Can voluntary environmental regulation promote corporate technological innovation?

The impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation has been widely discussed in the academic circle. Based on the panel data of 403 Chinese manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2015, this paper explored the role of voluntary environmental regulation in technological innovation. The results showed the following: First, both voluntary environmental information disclosure and environmental management system certification had a positive effect on corporate innovation investment. Second, compared with the impact of environmental information disclosure, the impact of environmental management system certification on corporate innovation investment was more significant. Third, there was a significant positive interaction between environmental information disclosure and environmental management system certification. Finally, the effect of voluntary environmental regulation on corporate technological innovation in heavily polluting industries was stronger than that in lightly polluting industries.     

Color me moral: White and black product colors influence prosocial behaviors

There are “moral meanings” that people ascribe to objects in white and black colors. Namely, it seems that people have been conditioned to see objects in white color as potentially “morally good” and those in black color as potentially “bad.” In the current inquiry, we would therefore hypothesize that consumers see buying a product in white color as an act that is morally good and buying a product in black color as an act that is morally bad. If so, then, in accordance with the moral regulation theory, those who buy white‐colored products should feel licensed to behave less prosocially afterward, while those who buy black‐colored products should be more prosocial as they feel a need to compensate for their initial misconduct. We investigate such a hypothesis in six studies, examining prosociality after buying white‐ or black‐colored products. The results are consistent with our hypothesizing and highlight a moral credentials framework in particular in explaining why the effect occurs. Consequently, product colors do not only satisfy the diversity of consumer tastes but they also impact consumers’ prosocial behavior well‐beyond product choice and outside of retail domains.     

提高最低质量标准真的能够增进社会福利吗*

本文通过构建基于纵向质量差异的双寡头竞争模型，分析了最低质量标准政策对质量提升的作用机制及其福利影响。研究结果显示，最低质量标准政策的效果会极大地受到企业之间技术差距和政府监管效率的制约，并且对不同企业会产生差异化的影响。在国内外企业存在较大技术差距的背景下，政府在实施最低质量标准政策时会遭遇降低质量标准或者放松监管的两难困境，并且会在生产者和消费者，以及不同的厂商之间产生利益冲突。解决上述问题的关键在于提升监管效率的同时，缩小国内外企业之间的技术差距。     

Environmental Regulation and Enterprise Innovation: A Review

The impact of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation is closely related to the competitiveness of the enterprise and sustainable development of the regional economy, but existing research does not provide a consistent view. This paper summarizes the impacts of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation from the perspectives of technological innovation, product innovation, system innovation and ecological innovation. We find that the impacts of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation behaviour are complex, and that the impacts can be reflected together by the four aspects above and even by their interaction. Moreover, the impacts are not limited to the creation of new technologies, products, and systems but also include their adoption and application. In particular, whether the Porter hypothesis is true and which versions of the Porter hypothesis environmental regulation causes in enterprise innovation depend on enterprise characteristics, means of environmental regulation, and enterprises' strategic behaviours in an enterprise ecosystem. Finally, we propose five potential research directions: quantifying the degree of enterprise innovation caused by environmental regulation, the impacts of environmental regulation on sustainable economic development from an enterprise ecosystem perspective, the impacts of enterprise innovation on environmental regulation, the role of enterprise initiative in the relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise innovation, and social security issues and the integration of eliminated enterprises resulting from environmental regulation.     

Reconciling different truths about isomorphic pressure and distinctive behavior at European cooperative banks: Back to the future with Raiffeisen's principles

This article employs a new approach to address a key question in an expanding literature on European cooperative banks: are they still distinctive and sources of social innovation or did they suffer from organizational isomorphism throughout their history? First, we go back to the time when Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (1818–1888) formulated his principles for the forerunners of many contemporary cooperative banks. Subsequently, we identify areas where major adaptations to the archetypical model of cooperative banks have taken place or are still taking place today. We integrate a detailed explanation of the backgrounds and motivations of these steps with an analysis of isomorphic consequences and loss of distinctiveness that have allegedly emanated from these adjustments. Against the latter common opinion, we place an equally well‐founded dissenting view and formulate recommendations to stay on or return to the cooperative track. Thus, we reconcile conflicting assessments in scientific publications and present a balanced view on the current peculiarity of cooperative banks, substantiated by up‐to‐date figures. With the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak, we argue that, now more than ever, cooperative banks could demonstrate their solidarity, long‐term orientation and local anchoring—namely bringing Raiffeisen's principles back to the future.     

