IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v65y1998i1p140-150.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Taxation, Fines, and Producer Liability Rules: Efficiency and Market Structure Implications

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen F. Hamilton

Abstract

This paper analyzes the comparative efficiency of producer liability rules and regulatory policy in short‐run and long‐run competitive equilibria with endogenous product safety. Pigouvian taxes on output and safety provision fail to achieve the long‐run social optimum. An appropriately designed policy involving fines on accidents and subsidies on safety provision achieves efficiency; however, the optimal policy may involve the taxation, not the subsidization, of product safety. Tort liability also leads to efficient outcomes but may be associated with perverse structural changes. For example, increased liability exposure may induce de novo entry in hazardous sectors, even with fully capitalized firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen F. Hamilton, 1998. "Taxation, Fines, and Producer Liability Rules: Efficiency and Market Structure Implications," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 140-150, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:65:y:1998:i:1:p:140-150
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.1998.tb00133.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.1998.tb00133.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.1998.tb00133.x?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dennis W. Carlton & Glenn C. Loury, 1980. "The Limitations of Pigouvian Taxes as a Long-Run Remedy for Externalities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 559-566.
    2. Kolstad, Charles D & Ulen, Thomas S & Johnson, Gary V, 1990. "Ex Post Liability for Harm vs. Ex Ante Safety Regulation: Substitutes or Complements?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 888-901, September.
    3. Watts, Alison, 1998. "Insolvency and Division of Cleanup Costs," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 61-76, March.
    4. Marino, Anthony M., 1988. "Products liability and scale effects in a long-run competitive equilibrium," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 97-107, June.
    5. Hamada, Koichi, 1976. "Liability Rules and Income Distribution in Product Liability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(1), pages 228-234, March.
    6. Hamilton, Jonathan H & Sheshinski, Eytan & Slutsky, Steven M, 1989. "Production Externalities and Long-run Equilibria: Bargaining and Pigovian Taxation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 27(3), pages 453-471, July.
    7. Ringleb, Al H & Wiggins, Steven N, 1990. "Liability and Large-Scale, Long-term Hazards," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 574-595, June.
    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. Stéphan Marette & Estelle Gozlan & Bénédicte Coestier, 2005. "On the Limitation of Penalties and the Non-Equivalence of Penalties and Taxes," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 135-151, January.
    2. Bruce Hay & Kathryn E. Spier, 2004. "Manufacturer Liability for Harms Caused by Consumers to Others," NBER Working Papers 10972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Bruce Hay & Kathryn E. Spier, 2005. "Manufacturer Liability for Harms Caused by Consumers to Others," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1700-1711, December.
    4. Ram Singh, 2009. "RISK, INFORMATIONAL ASYMMETRY AND PRODUCT LIABILITY: An Enquiry Into Conflicting Objectives," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 89-112, February.
    5. Eric Langlais & Nanxi Li, 2024. "Which Liability Laws for Artificial Intelligence?," Working Papers hal-04638448, HAL.

    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. Lewis, Tracy R. & Sappington, David E. M., 1999. "Using decoupling and deep pockets to mitigate judgment-proof problems1," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 275-293, June.
    2. Andrzej Baniak & Peter Grajzl, 2014. "Controlling Product Risks when Consumers are Heterogeneously Overconfident: Producer Liability vs. Minimum Quality Standard Regulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 5003, CESifo.
    3. Ram Singh, 2009. "RISK, INFORMATIONAL ASYMMETRY AND PRODUCT LIABILITY: An Enquiry Into Conflicting Objectives," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 89-112, February.
    4. Marcel Boyer & Donatella Porrini, 2010. "Optimal liability sharing and court errors: an exploratory analysis," Working Papers hal-00463913, HAL.
    5. Charreire, Maxime & Langlais, Eric, 2021. "Should environment be a concern for competition policy when firms face environmental liability?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    6. Innes, Robert, 1999. "Optimal liability with stochastic harms, judgement-proof injurers, and asymmetric information1," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 181-203, June.
    7. Boyer, Marcel & Porrini, Donatella, 2011. "The impact of court errors on liability sharing and safety regulation for environmental/industrial accidents," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 21-29, March.
    8. Yolande Hiriart & David Martimort & Jérôme Pouyet, 2008. "The Regulator and the Judge : The Optimal Mix in The Control of Environmental Risk," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 118(6), pages 941-967.
    9. Hamilton, Stephen F. & Sunding, David L., 2000. "Product liability, entry incentives and market structure," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 269-283, June.
    10. Bruce Hay & Kathryn E. Spier, 2005. "Manufacturer Liability for Harms Caused by Consumers to Others," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1700-1711, December.
    11. Bruce Hay & Kathryn E. Spier, 2004. "Manufacturer Liability for Harms Caused by Consumers to Others," NBER Working Papers 10972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Emeric Henry & Marco Loseto & Marco Ottaviani, 2022. "Regulation with Experimentation: Ex Ante Approval, Ex Post Withdrawal, and Liability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5330-5347, July.
    13. Steven Shavell, 2005. "Liability for Accidents," NBER Working Papers 11781, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Vuillemey, Guillaume, 2020. "Evading Corporate Responsibilities: Evidence from the Shipping Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 15291, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Elizabeth Klee & Lewis Kornhauser, 2007. "Comparisons of the Incentive for Insolvency under Different Legal Regimes," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 141-170, January.
    16. Yeon‐Koo Che & Kathryn E. Spier, 2008. "Strategic judgment proofing," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 926-948, December.
    17. Marion Desquilbet & Sylvaine Poret, 2014. "How do GM/non GM coexistence regulations affect markets and welfare?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 51-82, February.
    18. Zeeshan Noor Siddiqui, 2017. "Understanding the Linkage among Public Procurement (PP), Corruption, and Tax Morale (TM) Through Agency Theory (AT): A Review," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 9(3), pages 258-288, September.
    19. Heider, Florian & Inderst, Roman, 2021. "A Corporate Finance Perspective on Environmental Policy," EconStor Preprints 253669, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    20. Gérard Mondello & Evens Salies, 2016. "Tort law under oligopolistic competition," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03459225, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:soecon:v:65:y:1998:i:1:p:140-150. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.