Firms’ Compliance to Environmental Regulation: Is There Really a Paradox?

It has often been claimed that firms’ compliance to environmental regulations is higher than predicted by standard theory, a result labeled the “Harrington paradox” in the literature. Enforcement data from Norway presented here appears, at first glance, to confirm this “stylized fact”: firms are inspected less than once a year, detected violators are seldom fined, but still, serious violations seem relatively rare. However, at a closer look, the pattern seems less paradoxical: enforcement of minor violations is lax, but such violations do flourish; serious violations, on the other hand, are subject to credible threats of harsh punishment, and such violations are more uncommon. This seems quite consistent with predictions from standard theory. We argue that the empirical existence of the Harrington paradox is not well documented in the international literature. The claim that firms’ compliance with environmental regulations is generally higher than predicted by standard theory should thus be regarded as a hypothesis rather than an established fact.     

Regulatory objectives and enforcement behavior

Economic models of enforcing environmental law have incorporated varying assumptions about regulatory objectives. This paper examines the consequences of different attitudes toward the benefits and costs of pollution control on the part of regulators who have limited powers and resources. We find that greater weight given to compliance costs relative to the social damages of the polluting activity will bring outcomes closer to the optimum when the regulator is strong, but may move outcome further from the social optimum when regulatory powers are weak. When negotiated noncompliance is an option, greater consideration of compliance costs will tend to produce better results.     

Self-enforcing International Environmental Agreements with Costly Monitoring for Compliance

Theoretical analyses of international environmental agreements (IEAs) have often employed the concept of self-enforcing agreements to predict the number of parties to such an agreement. The term self-enforcing, however, is a bit misleading. The concept refers to the stability of cooperative agreements, not to enforcing compliance with these agreements once they are in place. In this paper we analyze an IEA game in which parties to an agreement finance an independent monitor who audits the compliance performance of the members of an agreement. These audits reveal instances of noncompliance so they can be sanctioned. We find that costly monitoring of compliance limits the circumstances under which international cooperation to protect the environment is worthwhile, but when IEAs do form they will often involve greater participation than IEAs that do not require costly monitoring. Consequently, costly monitoring of IEAs can produce higher international environmental quality. Moreover, under certain conditions, aggregate welfare is higher when IEAs require costly monitoring.      

The Financing of Regulatory Agencies

This paper examines the financing of monitoring agencies deriving the welfare-improving combinations of public revenue, industry fees, and penalties that should be used to finance quality regulations. The model shows that if some firms are not expected to comply with quality standards, penalties are optimal to cover the agencys regulatory exposure though these need to be augmented with other instruments as monitoring costs increase. If all firms are expected to comply with the quality standards, a per-firm fee is the optimal method of regulatory financing but needs to be augmented with a lump-sum tax as monitoring costs increase.Jel classification: H21, L51The authors extend their thanks to Editor Michael Crew and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. All errors are ours.     

中国企业环境保护合规风险防范机制与对策

国内外环境保护形势的变化要求我国企业必须实现环保合规经营。由于历史原因,我国企业走的是广义“违规”的路子,这种“违规”惯性导致我国企业正面临很大的“环境保护合规风险”。加强我国企业环境保护合规风险防范机制建设是我国企业进行环境保护合规风险识别、防范和补救的关键。本文应用制度经济学的基本研究框架,在分析我国企业环境保护外部环境、内部风险控制制度以及我国企业环境保护合规现状的基础上,提出了加强我国企业环境保护合规风险防范机制的结论及相关对策。     

Regulatory Enforcement with Discretionary Fining and Litigation

In this paper, we focus on the determination of the optimal fine set by a regulator when a firm can litigate to avoid paying the fine and the monitoring agency has discretionary power to negotiate with the firm the size of the fine. The regulator needs to balance the positive effect of the fine's size on the degree of non–compliance and the possibility of litigation if the fine is too high. We find that the optimal fine is not necessarily set at its maximum level.     

