Influència de les condicions ambientals sobre la població acarina

Treball de recerca realitzat per un alumne d’ensenyament secundari i guardonat amb un Premi CIRIT per fomentar l'esperit científic del Jovent l’any 2005. S' estudia la influència de les condicions ambientals sobre la població acarina a quatre poblacions catalanes, situades a diferents altituds. A partir d’un recull bibliogràfic es fa una aproximació prèvia teòrica sobre la morfologia i la fisiologia dels àcars. Posteriorment s’ha dut a terme un treball de recerca sobre la influència de variables com l’altitud sobre la població acarina o la temperatura i la humitat en llocs tancats. Finalment, s’ha comparat la utilitat del mètode físic i químic de lluita contra els àcars. L’anàlisi de les dades obtingudes demostren que per damunt dels 1 200 m la població acarina és insignificant i que la millor manera de combatre els àcars és utilitzar el mètode físic de barrera (funda antiàcars) combinat amb el mètode químic d’acaricida (Benzil Benzoat).

The making of international environmental agreements

We examine in this paper the formation and the stability of international environmental agreements when cooperation means to commit to a minimum abatement level. Each country decides whether to ratify the agreement and this latter enters into force only if it is ratified by a number of countries at least equal to some ratification threshold. We analyze the role played by ratification threshold rules and provide conditions for international environmental agreements to enter into force. We show that a large typology of agreements can enter into force among the one constituted by the grand coalition.

Optimal enforcement policy and firms' emissions and compliance with environmental taxes

In a market where firms with different characteristics decide upon both the level of emissions and their reports, we study the optimal audit policy for an enforcement agency whose objective is to minimize the level of emissions. We show that it is optimal to devote the resources primarily to the easiest-to-monitor firms and to those firms that value pollution the less. Moreover, unless the budget for monitoring is very large, there are always firms that do not comply with the environmental objective and others that do comply; but all of them evade the environmental taxes.

Implementing a double dividend: recycling ecotaxes towards lower labour taxes

In this paper we follow the tradition of applied general equilibrium modelling of the Walrasian static variety to study the empirical viability of a double dividend (green, welfare, and employment) in the Spanish economy. We consider a counterfactual scenario in which an ecotax is levied on the intermediate and final use of energy goods. Under a revenue neutral assumption, we evaluate the real income and employment impact of lowering payroll taxes. To appraise to what extent the model structure and behavioural assumptions may influence the results, we perform simulations under a range of alternative model and policy scenarios. We conclude that a double dividend –better environmental quality, as measured by reduced CO2 emissions, and improved levels of employment– may be an achievable goal of economic policy.

Redistributive taxation with endogenous sentiments

We present a model in which an individual's sentiments towards others are determined endogenously on the basis of how they perform relative to the societal average. This, in turn, affects the individual's own behavior and hence other agents' sentiments toward her. We focus on stationary patterns of utility interdependence. To demonstrate the effects of such endogeneity, we consider an example of a production economy with redistributive taxation. There are two types of stationary equilibria: one in which all agents conform to the societal norm, into two or three groups. The main conclusion is that the tax structure, in that it affects behavior which in turn affects sentiments, plays a crucial role in determining which type of equilibrium occurs and its characteristics as well as the extent of altruism and social cohesion in society.

Nous actors, noves cultures? : evolució de les polítiques ambientals a Catalunya : els casos de l'aigua i l'energia

Les polítiques ambientals són el resultat d’un gran nombre de factors: el context social, el moment polític, el marc internacional, etc. En l’àmbit català s’ha demostrat que un factor que pot impactar de manera rellevant és l’aflorament de moviments ciutadans que reclamen canvis en les formes de fer política, encaminant-les cap a models més sostenibles. Malgrat sembli complicat que en el cas de l’energia es donin les condicions que van permetre el pas a la Nova Cultura de l’Aigua, no es descarta la possibilitat que s’arribi per altres mitjans a un canvi del paradigma energètic, ja que no tots els canvis són sempre apreciables des dels seus inicis.

Educació ambiental en camins tradicionals : una proposta de guia interpretativa pel camí de les Tosques

El primer bloc del treball, que ocupa en extensió la major part del projecte, permet una aproximació a la figura que juga el medi ambient i l’educació ambiental en la societat i en el moment actual. Al mateix temps, s’analitza el context ambiental que envolta el Parc Natural de les Muntanyes de Prades per tal de donar a conèixer l’entorn immediat del camí de les Tosques. Finalment, es descriu l’origen i els diversos camins tradicionals existents, procurant la informació necessària per entendre el valor i el potencial de que disposa aquest viari. El segon bloc, d’altra banda, resulta d’una selecció d’informació del primer i de noves aportacions, en una guia per la realització d’un itinerari autoguiat d’educació ambiental per aquest camí. Aquesta proposta es materialitza en la localització, anàlisi i interpretació de l’itinerari pel camí de les Tosques, i en l’elaboració d’una guia d’educació ambiental per a realitzar-lo.

