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.      

Multiple equilibria in the context of inspection probabilities depending on firms’ relative emissions

This paper presents a model of environmental regulations with firms that are heterogeneous with respect to the cost for reducing emissions to the legally permitted level. Given that the enforcement capacity is limited due to budgetary constraints and that each firm's inspection probability depends on its emissions relative to other firms’ emissions, the likelihood of being punished for violations is endogenously determined and multiple equilibria may therefore arise. Hence, both good outcomes with high compliance rates and bad outcomes with many violations are possible. Multiple equilibria are most likely to emerge at intermediate levels of deterrence and at low permitted emission levels. However, it is generally not straightforward how stricter legislation impacts on equilibrium outcomes, indicating that behavioral expectations among regulated firms are an important factor to consider when adapting enforcement to changes in the law.     

Pollution abatement with limited enforcement power and citizen suits

Federal environmental laws in the U.S. can be enforced by government agencies or by private parties through citizen suits against polluters. Here, I extend the standard enforcement model to examine the role played by citizen suits. The main results from the paper suggest that in a model with limited enforcement power and citizen suits the regulator fully exercises his enforcement power when the expected penalty from a citizen suit is low, but increases his reliance on citizen suits as the expected penalty rises. Whether an enforcement regime that allows private enforcement is efficient depends not only on the relative costs of private and agency enforcement, but also on the changes in inspection costs that may be caused by private enforcement and the expected penalty from losing a citizen suit. These results suggest that in practice private enforcement may lower social costs as long as relatively inexpensive agency enforcement options, such as administrative proceedings, do not preclude citizen suits.      

Self-Reporting and Private Enforcement in Environmental Regulation

Self-reporting of compliance status has become a common feature in the enforcement of environmental regulation. In this paper, I generalize existing models of enforcement with self-reporting to include the possibility of private enforcement of regulation through citizen suits. This allows me to identify an additional argument for the efficiency of self-reporting: it can increase the likelihood of a successful suit and thus facilitate private enforcement of regulation. Specifically, if self-reporting sufficiently increases the expected penalty for losing a citizen suit, if the costs of private enforcement are low, and if inspection costs are high enough relative to enforcement costs, self-reporting lowers expected regulatory and social costs by allowing the regulator to rely on private enforcement and decrease his enforcement efforts.

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The merits of non-tradable quotas as a domestic policy instrument to prevent firm closure

Many countries fear that adopting a domestic tradable quota system for greenhouse gases that requires all emitters to pay for their quotas may lead to closures of emissions-intensive industrial companies. The starting point of this paper is that a government, to avoid firm closure, has opted to allocate quotas free of charge to emission-intensive industries. The aim of this paper is to explore to what extent making the free quotas tradable or non-tradable will affect investment in new abatement technology and firm closure. The conclusion is that the expectations about future product prices and the number of quotas distributed free of charge are crucial for the difference in the properties of tradable and non-tradable quotas.     

The effects of air quality regulations on the location decisions of pollution-intensive manufacturing plants

This research examines the effects of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) on the location decisions of pollution-intensive manufacturing plants. We develop a panel data set to analyze plant births of polluting manufacturers over time as a function county-level attainment status of the federal standard for ozone pollution. We find that more stringent county-level environmental regulations impact pollution-intensive capital flows through deterring new plant births. We also find that the impact of stricter regulations varies by pollution-intensity of manufacturers, with results suggesting that federal guidelines have a greater impact on high pollution intensive manufacturers than more moderate polluters.      

Is environmental regulation bad for competition? A survey

Theoretical and empirical research points to environmental regulation affecting the vigour of competition in product markets. We provide a critical, selective survey of that research. Environmental regulations can advantage large firms over small and raise concentration. They can discourage entry in their own right, and provide instruments with which incumbents can discourage entry strategically. They can provide the basis for predatory behavior by incumbents. Policy governance needs to be coordinated sufficiently to ensure that these secondary effects are accounted for in policy design. Cost-benefit evaluation of environmental policies that fail to account for likely detrimental impacts on product market competition will overstate the net benefits. This survey is a heavily-revised version of a discussion paper that the author wrote for presentation to a meeting of the OECD Competition Committee in June 2006 (OECD 2006). The support of OECD in the writing of that paper is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also to Nick Johnstone, Jean-Phillipe Barde, Jeremy West, Sandeep Kapur, Michael Crew and an anonymous referee from this journal for helpful comments on earlier versions. All views expressed are those of the author alone.     

