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on Resource Economics |
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Issue of 2020‒12‒21
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Stefan Ambec (INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Philippe de Donder (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Is green consumerism beneficial to the environment and the economy? To shed light on this question, we study the political economy of environmental regulations in a model with neutral and green consumers where the latter derive some warm glow from buying a good of higher environmental quality produced by a pro…t-maximizing monopoly, while the good bought by neutral consumers is provided by a competitive fringe. Consumers unanimously vote for a standard set at a lower than first-best level, or for a tax delivering the first-best environmental protection level. Despite its under-provision of environmental protection, the standard dominates the tax from a welfare perspective due to its higher productive efficiency, i.e., a smaller gap between the environmental qualities of the two goods supplied. In stark contrast, voters unanimously prefer a tax to a standard when the willingness to pay for greener goods is small enough. |
| Keywords: | environmental regulation,corporate social responsibility,green consumerism,product differentiation,tax,standard,green label,political economy JEL codes: D24,D62,Q41,Q42,Q48 |
| Date: | 2020–11–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02993200&r=all |
| By: | Stefan Ambec (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Jessica Coria (GU - University of Gothenburg) |
| Abstract: | We propose informational spillovers as a new rationale for the use of multiple policy instruments to mitigate a single externality. We investigate the design of a pollution standard when the firms' abatement costs are unknown and emissions are taxed. A firm might abate pollution beyond what is required by the standard by equalizing its marginal abatement costs to the tax rate, thereby revealing information about its abatement cost. We analyze how a regulator can take advantage of this information to design the standard. In a dynamic setting, the regulator relaxes the initial standard in order to induce more information revelation, which would allow her to set a standard closer to the first best in the second period. Updating standards, though, generates a ratchet effect since the low-cost firms might strategically hide their cost by abating no more than required by the standard. We provide conditions for the separating equilibrium to hold when firms act strategically. We illustrate our theoretical results with the case of NO x regulation in Sweden. We find evidence that the firms that are taxed experience more frequent standard updates. |
| Keywords: | pollution,externalities,asymmetric information,environmental regulation,tax,standards,multiple policies,ratchet effect,nitrogen oxides |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02945523&r=all |
| By: | Stefan Ambec (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Environmental markets distribute tradable rights on natural resources that are available for free on the earth such as water, biomass or clean air. In a framework where users differ solely in respect of their access to the resource, I investigate the allocation of rights that are accepted in the sense that, after trading, users obtain at least what they can achieve by sharing the resources they control. I show that, among all accepted rights, the more egalitarian ones do not allow any redistribution among users. Consequently, compared to an efficient allocation of resources, the net trading of rights always increases inequality. |
| Keywords: | Common-pool resources,Environmental externalities,Property rights,Cooperative game,Fairness,Tradable quotas,Emission permits |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02945513&r=all |