Pollution permits and compliance strategies

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Laffont, JJ; Tirole, J
• 署名单位: Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/0047-2727(96)01575-7
• 发表日期: 1996
• 页码: 85-125
• 关键词: Regulation; environment; asymmetric information; pollution permits

摘要

This paper analyzes the impact of spot and futures markets for tradeable pollution permits on the potential polluters' compliance decisions. Polluters can buy permits, invest in pollution abatement, or else stop production or source out. We show that stand-alone spot markets induce excessive investment. The introduction of a futures market reduces this incentive to invest, but is not the optimal way to control pollution. A menu of options on pollution rights, possibly coupled with intertemporally bundled sales, yields higher welfare. Because of its focus on long-run demand elasticities and rent extraction, this paper can be applied to a variety of situations such as demand-side management, public transportation, bypass in telecommunications, or forward sales by a private monopolist.