Governance by EU emissions trading: resistance or innovation in the oil industry?

Studies of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) abound. Much is known about the economic incentives they contain to promote abatement and innovation, and studies are focusing on the short-term aggregate effects at sector and system levels. Less, however, is known about how the EU ETS affects companies, including their strategies, long-term innovation plans, and deployment of low-carbon solutions. This article presents an analytical framework of how companies are likely respond to regulation like the EU ETS, subsequently applied to companies in the oil industry, represented by the major multinationals ExxonMobil and Shell. The analysis finds that these companies had quite different initial responses to the ETS, whereas their long-term strategic responses to carbon pricing show signs of convergence.     

Data,Damn Lies,and Cannabis Policy: Reefer Madness and the Methodological Crimes of the New Prohibitionists

Critical Criminology - The rapid pace of cannabis legalization in North America has provoked a backlash that is predictable and discouraging. The New Prohibitionists, distinct but related to their...     

Structural validity of the posttraumatic stress disorder checklist among college students with a trauma history

The authors conducted confirmatory factor analyses to test three-factor and four-factor models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using the PTSD Checklist with college students reporting a traumatic event history. The authors found support for the three-factor DSM-IV-based PTSD diagnostic model including reexperiencing, avoidance/numbing, and hyperarousal symptom factors, with slightly better support for a four-factor model separating the avoidance and numbing factors. Results further attest to the PTSD Checklist's construct validity, and to research finding that PTSD avoidance and numbing constructs are distinct.     

Tigers and Flies

正At the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC) in November of 2013,much of the focus was placed on anticipated economic and social reforms.However,one area that both casual observers and Western news media mistakenly assumed that had been overlooked was the issue of corruption.     

Regulating the retirement age—Lessons from Nordic pension policy approaches

The likelihood that longevity will continue to increase has generated a search for regulation that make people work longer as they live longer, and thus not just containing pension expenditure but also enlarging labor supply, economic growth, and tax revenue. In public pension policy, Nordic countries have led the world with three types of approaches aimed at making people retire later. The first came when Sweden, followed by Finland and Norway, installed life expectancy coefficients in benefit calculation formulas. The second followed as Finland introduced age-related accrual rates and the third when Denmark indexed the pensionable age to developments in life expectancy. Since economic incentive-based regulations failed to raise exit ages sufficiently, Finland and Sweden subsequently linked pensionable ages to life expectancy like Denmark. While this policy brings out inequalities in health and workability, the fact that countries found it necessary to index the pensionable age to longevity instead of just relying on economic incentives in regulating retirement behavior may hold lessons for other countries.     

Implementing EU emissions trading: success or failure?

This article assesses and explains the implementation of the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS). It argues that implementation in terms of ambitiousness has been only moderately successful so far, but significant differences between the Member States are also observed. Similarities and differences are then explained within a multi-level governance approach emphasizing the need to search for explanations at national, EU, and global levels. The EU ETS case shows that the multi-level governance approach can be as relevant for understanding implementation as for explaining policy-making. In addition to factors located at the national level, the decentralized nature of the EU scheme itself is important for understanding how the system works in practice. At the global level, the link to the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol is particularly important for determining how well the EU ETS will perform in the future.