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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Market Structure And The Cost Of Compliance With Environmental Regulation, Stuart Mcdonald
Market Structure And The Cost Of Compliance With Environmental Regulation, Stuart Mcdonald
Stuart McDonald
This paper analyses the expected level of non-compliance with environmental standards within in an oligopolistic industry. The paper departs from the previous literature on environmental compliance by allowing for the possibility of product differentiation. In doing this, the paper provides results quantifying the important role that strategic complements and substitutes have in determining both the relative degree of non-compliance and level of fines required to achieve both partial and universal compliance with environmental standards. The paper shows that under Bertrand competition it is relatively more difficult to achieve compliance with environmental standards than under Cournot competition, requiring larger fines to …
Optimal Environmental Taxation With Pre-Commitment And Green R&D, Stuart Mcdonald
Optimal Environmental Taxation With Pre-Commitment And Green R&D, Stuart Mcdonald
Stuart McDonald
Two approaches for modelling investment in R\&D have been developed by d'Aspremont and Jacquemin (AJ, 1988) and Kamien, Muller and Zang (KMZ, 1992), when there are spillovers associated with R\&D effort. This paper examines how these two approaches predict investment in green technology, when environmental policy takes the form of an optimal emission tax. The results show that the two models are equivalent when there are no R\&D spillovers; but when R\&D spillovers are present, significant differences in their predictions are observed. Specifically, the KMZ model predicts higher emission tax rates, higher level of R\&D expenditures and higher levels of …
Conspicuous Conservation And Private Provision Of Public Goods, Steven E. Sexton, Alison Sexton
Conspicuous Conservation And Private Provision Of Public Goods, Steven E. Sexton, Alison Sexton
Steven E. Sexton
No abstract provided.
Conspicuous Conservation: The Prius Effect And Willingness To Pay For Environmental Bona Fides, Steven E. Sexton
Conspicuous Conservation: The Prius Effect And Willingness To Pay For Environmental Bona Fides, Steven E. Sexton
Steven E. Sexton
The notion that individuals seek status among their peers predates economics. A considerable literature has relied on status-seeking motives to explain anomalies in consumption behavior, such as upward sloping demand curves and persistent demand for luxury brand items that provide the same functionality as cheaper alternatives. As social norms change, so may the social response to signals. In particular, there is anecdotal evidence that amid growing concern about climate change and environmental degradation, costly signals of austerity may afford the status once reserved for those who displayed ostentation. In this paper, we develop a theory of conspicuous conservation and test …
Did High Gas Prices Cause The Great Recession? Theory And Empirical Evidence, Steven E. Sexton, Junjie Wu, David Zilberman
Did High Gas Prices Cause The Great Recession? Theory And Empirical Evidence, Steven E. Sexton, Junjie Wu, David Zilberman
Steven E. Sexton
No abstract provided.
Paying For Pollution? How General Equilibrium Effects Undermine The 'Spare The Air' Program, Steven E. Sexton
Paying For Pollution? How General Equilibrium Effects Undermine The 'Spare The Air' Program, Steven E. Sexton
Steven E. Sexton
Policy-makers have relied on non-coercive mechanisms to achieve socially optimal outcomes in a variety of contexts when prices fail to ration scarce resources. Amid heightened concern about environmental damage and climate change, public appeals for cooperation and pecuniary incentives are frequently used to achieve resource conservation and other prosocial behavior. Yet the relative effectiveness of these two instruments is poorly understood when pecuniary incentives are small. This paper examines the extent to which free transit fares and appeals for car trip avoidance reduce car pollution on smoggy days. Using data on freeway traffic volumes and transit ridership, public appeals for …
Market Power In The Corn Sector: How Does It Affect The Impacts Of The Ethanol Subsidy, Steven E. Sexton
Market Power In The Corn Sector: How Does It Affect The Impacts Of The Ethanol Subsidy, Steven E. Sexton
Steven E. Sexton
MArket power is discussed in debates about subsidies for ethanol production. The structural conditions in the corn industry create a case for concerns about market power. We develop an analytical model for determining the production and price impacts and the distribution of benefits from the U.S. ethanol subsidy when upstream sellers in the seed sector and downstream buyers in the processing sector may exercise market power. Results demonstrate that the impacts on prices and output are probably limited. Distributional impacts are much greater. Seed producers and corn processors with market power capture relatively large shares of subsidy benefits