Innovative behavioral regulatory agencies as second generation commitment devices

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes how the commitment problem in economic regulation, and a solution based on strategic delegation, are affected by the non-standard rationality of agents that participate in the regulatory interaction. As a result, on the one hand, independent regulators are seen as part of a potentially more robust innovative regulatory system, and, on the other hand, their contribution to this system can be based on a wider range of instruments. Second generation commitment mechanisms that take this into account may be a key ingredient of reforms in the regulation of those industries that require a long run perspective.     

Marketization,environmental regulation,and eco-friendly productivity: A Malmquist–Luenberger index for pollution emissions of large Chinese firms

Marketization requires individuals and firms to increase energy efficiency and improve environmental quality, and various levels of governments interested in environmental protection have adopted tough environmental regulations. This paper develops data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure unified efficiency at the firm level by introducing energy utilization and pollution emissions. A Malmquist–Luenberger efficiency model with undesirable output follows radial measurement by directional distance function type. We analyze green productive efficiency in relation to polluting emissions using a large dynamic panel dataset of 229,491 Chinese manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2012. We identify that marketization and environmental regulation both significantly facilitate green productivity. Further, our findings imply that both marketization and regulatory effects weakened from the tenth to the twelfth Five-Year Plans. Regarding effects across ownership type, green total factor productivity (TFP) growth of state-owned enterprises is significantly affected by regulation but not marketization. Private and foreign-owned firms are both significantly affected by marketization and regulation. Regionally, green TFP growth is positively associated with marketization and regulation in central China. East China’s green TFP growth is motivated by marketization, and West China’s green TFP growth is strongly driven by regulation.     

Twenty-first century bootlegging: unlawful wine shipments and direct-to-consumer laws

Direct to consumer (DTC) shipping has been a burgeoning segment of the wine industry for some time. However, regulatory policy has not kept pace with the growing reach and availability of these wines which has left this sector of economic activity prohibited in states that historically disallowed DTC wine shipping. Using detailed shipping records of wine shipments into the state of Oklahoma, a state that explicitly disallows direct shipping, we describe the nature of illegal wine purchasing in the face of prohibition by linking economic data from the American Community Survey at the zip code level for each purchase. We find that zip codes with 10% higher incomes purchase 7.4–9.3% more DTC wine, and that race is not a useful predictor in DTC demand. Our results have forward-looking relevance as well as more states amend their laws to allow DTC wine shipping. In just a 6-month period, an estimated $186,629 may not have been collected in excise and sales taxes in Oklahoma. This figure is plausibly a lower bound of future tax collections due to DTC prohibition.     

Pricing flexibility under rate-of-return regulation: Effects on network infrastructure investment

When a commodity market relies upon a regulated network service industry—e.g., telecommunications, electricity, or natural gas transmission—economic efficiency in that commodity market is a crucial consideration for regulatory design. This is because insufficient infrastructure investment relative to network demand results in congestion. The extraction of associated rents has distortionary effects on commodity spot market prices. Greater regulatory flexibility in network pricing can alleviate such issues by cultivating the incentives needed for stakeholders to invest in transmission capacity. To illustrate this effect I derive and numerically solve stylized optimality conditions for access and usage prices for a gas pipeline operator under alternative regulatory models. My results have general implications for regulation in network infrastructure industries, as energy and telecommunications markets are expected to expand considerably over the coming decades.     

Cross-boundary information sharing in regulatory contexts: The case of financial markets

Most studies about cross-boundary information sharing (CBIS) focus on private or public sector organizations only. There is limited research within regulated environments, which often requires information to be shared among multiple public, private and nonprofit organizations. This paper explores CBIS in different regulatory contexts, with a focus on financial markets in the USA, and finds some unique characteristics in terms of information asymmetries, incentive and governance structures, and structural complexity.