Environmental regulation: choice of instruments under imperfect compliance

Compliance is an important issue in environmental regulation. In this paper, we discuss some of the key elements of the problem and analyze a situation where emissions are not random and firms are risk-neutral. We study the firm's decision on emissions and compliance when the environmental regulation is based on standards and the enforcement agency audits the firm with a certain probability. We then compare total emissions when environmental regulation is based on different instruments: standards, taxes, and tradable permits. We show that when compliance is an issue, environmental taxes are superior to the other instruments. We also analyze the (static) efficiency of the solution.

Memoria – beca BE2005

Report for the scientific sojourn at the Centre for Interdisciplinary studies in Environment and Development (CISED), located in Bangalore (Southern India), from September to December 2005. A field-work in the South Indian city of Chennai (former Madras) was developed to analyse the mounting urban (and peri-urban) water crisis. In view of tackling this matter, the state government has done a deal to construct a 100 million litres per day seawater desalination plant. Due to its relative energy-intensiveness (compared to conventional water supply means), the fact that such a large capacity plant will be located in poor country such as India, constitutes somewhat of a surprising novelty, as most desalination facilities in the world are to be found in the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries. This work faces the environmental impact, the energy-intensive technology required, the cost and the missed water management options

Model-based diagnosis system: application to constructed wetlands

Report for the scientific sojourn carried out at the Model-based Systems and Qualitative Reasoning Group (Technical University of Munich), from September until December 2005. Constructed wetlands (CWs), or modified natural wetlands, are used all over the world as wastewater treatment systems for small communities because they can provide high treatment efficiency with low energy consumption and low construction, operation and maintenance costs. Their treatment process is very complex because it includes physical, chemical and biological mechanisms like microorganism oxidation, microorganism reduction, filtration, sedimentation and chemical precipitation. Besides, these processes can be influenced by different factors. In order to guarantee the performance of CWs, an operation and maintenance program must be defined for each Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). The main objective of this project is to provide a computer support to the definition of the most appropriate operation and maintenance protocols to guarantee the correct performance of CWs. To reach them, the definition of models which represent the knowledge about CW has been proposed: components involved in the sanitation process, relation among these units and processes to remove pollutants. Horizontal Subsurface Flow CWs are chosen as a case study and the filtration process is selected as first modelling-process application. However, the goal is to represent the process knowledge in such a way that it can be reused for other types of WWTP.

Els estudis universitaris per a gent gran

En aquest estudi de recerca es proposa analitzar en profunditat la integració de la gent gran dins la Universitat. El desenvolupament espectacular a Catalunya durant els darrers vint anys del segle XX i el fet que s'hagin incorporat moltes més experiències universitàries per a gent gran a Espanya, fa que ens plantegem quines són les transformacions profundes que acompanyen aquesta irrupció i poder disposar d’una visió àmplia que permeti determinar el marc dels ensenyaments d’aquests estudis i, en particular, respondre a quin motiu, com i amb quina finalitat els ensenyaments universitaris per a gent gran s’han introduït al món universitari

Personal relations and their effect on behavior in an organizational setting: an experimental study

We study how personal relations affect performance in organizations. In the experimental game we use a manager has to assign different degrees of decision power to two employees. These two employees then have to make distributive decisions which affect themselves and the manager. Our focus is on the effects on managers' assignment of decision power and on employees' distributive decisions of one of the employees and the manager knowing each other personally. Our evidence shows that managers tend to favor employees that they personally know and that these employees tend, more than other employees, to favor the manager in their distributive decisions. However, this behavior does not affect the performance of the employees that do not know the manager. All these effects are independent of whether the employees that know the manager are more or less productive than those who do not know the manager. The results shed light on discrimination and nepotism and its consequences for the performance of family firms and other organizations.

Barcelona: l'herència dels Jocs (1992-2002)

Publicació que reprèn l'anàlisi feta immediatament després dels Jocs Olímpics de 1992, ara amb la perspectiva que donen els deu anys transcorreguts. Tot partint del llibre dels mateixos editors "Les claus de l'èxit", publicat l'any 1995, que recollia estudis sobre els impactes socials, esportius, econòmics i culturals, queden palesos els efectes a mitjà i llarg termini d'aquell esdeveniment. També inclou la transcripció d'una conversa realitzada el juny del 2002 entre els tres màxims responsables dels Jocs: Joan Antoni Samaranch, Pasqual Maragall i Josep Miquel Abad.