税收遵从成本对企业纳税遵从的影响分析——基于企业逃税模型的视角

在传统的A-S逃税模型中加入税收遵从成本因素分析以及对纳税遵从的影响,只适用于个人纳税。运用企业逃税模型分析税收遵从成本对企业纳税遵从的影响不仅符合企业实际,而且在我国更有现实意义。当前,应完善税收征管,简化税制,优化税收环境,从根本上降低企业税收遵从成本。     

Corporate Lobbying, Regulatory Conduct and the Porter Hypothesis

Michael Porter, the influential Harvard management guru, has promoted the idea that compliance with stricter environmental regulations can afford secondary benefits to firms through improved product design, innovation, corporate morale and in other ways. Once these secondary benefits are factored, the net cost of compliance is argued to be lower than conventionally thought and may even be negative. Whilst environmental economists have rejected the Porter Hypothesis as being based on excessively optimistic expectations of the likely size of such secondary benefits the underlying ideas do enjoy significant credence in the business community. In the context of a lobbying model of regulatory policy-making we argue that the EPA should change the way it conducts regulatory policy to take account of Porter's views – even if it knows those views to be misguided. The model serves to illustrate the more general point that fashions in management thinking can be expected to impact the optimal conduct of regulatory policy.     

Regulation and Evolution of Compliance in Common Pool Resources

The evolution of compliance with regulation and the evolution of a CPR stock are modeled jointly in a setup where replicator dynamics describing compliance with harvesting rules are combined with resource stock dynamics. This evolutionary approach suggests that in long‐run equilibrium, coexistence of both cooperative and non‐cooperative rules is possible under regulation. Stock effects on profits and a certain structure of auditing probabilities could imply the emergence of a limit cycle in areas of low stock levels, as an equilibrium outcome. It might be easier for the regulator to obtain full compliance under precommitment to fixed auditing probabilities.     

美国的环境管制影响分析

根据外部性理论,只有当实施环境管制政策的社会收益大于社会成本时,才意味着政府管制相对于市场缺失是更有效率的。因此,成本—收益分析可以作为评估管制政策效率的标准之一。20世纪70年代以来,美国最早在环境领域引入系统的成本—收益分析(管制影响分析),取得了较好的效果。借鉴并及早引进管制影响分析对于提高我国环境管制政策的制定和执行效果有重要意义。     

Effectiveness of environmental regulations under imperfect enforcement and the firm's avoidance behavior

This paper explicitly defines enforcement quality and develops a model by incorporating enforcement quality and the firm's avoidance behavior. The results indicate that the effectiveness of environmental regulations is likely to depend upon the level of enforcement quality, as well as upon the nature of the firm's avoidance behavior. Policy instruments may become incompatible under certain circumstances. Enforcement quality should be properly targeted to enhance functional harmonization between instruments. The condition under which emission tax is more effective under imperfect enforcement than under complete enforcement is also identified.     

Efficient Environmental Policy with Imperfect Compliance

Discussions of efficient environmental policytend to recommend taxes rather than quotas ongrounds of efficiency; a uniform tax willequalize marginal abatement cost betweenpolluters. When polluters' actions are imperfectly observable, the distinction betweentaxes and quotas becomes less clear. Taxes maybe evaded by underreporting of emissions, whilequota violations will not always be discovered.This paper explores the conditions under whichthe efficiency properties of taxes continue tohold even when evasion is possible, and theextent to which the fine for quota violationsplays the same role as a tax on emissions withsimilar efficiency properties.     

Personalist Economics: Moral Convictions,Economic Realities,And Social Action

We examine the relationship between the administrative enforcement of environmental regulation, ethnic heterogeneity, and other community characteristics in New Jersey and New York. We find that the percentage of non-white population in a community is positively related with administrative penalties imposed on violators. However, penalties are lower in more ethnically diverse communities. This result may be due to the fact that these communities are less likely to coordinate to create solidarity across ethnic groups and demand stronger enforcement.     

