Recently, attention has turned to the use of voluntary agreements between regulators and polluters as an alternative to mandatory approaches based on regulation or legislation. Voluntary agreements have the potential to reduce compliance costs by allowing greater flexibility and to reduce...

This paper develops a simple economic model of the interaction between a regulator and farmer that allows us to analyse the use of a policy that combines a voluntary, cost-sharing approach to improving water quality with a background threat of imposition of mandatory controls or taxes if the...

We develop a multiple-firm model of an industry's voluntary adoption of environmental protection measures to achieve a predetermined industry-wide emissions reduction target under an explicit threat of imposition of an emissions tax. We examine the free-riding incentive of individual firms and...