Local environmental regulation and plant-level productivity

This paper examines the impact of environmental regulation on the productivity of manufacturing plants in the United States. Establishment-level data from three Censuses of Manufactures are used to estimate 3-factor Cobb-Douglas production functions that include a measure of the stringency of environmental regulation faced by manufacturing plants. In contrast to previous studies, this paper examines effects on plants in all manufacturing industries, not just those in “dirty” industries. Further, this paper employs spatial-temporal variation in environmental compliance costs to identify effects, using a time-varying county-level index that is based on multiple years of establishment-level data from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey and the Annual Survey of Manufactures. Results suggest that, for the average manufacturing plant, there is no statistically significant effect on productivity of being in a county with higher environmental compliance costs. For the average plant, the main effect of environmental regulation may not be in the spatial and temporal dimensions.     

Optimal environmental regulation based on more than just emissions

I develop a principal-agent model of environmental regulation in which the regulator can acquire two costly signals of the firm’s abatement effort. Acquisition of the second signal is conditioned on the observed value of the first, emissions signal. The optimal contract takes the form of an emissions standard when only the emissions signal is acquired, and a set of contingent emissions standards when both signals are acquired; the standards are coupled with uniform, maximal penalties for noncompliance. Acquisition of the second signal may be optimal when intermediate values of the first signal are observed but not when extreme values are observed.      

Legal regulation of enterprises'' environmental impact: a survey

The enterprise coordinates social resources, which changes the dialogue between human and the environ-ment into that between enterprise and environment. The profit-making character of enterprise leads to the abandon-ment of environmental ethics. Enterprise, which has the capability to solve environmental problems, however, lacks-the motive to do it. It has controlling power over society and should assume the responsibility of environmental protection. For its lack of environmental conscience, the external institutional arrangements should be made for enterprise. The strategy for environmental cost should be designed in connection with the interest orientation of en-terprise. And various tegal measures in constitutional law, social law, civil law, administrative law and criminal law should be utilized to regulate enterprise's behaviors regarding environmental protection.     

Are environmental concerns drivers of innovation? Interpreting Portuguese innovation data to foster environmental foresight

The relationship between environmental concerns and innovation is analyzed in the context of Portuguese manufacturing firms, with the ultimate goal to foster measures of environmental foresight.Based on data from the Community Innovation Survey in Portugal, simple statistical tests, including Chi², t, and Levene's tests and contingency tables (adjusted standardized residuals), were used to study the relationship between firms' characteristics and the introduction of innovation aiming to reduce environmental damage. Environmental foresight is discussed based on three groups of variables that allow considering the industrial context that frames firm's actions, the economic performance of the firm and its innovation patterns.Results show that the development of innovation due to environmental concerns is positively associated with the firm's size and exports share, and negatively associated with its technological content. Moreover, it is shown that the firms that introduced innovations due to environmental concerns are likely to belong to an economic group, to have performed continuous R&D, or received public support. It is also shown that “lack of organizational flexibility” and “lack of receptivity by customers” are the two most relevant innovation barriers for these firms.     

Factors that determine the cost-effectiveness ranking of second-best instruments for environmental regulation

This paper develops a conceptual model to analyze how specific factors affect the compliance costs of three suboptimal policy instruments, when compared to the optimal ambient permit system (APS) benchmark. The model considers a non-uniformly mixed pollutant and explicitly incorporates the following factors: number of polluting sources; size, in terms of emissions, of each process; marginal abatement costs for each process; effluent concentrations; the transfer coefficient that relates emissions to environmental quality at the receptor; and the desired environmental quality target. APS is compared to a suboptimal emission permit system (EPS), and two Command and Control (CAC) policies—equal percentage reduction (PER) and a uniform effluent concentration standard (STD). The results show the importance of the different factors and their interactions in determining each policy instrument’s cost-effectiveness ranking. Surprisingly, EPS performs well within the usual values of these factors and in specific cases STD and PER also perform similarly to APS.      

Are clean technology and environmental quality conflicting policy goals?

We analyze the effects of an environmental policy on the diffusion of a clean technology. Compared to previous articles we consider that the polluting firms are competitors on the output market and we analyze the effects of the policy on the share of adopting firms in the economy. We show that this share is not monotonic with the stringency of the environmental policy. We also compare the effects of an emission tax and tradable pollution permits and we show that, depending again on the stringency of the policy, either the tax or the permits yields a higher degree of technology adoption.     

Hot spots regulation and environmental justice

This paper analyzes whether regulating “hot spots” of toxic air pollution by increasing the spatial resolution of regulation could address environmental justice (EJ) concerns. To examine this question, this paper develops a decision model of a regulator choosing emission controls within a net cost minimizing framework. An empirical application of the model using air toxic emission data for Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties in Florida estimates the emission standards and spatial distribution of risks at a coarse and a finer spatial resolutions. Implications for EJ are analyzed by combining the simulated spatial risk distributions at the two resolutions with the demographic data. Results indicate that different measures of EJ point to different conclusions regarding the question of whether finer resolution regulation alleviates EJ concerns. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for EJ policy.     