监管存在“扶贫效应”吗*——基于我国上市公司处罚事件的研究

本文以我国2001—2015年被中国证监会及其下属证监局处罚的上市公司为样本，研究了我国证券市场监管是否存在“扶贫效应”。研究发现，违规企业所在地区的经济发展水平越低，它们受到的处罚程度越轻，即监管机构会相对弱化对落后地区上市公司的监管力度。这表明我国证券市场监管可能存在“扶贫效应”。并且，与行政处罚相比，非行政处罚性监管措施更容易成为监管“扶贫”的手段。在控制了内生性问题后，上述结论仍然成立。本文以我国上市公司为例，初步揭示了监管“扶贫效应”的存在性，丰富了选择性执法领域的研究。同时，本文的分析框架和研究结论对于我国深化多层次证券市场改革具有重要的参考价值。     

中国排污费制度监管环节博弈分析

对中国排污费监管问题建立博弈模型进行分析、研究得到:(1)当罚金、超标排污费较高时,地方政府能否从超标排污中获得直接利益不是企业超标排污决策的重要影响因素;(2)若罚金与超标排污费较小,超标排污是企业较好的选择;(3)若罚金与超标排污费之和大于污染治理成本两倍,且大于政府监督成本,企业超标排污的概率与监督成本成正比关系,与超标排污费与监督成本之和成发比例关系;(4)地方政府所能获得罚金与超标排污费,以及必须承担的监督成本多少对超标排污有重要影响。     

Enforcing Transferable Permit Systems in the Presence of Market Power

We derive an enforcementstrategy for a transferable permit system inthe presence of market power that achievescomplete compliance in a cost-effective manner.We show that the presence of a firm with marketinfluence makes designing an enforcementstrategy more difficult than enforcing aperfectly competitive system. We alsore-consider Hahn's (1984) suggestion that afirm with market influence should be allocatedpermits so that it chooses to not participatein the permit market. When enforcement and itscosts are taken into account, Hahn's suggestiondoes not hold except in a very special case.     

Pooling of Uncertainty: Enforcing Tradable Permits Regulation when Emissions are Stochastic

An under-appreciated advantage of tradable permits regulation is its ability to create better decision-making when emissions are stochastic. In general, the distribution of stochastic actual emissions around intended emissions results in over- or under-compliance. Permit tradability reduces the extent to which actual aggregate emissions deviate from regulatory targets, by giving firms an additional mechanism for responding to uncertainty. We construct a two period model of permit regulation with ex post enforcement to demonstrate how the permit market distributes uncertainty, and to illustrate the importance of expectations toward permit market outcomes.     

合规成本与中小股东保护——从跨境上市和自愿性退市谈起

如何在适度监管、降低企业合规成本的同时实现对中小股东有力的保护是一个没有现成答案的议题。在美国和日本上市的外国公司的自愿性退市,折射了过度监管出现的合规成本给企业带来的问题。中国的资本市场建立时间不长,在取得巨大成就的同时也面临着很多的挑战,尤其是对小股东保护更需加强。在中国设立国际板的尝试中,必须处理好合规和保护中小股东利益的关系。     

Environmental Enforcement with Endogenous Ambient Monitoring

We consider an inspection game between n polluting firms and an environmental enforcement agency. If the cost of monitoring ambient pollution is low enough, the optimal inspection policy consists in imposing the maximal possible fine, and mixing between observing ambient pollution and not conducting any inspection at all. However, with stringent upper limits on the fine, the agency mixes between observing ambient pollution and inspecting all firms. The observation of ambient pollution is always followed by sequentially rational firm inspections. Comparisons with Franckx (2002a, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 43, 71–92, 2002b, Topics in Economic Analysis Policy 2(1), Article 1) show that commitment power has a very strong impact on the value of prior information.     

Compliance with Endogenous Audit Probabilities

In this paper, we study the effect of endogenous audit probabilities on reporting behavior in a face‐to‐face compliance situation, such as at customs. In an experimental setting in which underreporting has a higher expected payoff than truthful reporting, we find an increase in compliance of about 80 percent if subjects have reason to believe that their behavior towards an officer influences their endogenous audit probability. Higher compliance is driven by considerations about how their own appearance and performance affect their audit probability, rather than by the social and psychological effects of face‐to‐face contact.