IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v13y1999i4p415-433.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments

Author

Listed:
  • R. Damania

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of political lobbying on the choice of environmental policy instruments. It is argued that the prevalence of pollution emission standards over more efficient policy instruments may result from rent seeking behaviour. The model further predicts that when an emission standard is used to control pollution, rival political parties have an incentive to set the same standard. There is therefore a convergence of policies. Moreover, it is shown that emission taxes are more likely to be supported and proposed by political parties which represent environmental interest groups. This feature appears to accord with the observed support for environmental taxes by ‘Green’ parties in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1999

Suggested Citation

  • R. Damania, 1999. "Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(4), pages 415-433, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:13:y:1999:i:4:p:415-433
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1008299920714
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1008299920714
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1008299920714?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Buchanan, James M & Tullock, Gordon, 1975. "Polluters' Profits and Political Response: Direct Controls Versus Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(1), pages 139-147, March.
    2. Arye L. Hillman & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2008. "Domestic Politics, Foreign Interests, and International Trade Policy," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 113-129, Springer.
    3. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    4. L. Wade, 1988. "Review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 99-100, July.
    5. Nirvikar Singh & Xavier Vives, 1984. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 546-554, Winter.
    6. Conrad Klaus, 1993. "Taxes and Subsidies for Pollution-Intensive Industries as Trade Policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 121-135, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alesina, Alberto & Passarelli, Francesco, 2014. "Regulation versus taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 147-156.
    2. Georges A. Tanguay & Paul Lanoie & Jérôme Moreau, 2001. "Environmental Policy, Public Interest and Political Market," Cahiers de recherche 01-01, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée.
    3. Louis Jaeck & Gilbert Bougi, 2010. "Dynamics of Environmental Regulation and Voters’ Biased Beliefs: A Political Economy Approach," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 38(4), pages 399-409, December.
    4. Paul Lanoie & Jérôme Moreau & Georges A. Tanguay, 2001. "Environmental Policy, Public Interest and Political Market," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-37, CIRANO.
    5. Polk, Andreas & Schmutzler, Armin, 2005. "Lobbying against environmental regulation vs. lobbying for loopholes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 915-931, December.
    6. Jessica Coria & Magnus Hennlock, 2012. "Taxes, permits and costly policy response to technological change," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 14(1), pages 35-60, January.
    7. Bouwe Dijkstra, 2004. "Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments: Comment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 29(1), pages 39-56, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sturm, Daniel & Ulph, Alistair, 2002. "Environment, trade, political economy and imperfect information: a survey," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0204, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    2. Dapeng Cai & Jie Li, 2020. "Pollution for Sale: Firms’ Characteristics and Lobbying Outcome," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 77(3), pages 539-564, November.
    3. Seiichi Katayama & Heinrich Ursprung, 2000. "Commercial Culture, Political Culture and the Political Economy of Trade Policy: The Case of Japan," CESifo Working Paper Series 312, CESifo.
    4. Dong, Quan & Bárcena-Ruiz, Juan Carlos, 2014. "Corruption and decisions on opening up markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 23-29.
    5. Rauscher, Michael, 2001. "International trade, foreign investment, and the environment," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 29, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    6. Damania, Richard & Fredriksson, Per G., 2003. "Trade policy reform, endogenous lobby group formation, and environmental policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 47-69, September.
    7. Damania, R., 2001. "When the Weak Win: The Role of Investment in Environmental Lobbying," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-22, July.
    8. Schleich, Joachim, 1999. "Environmental quality with endogenous domestic and trade policies1," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 53-71, March.
    9. Bommer, Rolf, 1995. "Environmental policy and industrial competitiveness: The pollution haven hypothesis reconsidered," Discussion Papers, Series II 262, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    10. Johannes Urpelainen, 2012. "How do electoral competition and special interests shape the stringency of renewable energy standards?," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 14(1), pages 23-34, January.
    11. Tobias D. Ketterer, 2016. "EU Anti-dumping and Tariff Cuts: Trade Policy Substitution?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 576-596, May.
    12. Rupayan Pal & Bibhas Saha, 2010. "Does partial privatization improve the environment," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2010-018, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    13. Feeney, JoAnne & Hillman, Arye L., 1995. "Asset markets and individual trade policy preferences," Discussion Papers, Series II 282, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    14. Hillman, Arye L. & Van Long, Ngo & Soubeyran, Antoine, 2001. "Protection, lobbying, and market structure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 383-409, August.
    15. Arye L. Hillman & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2016. "Where are the rent seekers?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 124-141, June.
    16. Clas Eriksson, 2011. "Home bias in preferences and the political economics of agricultural protection," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 92(1), pages 5-23.
    17. Michaelis, Peter, 1995. "Political competition, campaign contributions and the monopolisation of industries," Kiel Working Papers 693, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. Cole, Matthew T. & Lake, James & Zissimos, Ben, 2021. "Contesting an international trade agreement," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    19. Das, Satya P., 2001. "Endogenous distribution and the political economy of trade policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 465-491, September.
    20. Helpman, E., 1995. "Politics and Trade Policy," Papers 30-95, Tel Aviv - the Sackler Institute of Economic Studies.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:13:y:1999:i:4:p:415-433. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.