Regulation of Performance Standards versus Equipment Specification with Asymmetric Information

Economists have greatly criticized regulations that impose uniform environmental standards. Such a critic ignores that the implementation of the standards may vary significantly across plants, thus giving rise in fact to non-uniform standards. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the regulator's monitoring activities. We show that greater inspection effort, ceteris paribus, is allocated towards those plants whose emissions are likely to generate a higher level of damages. On the other hand, we show that the behavior of the regulator is also a function of variables that may not be directly related to abatement cost and damages. In particular, we show that variables pertaining to local labor market conditions have an impact on the monitoring strategy adopted by the regulator.     

Relative Emission Standard versus Tax under Oligopoly: The Role of Free Entry

We compare the effects of an emission tax, and those of a relative emission standard, on welfare and pollution levels under oligopolistic market structures. We consider the cases where the number of firms is fixed and where there is free entry and exit of firms. When the number of firms is fixed, (i) a relative emission standard is welfare-superior to an emission-equivalent emission tax, and (ii) an emission tax is emission-superior to a welfare-equivalent relative emission standard. Under free entry and exit, the results are just the opposite when the inverse demand function is concave.     

Emission Taxes versus Other Environmental Policies

In the environmental policy of most countries, various forms of quotas and direct regulation are more important than environmental taxes. This paper addresses four arguments which are often given against the use of emission taxes. The three arguments related to information asymmetries and non-convexities are valid in the sense that they point to complications in the use of environmental taxes. The fourth argument is related to the employment effects of different types of environmental policies in economies with unemployment. Although this argument is frequently used by politicians, the analysis provides no justification for it. On the contrary: in the model used, employment is higher with environmental taxes than with non-revenue-raising environmental policies.     

On the Efficiency of Competitive Markets for Emission Permits

It is typical for economists andpolicy makers alike to presume that competitivemarkets allocate emission permits efficiently.This paper demonstrates that competition in theemission permits market cannot assureefficiency when the product market isoligopolistic. We provide the conditions underwhich a bureaucratic mechanism is welfaresuperior to a tradeable emission permitssystem. Price-taking behaviour in the permitsmarket ensures transfer of licenses to the lessefficient in abatement firms, which then becomemore aggressive in the product market,acquiring additional permits. As a result, theless efficient firms end up with a higher thanthe welfare maximizing share of emissionpermits. If the less efficient in abatementfirms are also less efficient in production,competitive trading of permits may result inlower output and welfare.     

寡头市场具有混合捆绑销售契约的竞争分析

在寡头竞争市场环境下,生产完全互补产品的厂商可以通过谈判签约并使用"混合捆绑"策略进行竞争,如电信运营商与手机厂商共同推出的签约套餐和预付费套餐。针对这种行为,文章构建了一个包含两组互补品厂商的寡头博弈模型,研究混合捆绑销售契约对市场价格、厂商利润和社会福利的影响。研究表明:当只有一组厂商签订混合捆绑销售契约时,签约厂商能够从捆绑折扣中获得竞争优势,而竞争对手则被迫降低自己产品价格并在竞争中处于劣势;当两组厂商均签订混合捆绑销售契约时,围绕捆绑产品的竞争将使得捆绑折扣进一步提高,但各自的利润却下降了。然而当这种签约策略内生时,所有厂商将选择签订契约并进行捆绑销售,从而陷入"囚徒困境"。最终,在互补产品"纵向外部性"和系统产品"横向外部性"的共同作用下,混合捆绑销售契约提高了消费者剩余而降低了社会福利。基于本文分析,应该反对竞争政策对厂商谈判签订契约使用混合捆绑策略进行竞争的行为。文章的贡献在于从契约的角度研究厂商之间的捆绑销售策略,并运用统一的分析框架考察了不同契约结构下厂商实施捆绑销售的动机,对于深化捆绑销售的理论研究和完善竞争政策具有重要的借鉴意义。     

寡占市场下的广告成因探究

依照微观经济学和产业组织理论,高度集中产业市场中的寡头厂商往往会在价格变量上形成暗中或默契的价格串谋,使产业市场处在一种“准完全垄断”的状态。广告是企业主要的非价格竞争变量之一,重复博弈的结果使得寡头厂商能够走出囚徒困境(放弃产品的广告宣传),而垄断利润的存在导致第三方潜在进入的威胁,在位寡头厂商必然会联合起来进行抵制,通过广告串谋提高市场进入壁垒。     

Regulating a Polluting Oligopoly: Emission Tax or Voluntary Agreement?

