system.

Intergovernmental Vertical Fiscal Relations Reform and Grassroots-Level Government’s Finance Guarantee:Based on Quasi-Natural Experimental Analysis

Grassroots-level government’s financial capability is crucial to the performance of financial functions of the whole country.How to adjust the intergovernmental vertical fiscal relations in order to improve grassroots-level government’s finance situation is important for accelerating the establishment of a modern fiscal system.In recent years,Province-Directly-Governing-County(PGC)fiscal reform has been an important attempt to straighten out vertical fiscal relations between governments,and thus has made it possible for studying the effects of vertical fiscal relations reform on grassroots-level government’s finance based on quasi-natural experimental analysis.Therefore,this article empirically analyzes the PGC fiscal reform based on nationwide county-level data applying Propensity Score Matching with Difference-in-Difference Method(PSM-DID),in order to investigate the effect of the reform on county governments’disposable revenue and identify the influence path.The results indicate that PGC fiscal reform has a significant effect on promoting fiscal disposable revenue of county governments.Furthermore,we find that the reform increased upper-government transfer payment more than county-level own revenue,which manifests the reform increase county governments’fiscal disposable revenue by means of restraining prefecture-level cities’from grabbing county-level transfer.

Research on the Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations of China in the Past 70 Years:Fiscal Decentralization in Evolution

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,the Chinese scholars of finance theory have been sparing no effort on the theoretical research of intergovernmental fiscal relations in the past 70 years,with fiscal decentralization at the core.Although fiscal decentralization has a long history,the intergovernmental fiscal relations which use fiscal decentralization as the vehicle did not constitute an independent research topic in the early days of the People’s Republic of China.Later,fiscal decentralization was adopted and gradually flourished in China,once systematically explained as the target mode of intergovernmental fiscal relations,and even took the form of tax sharing system.In the new era of socialism with Chinses characteristics,the booming research on intergovernmental fiscal relations,adapted to the theoretical innovation of modern fiscal system,has contributed to coping with the changes of international and domestic economic situation in the new normal and to the sustainable fiscal development of China.