Information Disclosure as Environmental Regulation: A Theoretical Analysis

Governments around the world are beginning to embrace a new form of environmental regulation – mandatory disclosure of information. While information disclosure programs appear to have an impact on subsequent firm behavior – often resulting in lower levels of pollution – little is known about the costs and benefits of these programs and whether or not they enhance social welfare. This paper presents a simple bargaining model where mandatory information disclosure is used to overcome a lack of information on the part of the public. We characterize the conditions under which information disclosure will lead to a reduction in emissions, and ultimately, the conditions under which it will enhance social welfare. Several extensions of the model are briefly explored, including the effect of two sources of pollution – only one of which is subject to information disclosure. This paper was prepared while V. Santhakumar was a Visiting Scholar at the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies, Vanderbilt University.     

Strategic Environmental Policy Under Incomplete Information

This paper introduces incomplete information into recent analyses of strategic environmental policy. It is shown how asymmetric information between planners and producers affects national incentives to impose strategic environmental standards on domestic industries in international oligopolistic competition. Relative to the full-information case, incomplete information is likely to mitigate allocative distortions originating from strategic behaviour. A countervailing effect, tending to raise distortion, is however revealed from the analysis. This effect is absent when governments intervene in free trade through direct production subsidies. The results suggest that incentives to capture foreign rents are less reduced due to private information, when environmental standards, rather than direct production subsidies, are the strategic instrument.     

Strategic Policy and Environmental Quality: Helping the Domestic Industry to Provide Credible Information

This paper shows that a country can improve an industry's competitiveness by requiring domestic firms to produce at the environmental standards at which they claim to produce or otherwise impose a penalty on those firms found cheating. Competitiveness will improve because this regulation will help the domestic industry to provide credible information about the environmental quality of its production. The credible information will differentiate domestic products from other products on the world market, and in this way increase consumers' willingness to pay for domestic products. Even if the government has no preferences for environmental quality, it has incentives to regulate its cheaters in order to help the domestic industry to provide credible information and thereby improve competitiveness.     

我国上市公司环境信息披露的博弈模型

本文依据博弈论原理对我国上市公司的环境信息披露过程进行了博弈分析,通过建立博弈模型,深入剖析了上市公司环境信息披露的动因。对上市公司来说,充分、及时、可靠的披露有助于企业价值的提高,有利于社会;对政府来说,加强环境信息披露的立法执法力度,有利于国家和社会乃至于整个人类的长远和可持续发展;对社会及公众方面来说,环境信息披露充分则社会成本就会降低,社会价值提高,公众的利益就更易得到维护,从而提高社会对公司的评价和公众对公司的信心,进而使公司出现正的环境商誉。     

公司环境报告:压力、鉴定和双重性影响

在公司股东以及政府部门、相关团体或组织、公众的压力下,国外越来越多的大公司在其会计年报或单独的环境报告中披露相关环境信息。目前,国外大多数公司对外公布环境报告和进行环境报告鉴定都是自愿的,且环境报告鉴定尚缺乏财务报表审计所具备的公认报告准则。环境报告及其鉴定会给公司带来许多有利影响和不利影响,对比双重性影响,可以揭示公司自愿实施环境报告及其鉴定的内在必要性。     

对环境会计信息披露的探讨

近年来,随着全球性保护环境的热潮的掀起,人们越来越关注环境问题。在将环境会计纳入企业会计核算范围后,环境会计信息的披露开始引起人们极大的关注,但是我国当前的环境信息披露体系还不完善,存在许多的问题,无法满足企业利益相关者的信息需求。为此,针对我国企业环境会计信息披露存在的问题,提出了完善措施。     

浅议中国企业环境会计信息披露

环境信息披露是环境会计最主要和最基本的问题之一,也是会计界积极探索的一个热点问题。随着市场经济在中国的不断深入发展,中国政府对环境问题以及全民环保意识也在高度重视与加强。环境会计的信息披露有助于会计工作及环境保护在规范化、标准化、法制化的条件下运行,同时,也有助于同国际化标准接轨。     

江苏省上市公司环境信息披露研究

伴随着经济全球化的进程,我国在经济取得卓越发展的同时,环境的破坏却十分严重,重视环境保护在促进我国的经济与社会和谐发展进程中变得越来越重要。本文主要对江苏省78家上市公司的招股说明书和2001～2003年的年度报告进行详细的分析、比较,指出了江苏省上市公司环境信息披露的特点与不足,构建了江苏省上市公司环境信息披露的理想体系,同时也针对我国上市公司的环境信息披露方面的不足提出了政策建议。     

数理金融经济学理论的发展给我们的启示

纵观经济学的发展历史,人们总是力求通过数理的思想与方法解决变化复杂的资本经济市场,对资本市场的资产定价给出更加合乎实际的理论方法,因此,金融经济学发展的主线总是围绕着这一点,近些年来,经济学诺贝尔奖获奖者的贡献也充分说明这些,这给我国经济学学者研究探索以启迪。     

环境信息披露的现实选择

我国要实现经济社会的可持续发展,必须改变现有的资源利用和管理方式,大力发展低碳经济。为此必须加强环境会计理论与实务的研究,特别是环境信息的披露应做到连续、系统、全面和真实。这对有效的控制环境污染、防治自然资源过多的损耗、加强环境保护、使我国有限的资源产生最大的经济效益和社会效益具有重要意义。要达到这一目标,企业应增强环境信息披露的主动性和积极性,政府亦应在提高公民环境意识、健全法律法规、加强环境会计理论研究、强化低碳信息披露的社会监督等方面作好工作,以提高整个社会环境信息披露的质量和效率。