This paper compares, in a polluting oligopoly, an emission tax and a form of environmental policy called voluntary agreement (VA). Here there are two ways of reducing pollution: output contraction and end‐of‐pipe abatement. Given the imperfect competition, firms’ reaction to the tax is sub‐optimal. They reduce output excessively in order to raise the price and do not abate enough. The VA is a take‐it‐or‐leave‐it contract on abatement effort, offered to the firms with the threat of a tax. It has a limited effect on output and always allows higher abatement than the tax. We find that this kind of VA may be more efficient than the tax in a concentrated industry, when pollution is not too harmful and when the abatement technology is rather efficient and cheap.     

风险厌恶与国有寡占市场的资源配置效率——以我国成品油市场为例

作为传统寡占理论与我国国情相结合的产物,国有寡占市场受到越来越多的关注。本文以风险厌恶倾向为切入点,从缺少职业经理人市场、优越的生存环境和目标多重性三方面分析了国有寡占企业风险厌恶倾向的成因,并构建理论模型分析这种风险厌恶倾向对国有寡占市场资源配置效率的影响。结果表明,风险厌恶倾向使国有寡占企业面对成本风险时,价格和产量相对利润最大化值分别升高和降低,面对需求风险时,价格和产量同时低于利润最大化值,两种情况都使国有寡占市场资源配置效率降低,而固定成本的升高会进一步加大资源配置效率的损失。本文最后以我国石化行业成品油市场为案例,验证理论模型的结论,并提出了政策建议。     

环境规制、双元创新与企业绩效:环境动态性的调节作用

基于"波特假说"和双元理论,以双元创新为中介变量,以环境动态性为调节变量,探讨环境规制对企业绩效的内在影响机理,通过利用中国A股上市公司2013—2017年的数据进行实证分析,结果发现:(1)环境规制对企业绩效具有显著的促进效应,支持了"波特假说";(2)探索式创新在环境规制与企业绩效之间发挥了部分中介作用,而开发式创新在两者关系间的中介作用未得到显著性体现;(3)环境动态性不仅增强了环境规制与企业绩效之间的关系,同时也强化了探索式创新和开发式创新分别与企业绩效间的关系。     

Asymmetric Regulation of Identical Polluters in Oligopoly Models

Studies of optimal second-best environmental regulation of identical polluting agents have invariably ignored potentially welfare-improving asymmetric regulation by imposing equal regulatory treatment of identical firms at the outset. Yet, cost asymmetry between oligopoly firms may well give rise to private as well as social gains. A trade-off is demonstrated for the regulator, between private costs savings and additional social costs when asymmetric treatment is allowed. Asymmetry is indeed optimal for a range of plausible parameter values. Further, it is demonstrated that for a broad class of abatement cost functions, there is scope for increasing welfare while keeping both total output and total emission constant. Some motivating policy issues are discussed in light of the results, including international harmonization and global carbon dioxide reduction.     

On Efficiency of Decentralized Environmental Regulation

Contrary to conventional wisdom about an environmental race to the bottom, the theoretical literature as exemplified by Oates and Schwab [1988, Journal of Public Economics, 35:333–354] maintains that homogeneous jurisdictions’ decentralized choices are likely to be socially optimal because each locale sets capital tax rates to zero and sets optimal environmental standards. This paper shows the well-received Oates–Schwab-style efficiency result is not likely if allowed aggregate-emissions act as a firm-augmenting public input that benefits mobile firms.Thanks to participants at the University of Alberta and the reviewers and editors for their helpful comments     

Exports versus FDI in German Manufacturing: Firm Performance and Participation in International Markets

Recent theoretical work has been able to explain how even within narrowly defined industries, firms can exhibit heterogeneous degrees of participation in international commerce. Differences in productivity between firms are the principal explanation offered by theory to explain heterogeneity with respect to international commerce. In particular, theory predicts that the least productive firms will produce for the domestic market only, while better performers engage in export activities, and the top firms establish foreign subsidiaries. This paper presents an empirical test of the relationship between productivity and patterns of international trade and production. Using German firm‐level data from 1996 to 2002, we test the predicted rank ordering of productivity according to firms’ trade pattern by examining the distribution functions of the three subsets of firms for stochastic dominance. Our results are generally consistent with the predictions from theory, and document significant productivity differences according to trade patterns.     