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.     

环境规制、政治关联与环境信息披露质量--基于重污染上市公司经验证据

以2010—2012年沪市重污染行业上市公司为样本,实证检验环境规制与环境信息披露质量的相关性,并进一步探讨政治关联对环境规制实施效果的影响。研究结果表明：上市公司环境信息披露质量总体偏低,行业、地区差异显著;环境规制对环境信息披露质量的影响存在“区间效应”,且因产权性质而异,其中,环境规制与国有企业环境信息披露质量呈“U”型关系,民营企业环境信息披露质量呈倒“U”型关系;政治关联会对环境规制与环境信息披露质量的关系产生调节作用,相比于一般民营企业,高政治关联民营企业环境信息披露质量对环境规制的敏感性更强（倒“U”型曲线更陡峭）、容忍度更弱（倒“U”型曲线更早出现拐点）。     

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).     

经济发展方式转变与节能减排内在动力

经济发展阶段变化所引起的增长方式转变的内在需要,以及人均收入水平提高所引起的对环境质量的更高要求,是节能减排政策能否实现与地方政府的发展动机及企业行为激励相容,从而真正得以贯彻的关键。本文通过拟合环境库兹涅茨曲线、预测排放水平从提高到下降的转折点,考察了中国经济内在的节能减排要求。我们的研究结果显示,对于温室气体的减排来说,被动等待库兹涅茨转折点的到来,已无法应对日益增加的环境压力。在这种情况下,需要依靠中央政府的决心、地方政府和企业转变增长方式的动机,加大激励力度,以实现可持续经济增长。     

低碳经济背景下现代企业的社会责任研究--基于环境资本依赖视角

中国的环境问题日益严峻,企业应承担主要责任,正是由于污染负外部性使企业依赖环境资本获得超级收益。文章从企业以利润最大化为最终目标的角度出发,首先基于柯布-道格拉斯生产模型,分析了环境资本对企业最高收益的影响,发现加入环境资本的三重路径依赖与传统双重路径依赖的资源最优化配置存在差异。其次文章依据污染强度区分行业异质性,运用DEA方法对产业全要素生产率进行了测算,发现考虑了环境资本的绿色全要素生产率普遍下降,进一步印证了环境资本对企业发展的额外贡献。研究发现企业的可持续发展必须克服典型的经济理性,内化环境污染成本,转变为“环境经济人”。同时政府需要实施环境规制,并防止企业发生寻租行为,从体制政策和市场调节多方面入手,提高现代企业主动承担环境社会责任的自觉性,以促进经济可持续发展。     

会计师事务所受监管部门处罚的因素分析——来自中国资本市场审计监管的经验证据

通过研究中国证监会的审计监管行为,文章发现客户质量和事务所专业性是影响会计师事务所是否受到证监会处罚的重要因素。事务所审计客户的平均盈利水平越高,应收账款的水平越低,事务所被证监会处罚的概率就越小。事务所业务的行业集中度越高,被证监会处罚的概率也越低。上述发现在剔除了四大会计师事务所之后仍然存在,而且不随变量度量方式的变化而改变,也不随证监会监管体制的变化而改变。     

Selective penalization of polluters: an inf-convolution approach

Summary. We consider an asymmetric polluting oligopoly. We demonstrate that optimal tax rates per unit of emission are not the same for all firms. We call this property selective penalization. Our Optimal Distortion Theorem states that the efficient tax structure requires that high cost firms pay a higher tax rate. Our Pro-concentration Motive Theorem states that optimal taxes increase the concentration of the industry, as measured by the Herfindahl index. Our Magnification Effect indicates that the variance of marginal costs is magnified by a factor which depends on the marginal cost of public funds.JEL Classification Numbers: Q20, D60, D63.We wish to thank Peter Neary, Kim Long, Raymond Riezman and a referee for very helpful comments. Financial support from SSHRC and FCAR are gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Hassan Benchekroun, Kim Long, and Koji Shimomura for discussions and comments.     

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.