Month: March 2013

As the development of economics, more and more people can afford buying cars. And the congestion issue becomes more serious in some populous area. And the congestion contributes a lot to bad air condition. In terms of traffic congestion, I have to mention Beijing. It has large population and huge number of cars. Locals complain the traffic jam a lot. Also, Beijing Provincial government came up many ideas to relieve the traffic jam from 2007. The motivation is to prepare the Olympic Game held in 2008. And the officials revised it every year.

 

The two main methods are to restrict cars number and encourage public transportation utilization.

1.Restriction on Car Numbers

(a) Odd-and-even License Plate Rule

From 2007, April, car with odd number license was only allowed to use on odd days of month.  The even is allowed on even days of month. Some rich would buy two cars with odd and even license respectively. The congestion situation was not much better.

Everyday, cars would be banned to use, with 2 particular numbers in 2011. The numbers are 3 and 8, 4 and 9, 5 and 0, 1 and 6, 2 and 7 on Monday to Friday, respectively. Every number will be banned once a week. It still makes no trouble for the rich with two cars unless the licenses are banned in the same days simultaneously.

Then the regulation was moderated in 2012, April. The numbers banned every day will be changed every 13 months. It still makes no any inconvenient for the rich, with more than two cars, unless the licenses are banned in the same days simultaneously.

 

(b) Ban on Nonlocal Cars in Rush Hour

During 7-9 a.m. and 5-7 p.m., the nonlocal cars are not allowed to appear on road. With violation, the drives will be fined for $100. It makes the locals convenient to go to work and home timely. But the nonlocal cars have to wait.

 

For the drivers who came from other places, it impacts a lot. They even have to eat dinner until 9 p.m.. The nonlocals have to arrange their time in advance before they start off to Beijing. As for some rich nonlocals, they buy cars in Beijing with high price. Then the car can be equipped with Beijing local license.

 

(c) Regulation on Car Number Property Right

Not any one can get car license after application. The government permits the application by the method of random sampling in 2011, January. It is only 10% to get the permission. Some people get the permission after random sampling, who would transfer it in high price to the rich. And there are many scandals of corruptions. Many auto stores can sell car licenses if you can afford.

 

(d) Regulation on Secondhand Car Transaction

Some poor people came up with the idea to buy secondhand car due to the difficulty to get one car license. But it was regulated in 2012. Anyone who want transfer car to consumer need get the permission of government. It is possible to breed corruption. It is more and more difficult to get car license in Beijing for the poor.

 

 

2. Encouragement on utilization of public transportation

 

(a) Subsidy on Public Transportation Ticket Fees

The tickets are cheap in Beijing for public transportations (bus, subway ,etc.), in comparison. Because the government subsidizes the public transportation a lot from 2007. The bus ticket only costs $0.06 and for subway, it is only $0.3.

For the poor, who has to use public transportation everyday, it is really a bonus. For the rich, they don not care it.

 

(b) Special Road Lane

The lanes can only be used by buses. Otherwise, the cars will be fined to use the special lane for buses. When the jam happens, the buses can still not be stacked in. This policy announced in 2007, still effects now. So, more people would choose to use buses in cases of traffic jam.

This policy influences both the poor and the rich, the locals and the nonlocals positively.

 

Although there are such many regulations to mitigate the traffic congestion, the situation does not change much better. Because the number of car still be increasing to 5,000,000, due to the huge population (20,000,000), the high affordability for cars and government corruptions in Beijing. But without these regulations, the situation will become worse and worse.

German Effluent Water Tax

Intensive sectors (such as energy, chemicals, and construction) in the post-war period caused serious environmental problems as the construction of wastewater treatment facilities did not keep pace. Compared to other industrial nations, such as the UK and Japan, Germany did not have the option to dispose wastewater from its industrial areas directly to the sea, which led to highly polluted river systems. A future acceptable water supply would have been under a serious threat in German.

The effluent charge was introduced in 1976 as a reaction to the insufficient implementation of direct regulation. Innovatively, German combined three regulations following together.

The policy mix consists of the following instruments:

• Discharge Permits (Federal Water Act, implemented in 1957)

• Effluent Tax (Effluent Tax Act; implemented in 1976)

• Discharge limits and technological standards (Waste Water Ordinance implemented in 1997)

All discharges of effluent require a permit. This permit is issued only if the effluent to be discharged is kept as low as possible for the required process and with the best available technology. In 2004, the emission-related requirements, such as pollutants limits and technical standards, were further specified for 57 areas of origin and production sectors by enforcing the Waste Water Ordinance. Permits can be granted temporarily or permanently and can be withdrawn if concerns regarding water protection and management arise.

The effluent tax is based on these permits, rather than on actual measurements. The tax rate is based on damage units, which are calculated as the equivalents of pollutants in the discharged effluent. Measured pollutants include phosphorous, nitrogen, organic halogen, mercury, cadmium, chromate, nickel, lead, copper, and indicators on the chemical oxygen demand and the toxicity for fish eggs.

The effluent tax implement the “polluter pays principle”, ,leading to the internalization of external costs. The effluent tax shall provide an economic incentive to avoid or reduce harmful effluent discharges. The revenue of the effluent tax is used for investments in water quality programs by the Länder, such as the construction of municipal sewage treatment and the administration of water quality programs tax’s incentive effect in improving water quality. As a consequence, the costs to mitigate, eliminate, and balance damage to water bodies were distributed among the polluters, which reflects a successful implementation of the polluter pays principle.

The policy mix consisting of regulatory and economic instruments can be very powerful in implementing and enforcing policies to address direct effluent emissions. Obviously, goods results have been achieved in terms of environmental outcomes due to the policy mix.

However, personally, it has shown the importance of creating the right incentive structure to achieve the targeted objectives -it was found that the effluent tax rate has been set too low since its introduction in 1979. In addition, the effluent tax rate has not been adjusted to inflation. In this case, I do not believe tax is approximately equal to the marginal damage from the pollutant, as times goes. As the cost of measures for abatement have increased with inflation, and standard become more strict, the effluent tax could not develop its full potential for setting innovation incentives to abate residual pollution.

Reference:http://www.ecologic.eu/files/attachments/Publications/2012/effluent_tax.pdf