On Emissions Trading and Market Structure: Cap-and-Trade versus Intensity Standards

This paper examines the interdependence between imperfect competition and emissions trading. We particularly analyze the long run equilibrium in a two-sector (‘clean’ and ‘dirty’) model with Cournot competition among firms who face a fixed cost of production. The clean sector is defined as the sector with the highest long run cost margin on emissions. We compare the welfare implications of a cap-and-trade scheme with an emissions trading scheme based on relative intensity standards. It is shown that a firm’s long run equilibrium output in the clean or dirty sector does not depend on the emissions trading format, but only depends on the fixed cost of producing in the respective sector. Intensity standards can result in clean firms selling allowances to dirty firms, or dirty firms selling to clean firms. The former outcome yields higher welfare. It is demonstrated that cap-and-trade outperforms the intensity-based trading scheme in terms of long run welfare with free entry and exit. With intensity standards the size of the clean sector is too large.     

Markets and Regulation: On the Contrast Between Free-Market Liberalism and Constitutional Liberalism

A liberalism that does not close its eyes to the constitutional level of choice must seek to extend the same fundamental logic that it applies in its theory of the market to the questions of what the sovereignty of the individual can mean, and how it can be secured, in constitutional matters. The problems that arise with such an extension to the constitutional level may well be more difficult than those that the liberal theory of the market has to deal with, and the conclusions that a constitutional liberalism arrives at may be less determinate that what the free-market approach pronounces. Yet, if these difficulties are inherent in the subject matter, and if the indeterminacy follows from arguments that we are required to accept, then denying them does not seem to be a promising strategy for strengthening the liberal paradigm.     

基于环境规制的中国出口企业绩效分析研究——以电子信息出口企业为例

环境规制对企业绩效的影响,是通过对生产成本、企业进入和技术创新等影响的传导机制而产生的,既有直接效应,也有间接效应.既有积极影响,也有消极影响.本文利用产业组织理论的结构-行为-绩效分析框架,分析环境规制对出口企业绩效影响的传导机制.研究表明,当政府对产业实施环境规制时,不仅生产成本发生变化,而且企业所在的市场结构以及市场行为也会发生变化.通过综合考察环境规制对各种因素的影响,才能够对环境规制对企业绩效的最终影响结果作出正确的解释,为管理部门和公众提供更为全面的企业环境绩效信息.     

Regulators Markets And Standards Coordination: Policy Lessons From Telepoint

Using quarterly data for 56 new ethical-drug products launched between 1989 and 1996, we estimate the coefficients of a regression equation that has cumulative future sales beyond the forecast period as its dependent variable and third-quarter sales, post-launch product improvements and promotional activities, pre-launch product quality and speed to market, and market growth as the independent variables. We find the future success of a new product to be detectable as early as the third quarter after launch, and that while post-launch promotional activities can contribute to that success, if the product has not shown signs of life by the third quarter it is unlikely to do so afterwards. The implication is that being first to the market can contribute to the success of a new drug, as can having the highest-quality drug, though neither being first nor being best is necessary. Rather, a new drug can be both the first and the best in its product category, but if strong signs of success do not appear within nine months after launch, the drug is likely to be fighting a losing uphill battle thereafter, even in a growing market. Or, at least in pharmaceuticals, you get only one bite at the cherry.     

Factors Influencing Corporate Environmental Protection Activities for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions: The Relationship Between Environmental and Financial Performance

This paper analyzes the relationship between a firm??s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its profitability in Japanese manufacturing. Defining the difference between the marginal revenue and cost of reducing GHG emissions as the ??net benefit,?? which is endogenously characterized by various factors, we estimate a switching regression model where the sign of the net benefit determines the relationship between GHG emissions and profitability. Our empirical analysis focuses on ISO 14001 adoption, market competition, uncertainty, financial flexibility, and share ownership structure as the factors, and indicates that firms with low firm-specific uncertainty, high financial flexibility, and a high proportion of large shareholders tend to have a nonnegative net benefit, so that the positive relationship between their GHG emissions and profitability is mitigated. On the other hand, although ISO 14001 adoption is generally considered to be an indicator of a firm??s stance on environmental proactiveness, it does not provide a sufficient incentive to reduce emissions. Factors such as uncertainty, financial flexibility, and share ownership structure are more important to GHG emission reductions.