Investment, Technology Adoption, and Environmental Policy

这项研究的目的是在一些有趣和重要的方向上扩展调查人员最近关于不可逆转投资决策的工作。其中一个方向是未来环境监管的不确定性对企业投资的影响。还将调查的一个相关主题是环境不可逆性问题及其对制定应对全球变暖、臭氧消耗和相关长期问题的政策的影响。另一个主题是为项目制定投资规则，这些项目的最终完工成本未知，但随着建设的进行而得到解决，就像发电厂的情况一样。另一项研究将侧重于经济贬值和陈旧的衡量，以及用新资本取代旧资本的决定。争论的焦点是随机损耗和资本未来生产率的不确定性如何影响更换决策，以及在计算折旧时应如何考虑这些因素。最后一个项目涉及对研发投资和采用新技术的研究。特别是，将考察采用当前技术、等待新技术到来或进行可能导致新技术的研发之间的权衡。

The purpose of this research is to extend the investigators recent work on irreversible investment decisions in a number of interesting and important directions. One of the directions is the impact of the uncertainty of future environmental regulation on business investment. A related topic that will also be investigated is the problem of environmental irreversibilities and their implications for the design of policies to deal with global warming, ozone depletion, and related long-term problems. Another topic is aimed at deriving investment rules for projects in which the ultimate cost of completion is unknown, but is resolved as construction proceeds as in the case of electric power plants. Another study will focus on the measurement of economic depreciation and obsolescence, and the decision to replace old capital with new. At issue is how stochastic wear and tear, and uncertainty over the future productivity of capital can affect the replacement decision, and how they should be accounted for when calculating depreciation. The final project involves the study of investment in R&D and the adoption of new technologies. In particular, the trade-offs between adopting a current technology, waiting for new technology to arrive, or conducting R&D that can lead to a new technology will be examined.