The paper analyzes the welfare properties of voluntary agreements (VA) with polluters, when they are obtained under the legislative threat of an alternative stricter policy option. In the model, the threat is an abatement quota. Both the threat and its probability of implementation are...

Policy has increasingly shifted towards economic incentives and liability attenuation for promoting cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated sites, but little is known about the effectiveness of such policies. An example of such legislation is State Voluntary Cleanup Programs (VCPs), which were...

There is a tendency among policy-makers and industry lobbyists toward "specific", "relative" or "output-based" quotas, i.e., freely distributed to firms proportionally to their output. With a stochastic analytical model, we demonstrate that relative quotas are dominated either by absolute quotas...

We use a hazard model to estimate the effect of environmental regulation on the diffusion of membrane cell production technology in the chlorine manufacturing industry. We estimate the effect of regulation on both the adoption of the membrane technology at existing plants and on the exit of...

In this paper, we study a firm's optimal lobby behavior and its effect on investment in pollution abatement capital. We develop a dynamic framework where a representative firm can invest in both abatement and lobby capital in response to a possible future increase in pollution tax. We show that...

Private actors have been actively working on standards that certify products and their production processes to minimize negative externalities. The number of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) has been increasing over the last few decades, raising interest in understanding their impact on...

This paper introduces a number of game-theoretic tools to model collusive agreements among firms in vertically differentiated markets. I firstly review some classical literature on collusion between two firms producing goods of exogenous different qualities. I then extend the analysis to a...

We analyze the factors that influence the support for environmental policy proposals. Swiss referendum data show that proposals obtain more yes-votes if they do not restrict consumption possibilities directly, if they are endorsed by the largest business association, if environmental preferences...

This paper examines the role of simplified heuristics in the formation of preferences for public goods. Political scientists have suggested that voters use simplified heuristics based on the positions of familiar parties to infer how a proposed policy will affect them and to cast a vote in line...