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- handle: 10670/1.mtmhu2
- hal: hal-03352820
- doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104439
- WOS: 000668885700003
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info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104439
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Mots-clés
Pollution Environmental policy Tax Asymmetric information Ratchet effect Multi-governance Policy overlap D - Microeconomics/D.D0 - General/D.D0.D04 - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation, Implementation, and Evaluation D - Microeconomics/D.D2 - Production and Organizations/D.D2.D21 - Firm Behavior: Theory H - Public Economics/H.H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue/H.H2.H23 - Externalities • Redistributive Effects • Environmental Taxes and Subsidies L - Industrial Organization/L.L5 - Regulation and Industrial Policy/L.L5.L51 - Economics of Regulation Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics • Environmental and Ecological Economics/Q.Q4 - Energy/Q.Q4.Q48 - Government Policy Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics • Environmental and Ecological Economics/Q.Q5 - Environmental Economics/Q.Q5.Q58 - Government PolicySujets proches
Environmental pollution Chemical pollution Pollution--Control Contamination of environment Economic theory Political economyCiter ce document
Stefan Ambec et al., « The informational value of environmental taxes », HAL-SHS : économie et finance, ID : 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104439
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Résumé
We propose informational spillovers as a new rationale for the use of multiple policy instruments to mitigate a single externality. We investigate the design of a pollution standard when the firms’ abatement costs are unknown and emissions are taxed. A firm might abate pollution beyond what is required by the standard by equalizing its marginal abatement costs to the tax rate, thereby revealinginformation about its abatement cost. We analyze how a regulator can take advantage of this information to design the standard. In a dynamic setting,the regulator relaxes the initial standard in order to induce more informationrevelation, which would allow her to set a standard closer to the first best in the future. Updating standards, though, generates a ratchet effect since a lowcost firm might strategically hide its cost by abating no more than required by the standard. We characterize the optimal standard and its update across time depending on the firm’s abatement strategy. We illustrate our theoretical results with the case of NOx regulation in Sweden. We find evidence that the firms that pay the NOx tax experience more frequent standard updates and more stringent revisions than those who are exempted.