Strategic Voting for Noncooperative Environmental Policies in Open Economies

In this paper, we construct a political-economy model of strategic environmental policymaking with different degrees of product differentiation and different market structures, and examine how strategic voting decisions are affected by the choice of environmental policy instruments (tax or standard). We show that in a Cournot market structure, voters elect tax-setting policymakers who are more green than themselves when product differentiation and/or environmental externalities are more prominent. In a Bertrand market structure, they elect more green tax-setting policymakers than themselves. On the other hand, they elect standard-setting policymakers who are less green than themselves. The results confirm the advantage of the overall use of emission tax over that of emission standard regarding the welfare effect of strategic voting.