IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v30y2009i2_supplp169-192.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Soft Fiscal Policies for a Polluting Monopolist

Author

Listed:
  • Manel Antelo
  • Maria L. Loureiro

Abstract

This paper examines optimal environmental taxation in an incomplete-information two-period model in which a monopolistic firm produces and pollutes. The firm is privately informed about its costs of production and abatement, and the regulator - which can only infer the firm’s technology after observing the output from the period 1 - has the chance to set environmental taxes in period 1 to correct the firm’s opportunistic behavior. The regulator is aware that the polluter may strategically choose a given level of production (and pollution) in period 1 in order to manipulate the regulator’s beliefs concerning its technology and, consequently, adjusts the tax paid in period 2. We show that if the regulator reduces pollution taxes in the first period below the level under symmetric information, then the clean firm will signal its type by further reducing its output. Having gathered information from the firm with respect to its technology and emissions, the regulator raises pollution taxes in the second period. In the light of the present results, soft fiscal policies based on initial low-taxes, which are later increased, may be used in the presence of asymmetric information to provide incentives for a firm to reveal its true level of emissions and mitigate opportunistic behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Manel Antelo & Maria L. Loureiro, 2009. "Soft Fiscal Policies for a Polluting Monopolist," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(2_suppl), pages 169-192, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:30:y:2009:i:2_suppl:p:169-192
    DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-NoSI2-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-NoSI2-8
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-NoSI2-8?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francesca Barigozzi & Bertrand Villeneuve, 2006. "The Signaling Effect of Tax Policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(4), pages 611-630, October.
    2. Tracy R. Lewis, 1996. "Protecting the Environment When Costs and Benefits Are Privately Known," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(4), pages 819-847, Winter.
    3. Kahn, James Randall & Franceschi, Dina, 2006. "Beyond Kyoto: A tax-based system for the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 778-787, July.
    4. Antelo, Manel & Loureiro, Maria L., 2009. "Asymmetric information, signaling and environmental taxes in oligopoly," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1430-1440, March.
    5. Requate, Till, 2005. "Dynamic incentives by environmental policy instruments--a survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2-3), pages 175-195, August.
    6. Evan Kwerel, 1977. "To Tell the Truth: Imperfect Information and Optimal Pollution Control," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 595-601.
    7. Kerkhof, Annemarie C. & Moll, Henri C. & Drissen, Eric & Wilting, Harry C., 2008. "Taxation of multiple greenhouse gases and the effects on income distribution: A case study of the Netherlands," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 318-326, September.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5402 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dietrich Earnhart & Sarah Jacobson & Yusuke Kuwayama & Richard T. Woodward, 2023. "Discretionary Exemptions from Environmental Regulation: Flexibility for Good or for Ill," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 99(2), pages 203-221.
    2. Elnaboulsi, J.C. & Daher, W. & Sağlam, Y., 2018. "On the social value of publicly disclosed information and environmental regulation," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-22.
    3. Prieger, James E. & Sanders, Nicholas J., 2012. "Verifiable and non-verifiable anonymous mechanisms for regulating a polluting monopolist," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 410-426.
    4. Marcelo Caffera & Juan Dubra, 2005. "Getting Polluters to Tell the Truth," Microeconomics 0504008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Arguedas, Carmen & van Soest, Daan P., 2009. "On reducing the windfall profits in environmental subsidy programs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 192-205, September.
    6. Spaeter, Sandrine & Verchère, Alban, 2004. "Aléa moral et politiques d’audit optimales dans le cadre de la pollution d’origine agricole de l’eau," Cahiers d'Economie et de Sociologie Rurales (CESR), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 71.
    7. Vislie,J., 2001. "Environmental regulation, asymmetric information and foreign ownership," Memorandum 07/2001, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    8. Jihad C. Elnaboulsi, 2015. "Environmental Regulation and Policy Design: The Impact of the Regulator?s Ecological Conscience on the Tax Setting Process," Working Papers 2015-11, CRESE.
    9. Achim Voss & Jörg Lingens, 2018. "What's the damage? Environmental regulation with policy‐motivated bureaucrats," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(4), pages 613-633, August.
    10. Ambec, Stefan & Coria, Jessica, 2021. "The informational value of environmental taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    11. Holland, Stephen P. & Yates, Andrew J., 2015. "Optimal trading ratios for pollution permit markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 16-27.
    12. Antelo, Manel & Loureiro, Maria L., 2009. "Asymmetric information, signaling and environmental taxes in oligopoly," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1430-1440, March.
    13. Jihad C. Elnaboulsi & W. Daher & Yigit Saglam, 2015. "On the Social Value of Disclosed Information and Environmental Regulation," Working Papers 2015-14, CRESE.
    14. Fabio Antoniou & Nikos Tsakiris, 2016. "On the Informational Superiority of Quantities Over Prices in the Presence of an Externality," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(1), pages 227-250, September.
    15. Caffera, Marcelo & Dubra, Juan & Figueroa, Nicolás, 2018. "Mechanism design when players’ preferences and information coincide," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 56-61.
    16. Ollikka, Kimmo, 2014. "Essays on auction mechanisms and information in regulating pollution," Research Reports 66, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Natacha Raffin, 2023. "Cooperation in Green R&D and Environmental Policies: Taxes or Standards," Working Papers hal-03610541, HAL.
    18. Catola, Marco & D'Alessandro, Simone, 2020. "Market competition, lobbying influence and environmental externalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    19. Ollikka, Kimmo, 2014. "Essays on auction mechanisms and information in regulating pollution," Research Reports P66, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    20. Espínola-Arredondo, Ana & Muñoz-García, Félix, 2013. "When does environmental regulation facilitate entry-deterring practices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 133-152.

    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:sae:enejou:v:30:y:2009:i:2_suppl:p:169-192. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.