Environmental regulation: choice of instruments under imperfect compliance

Compliance is an important issue in environmental regulation. We discuss some of the key elements of the problem and analyze a situation where emissions are not random and firms are risk-neutral. We study the firm’s decision on emissions and compliance when the environmental regulation is based on standards and the enforcement agency audits the firm with a certain probability. We compare total emissions when environmental regulation is based on different instruments: standards, taxes, and tradable permits. We show that when compliance is an issue, environmental taxes are superior to the other instruments, and we analyze the (static) efficiency of the solution. This paper originated from the AEE/REE presidential address for the XXX Simposio de Análisis Económico (Murcia 2005). It builds on the research project on optimal enforcement in environmental problems done in collaboration with David Pérez-Castrillo. I would like to thank David Pérez-Castrillo and Pau Olivella for their useful comments. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (BEC2003-01132) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Barcelona Economics - CREA and 2005SGR-00836).     

Environmental innovation and the cost of pollution abatement revisited

It is widely assumed in the literature that environmental innovation reduces the marginal cost of pollution abatement. In this paper we show that this is not necessarily the case and we provide some unexpected outcomes.     

The empirical analysis of the determinants for environmental technological change: A research agenda

Technological change is usually considered a necessary albeit not sufficient condition for a transition to sustainability. However, the empirical analysis of the determinants to environmental technological change has not received too much attention in the environmental/ecological economics literature and many open questions remain in this context. Based on a careful review of the literature, this paper argues that further analysis should address several issues at different levels: i.e., regarding the conceptual framework, the thematic scope of the studies, some methodological issues and other aspects related to the environmental policy variable. First, an integrated conceptual framework which takes into account the interplay between relevant variables influencing environmental technological change (i.e., factors internal and external to the firm and characteristics of the environmental technologies) and all the stages of this process, with a greater emphasis on the invention stage, should be developed. Other aspects should then be tackled, including a focus on several themes (i.e., a greater attention to cross-sectoral technologies, the barriers to different types of environmental technologies, the international dimension of environmental technological change and environmental technological change in small and medium size enterprises), methodological issues (combination of case studies and econometric modelling) and several issues related to the environmental policy variable.     

Co-ordinated environmental regulation: controlling non-point nitrate pollution while maintaining river flows

Environmental policy often addresses multiple targets, yet much economic analysis of pollution control is based on a single-target objective. In this paper, we present an analysis of policies to control non-point source nitrate pollution in the presence of minimum river flow restrictions. A non-linear bio-physical economic optimisation model of an intensively cultivated Scottish agricultural catchment was constructed. The presence of minimum river flow controls in the catchment was found to reduce nitrogen pollution. However, by themselves, river flow controls were found not to be a cost effective means to reduce non-point pollution. We quantify the improved social welfare from coordinating the environmental regulation of river flows and pollution, and determine the conditions under which such coordination is beneficial. The paper also investigates whether the benefits of such coordination can be sustained under wetter (winter) weather conditions implied by current climate change predictions.     

Efficiency losses from overlapping regulation of EU carbon emissions

In order to achieve their climate policy targets EU member states apply various regulatory instruments. We investigate the potential efficiency losses arising from the imposition of emission taxes on sectors that are covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Our analysis indicates the possibility of substantial excess cost through overlapping regulation. We show that unilateral emission taxes on sectors subject to the EU ETS are environmentally ineffective and increase overall compliance cost of the EU ETS.      

Designing environmental policy: lessons from the regulation of mercury emissions

In its waning days, the Clinton administration decided that it was appropriate to regulate mercury emissions from power plants. The incoming Bush administration had to decide how best to regulate these emissions. The Bush administration offered two approaches for regulating mercury emissions from power plants. The first was to establish uniform emission rates across utilities, as mandated by the 1990 Amendments. The second was to establish a cap on mercury emissions while allowing emissions trading in order to reduce the cost of achieving the goal. This paper presents the first cost-benefit analysis of this issue that takes account of IQ benefits. We find that the benefits of the mercury regulation are likely to fall short of the cost. This assessment is based on a number of assumptions that are highly uncertain. The finding of negative net benefits is robust to many, though not all, reasonable variations in the model assumptions. We also find that the emissions trading proposal is roughly $15 billion less expensive than the command-and-control proposal. Mr. Gayer is associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Hahn is co-founder and executive director of the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies and a scholar at AEI. We would like to thank Mary Jo Krolewski, Leonard Levin, Joel Schwartz, Anne Smith, Nik Wada, and Chris Whipple for helpful comments and Jordan Connors, Laura Goodman and Molly Wells for valuable research assistance. The views expressed in this paper represent those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the institutions with which they are affiliated.     

