Suchergebnisse

The South African government has emphasised the need for 'developing country' solutions to climate change that simultaneously pursue GHG reductions and socioeconomic development. To encourage the transition to a low-carbon economy the National Treasury has proposed a carbon tax and offset mechanism to be introduced in 2015. The practical delivery of the offset scheme remains uncertain. This paper investigates which features and governance structure would be desirable for such a mechanism in South Africa. Primary research is conducted into the South African voluntary carbon registry; Credible Carbon. The questions asked by this paper are: Should firms be allowed to offset emissions? What is the ideal way to implement offsets in South Africa? This paper concludes that Credible Carbon provides a good model for carbon trading that can be scaled up to meet demand under the new regulations. However, government needs to ensure that projects continue to deliver acceptable social benefits and that carbon auditors are well-trained and accountable.

The South African government has emphasised the need for 'developing country' solutions to climate change that simultaneously pursue GHG reductions and socioeconomic development. To encourage the transition to a low-carbon economy the National Treasury has proposed a carbon tax and offset mechanism to be introduced in 2015. The practical delivery of the offset scheme remains uncertain. This paper investigates which features and governance structure would be desirable for such a mechanism in South Africa. Primary research is conducted into the South African voluntary carbon registry; Credible Carbon. The questions asked by this paper are: Should firms be allowed to offset emissions? What is the ideal way to implement offsets in South Africa? This paper concludes that Credible Carbon provides a good model for carbon trading that can be scaled up to meet demand under the new regulations. However, government needs to ensure that projects continue to deliver acceptable social benefits and that carbon auditors are well-trained and accountable.

The South African government has emphasised the need for 'developing country' solutions to climate change that simultaneously pursue GHG reductions and socioeconomic development. To encourage the transition to a low-carbon economy the National Treasury has proposed a carbon tax and offset mechanism to be introduced in 2015. The practical delivery of the offset scheme remains uncertain. This paper investigates which features and governance structure would be desirable for such a mechanism in South Africa. Primary research is conducted into the South African voluntary carbon registry; Credible Carbon. The questions asked by this paper are: Should firms be allowed to offset emissions? What is the ideal way to implement offsets in South Africa? This paper concludes that Credible Carbon provides a good model for carbon trading that can be scaled up to meet demand under the new regulations. However, government needs to ensure that projects continue to deliver acceptable social benefits and that carbon auditors are well-trained and accountable.

We investigate patterns in common ownership networks between firms that are active in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry for the period 2004–2014. Our main findings are that "brand firms"—that is, firms that have research and development capabilities and launch new drugs—exhibit relatively dense common ownership networks with each other that further increase significantly in density over time, whereas the network of "generic firms"—that is, firms that primarily specialize in developing and launching generic drugs—is much sparser and stays that way over the span of our sample. Finally, when considering the common ownership links between brands firms, on the one hand, and generic firms, on the other, we find that brand firms have become more connected to generic firms over time. We discuss the potential antitrust implications of these findings.

Ownership of publicly listed German companies has undergone significant changes in recent years. The aim of this report is to document these trends since 2007 and analyze the extent to which firms that compete in the same product market are owned by the same investors, which is known as common ownership. We show that some large foreign institutional investors have overtaken domestic investors and now occupy the top spots. This is true both in terms of value and the number of blockholdings, i.e. large blocks of shares.In addition, there has been an increase in ownership concentration overall. That said, private and governmental investors with few but large holdings, still own more than half of German equity. Using two leading industries, the chemical and car industries, we show that ownership trends and levels of common ownership can be very different across industries. While it is unclear a priori what common ownership implies for competition, innovation, and consumer welfare, markets that show more common ownership, such as the chemical sector, deserve more attention from policy makers, regulators, and academics alike.

Die Eigentümerstrukturen börsennotierter deutscher Unternehmen haben sich in den letzten Jahren deutlich verändert. Von besonderem Interesse ist dabei das Phänomen der gemeinsamen Eigentümerstrukturen, das international mit dem Begriff "Common Ownership" bezeichnet wird. Dabei werden Unternehmen, die auf denselben Gütermärkten miteinander im Wettbewerb stehen, von denselben Investoren gehalten. In diesem Wochenbericht wird gezeigt, dass inländische institutionelle Investoren seit dem Jahr 2007 von einigen großen ausländischen Investoren überholt wurden. Letztere nehmen heute Spitzenpositionen ein, sowohl im Hinblick auf den Marktwert der Beteiligungen als auch auf die Anzahl großer Beteiligungspakete. Die Beteiligungskonzentration hat in Deutschland insgesamt zugenommen. Gleichzeitig wird noch immer mehr als die Hälfte des deutschen Aktienkapitals von privaten und staatlichen Anlegern mit wenigen aber großen Beteiligungen gehalten. Am Beispiel zweier führender Wirtschaftszweige - der chemischen Industrie und der Automobilindustrie - zeigt sich, dass sich die Entwicklungen der Eigentümerschaft und des Grads an Common Ownership von Branche zu Branche stark unterscheiden können. Die Auswirkungen gemeinsamer Eigentümerstrukturen auf Wettbewerb, Innovationen und Verbraucherinteressen können von vorneherein nicht eindeutig bestimmt werden. Branchen mit einer höheren Beteiligungskonzentration, wie etwa die chemische Industrie, sollten aber von Politik, Wissenschaft und Regulierungsbehörden stärker beachtet werden.

The deployment of a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 will be central to lifting containment measures. In a bid to speed up vaccine deployment, governments are entering into 'Advance Purchase Agreements' (APAs) with vaccine companies to secure access to vaccine doses. We document and compare the vaccine procurement strategies of the US and the EU. Most notably, we find that both the US and the EU only secure vaccine doses from developers whose (contracted) production facilities are based in US or EU territory, respectively. Securing vaccine production on home soil is crucial in a crisis because of the ability of governments to implement export restrictions; vaccines produced in a different jurisdiction may be blocked from exiting the region. Thus, only governments who can secure local production will be able to provide a vaccine quickly.