Why local air pollution is more than daily peaks: modelling policies in a city in order to avoid premature deaths.

We use a predator-prey representation of an urban system to analyse how policy interventions can prevent the adverse effects of air pollution on people's health. The number of residents is treated as prey variable, and particulate matter that consists of particles with a diameter of up to 10 micrometres (PM10) as predator variable. This representation allows integration of population trends and the effects of environmental interventions on the average level of PM10 concentration (which establishes a baseline for the potential health burden for residents). For the case of Graz, Austria, we illustrate the insights generated regarding the interdependency of market-based and technological pollution controls, and propose an indicator that assesses the cost of delayed interventions by counting additional premature deaths caused by polluted environments.

A Good Beginning Makes a Good Market: The Effect of Different Market Opening Structures on Market Quality.

This paper deals with the market structure at the opening of the trading day and its influence on subsequent trading. We compare a single continuous double auction and two complement markets with different call auction designs as opening mechanisms in a unified experimental framework. The call auctions differ with respect to their levels of transparency. We find that a call auction not only improves market efficiency and liquidity at the beginning of the trading day when compared to the stand-alone continuous double auction, but also causes positive spillover effects on subsequent trading. Concerning the design of the opening call auction, we find no significant differences between the transparent and nontransparent specification with respect to opening prices and liquidity. In the course of subsequent continuous trading, however, market quality is slightly higher after a nontransparent call auction.