Timing of environmental inspections: survival of the compliant

Environmental inspection agencies have limited resources. A natural response to this shortage of resources is targeting and this targeting policy leads to higher compliance than random inspections. This paper uses individual inspection data on the inspection policy of the environmental agency for the textile industry in Flanders (Belgium). We distinguish between three types of inspections and use a survival model to show that the environmental agency inspects firms in a non-random way. Even though the agency solves most environmental problems, it can increase compliance by using the deterrence effect of more stringent inspections and sanctions.      

Evolutionary thinking in environmental economics

Evolutionary and environmental economics have a potentially close relationship. This paper reviews past and identifies potential applications of evolutionary concepts and methods to environmental economics. This covers a number of themes: resource use and ecosystem management; growth and environmental resources; economic and evolutionary progress; and individual behavior and environmental policy. The treatment will address both biological and economic—including institutional, organizational and technological-evolutionary phenomena. Attention will be drawn to the fact that evolutionary economics shows a surprising neglect of environmental and natural resource factors.

Environmental regulation and trade pattern：a case of China

As a growing number of countries, including both developed and developing countries, have in recent yearstaken environmental regulation at different levels, a question of great concern has been raised： can the regulation alterthe existing trade volume and trade pattern, and ultimately drive pollution-intensive industries to countries with low-levelregulations or even those without regulations at all？ Starting from the three different propositions concerning therelationship between environmental regulation and trade pattern, this paper applies cointegration analysis and errorcorrection model to empirically testing the relationship between environmental regulation and trade in China during theperiod of 1985-2005. Our empirical results indicate that in the short run the collection of pollution discharge fees bearsa positive impact on the export share of clean products of total exports. Thus, higher pollution discharge fees raise theratio of clean products exports to total exports. This further indicates that more stringent environmental regulationpromotes the exports of clean products. In the long run pollution discharge fees are positively correlated with the exportshare of clean products but negatively associated with their import share. Such correlations imply that environmentalregulation tends to facilitate the international specialization in line with comparative advantages.     

Productivity and environmental regulation: the effect of the nitrates directive in the French pig sector

This paper measures the ensuing changes in productivity in the French pig sector following the introduction of the European regulation addressing water pollution by nitrates from agriculture. Productivity is measured using the Malmquist–Luenberger index. The sources of changes in productivity observed are examined by breaking down this index into its technical progress and efficiency components. The results show that in the early stages, increases in productivity were stimulated by increased efficiency, before being driven by technical progress. The estimations regarding the sources of efficiency gains for the farms in the sample (technical efficiency, efficiency of scale and environmental efficiency) are then used to estimate the indirect costs and benefits (or negative costs) linked to the introduction of the environmental regulation controlling the disposal of organic manure and the management of nitrogen surplus from pig farms. The existence of a “win-win” effect as regards the Porter hypothesis relation between efficiency and environmental regulation is highlighted for the French pig sector.      

Health benefits of tunneling through the Chinese environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)

In this paper, we first add to what is a growing literature on the existence and nature of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model for developing countries, by testing for the existence of an EKC for China using a panel data set of city-specific, annual ambient levels of SO₂ pollution. We find some support for both the typical inverted-U-shaped relationship and an N-shaped, cubic configuration. More significantly, we then explore the possibility of China's “tunneling” through the EKC, by using newer, cleaner technologies, and thereby avoiding some of the environmental degradation that had often accompanied economic growth. Specifically, we estimate and economically value the health benefits realizable to Chinese cities from successful efforts to “tunnel” under the EKC over the next generation.     

市场推进技术创新、专利、标准协同转化路径分析

为冲破国际竞争旧格局,行之有效的方法是采用技术创新成果专利化-专利标准化-标准垄断化模式,这是新一轮国际竞争的主要路径之一,在市场层面上做好文章是我国企业参与全球技术标准竞争的有效策略之一。从技术、市场、对象重要度3个维度,提炼出市场推进技术创新、专利、标准协同转化的4种模式,并分析每种模式的典型特征、作用机理和实施条件,可为企业完善和加速协同转化进程提供策略与建议。     

动态及竞争环境下双元创新与企业可持续发展关系研究

企业如何通过创新活动实现可持续发展是学术界和企业界共同关注的重大理论与实践问题。基于创新管理理论、可持续发展理论和情景因素理论,以环境动态性和竞争性为调节变量,深入探讨双元创新及其协同性对企业可持续发展的影响。通过对252家高新技术企业多源问卷调查的实证研究表明:利用式创新、探索式创新与双元创新协同性对企业可持续发展均具有显著正向影响,但对企业可持续发展各维度的作用机制不同;动态与竞争环境下,探索式创新对企业可持续发展的影响更为显著;环境动态性和竞争性均正向调节探索式创新与企业可持续发展的关系;环境动态性负向调节双元创新协同性与企业可持续发展的关系。