Instrument Choice When Regulators and Firms Bargain |
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Authors: | Gregory S Amacher Arun S Malik |
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Institution: | aDepartment of Forestry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 307C Cheatham Hall, Blacksburg, Virginia, 24061-0324;bDepartment of Economics, George Washington University, 617 Funger Hall, 2201 G Street NW, Washington, DC, 20052 |
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Abstract: | We compare outcomes with an emissions tax and an emissions standard when a firm and regulator engage in cooperative bargaining over the stringency of the regulation. Bargaining is motivated by giving the firm a choice of abatement technologies. If the firm's preferred technology differs from the regulator's, the first-best outcome is not an equilibrium of the traditional noncooperative game in which the regulator is a Stackelberg leader. The regulator may therefore choose to offer the firm a more lenient regulation if it agrees to switch technologies. We find that the resulting bargaining outcomes differ for a tax and a standard even though information is symmetric, and we identify conditions under which each instrument yields lower social costs. |
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