IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/queddp/275224.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incomplete Enforcement with Endogenous Regulatory Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Garvie, Devon
  • Keeler, Andrew

Abstract

This paper extends the economic literature on the incomplete enforcement of social regulation by incorporating regulatory choice in an institutional environment of limited regulatory resources and powers. We show how regulatory decisions determine the structure of incentives faced by regulated firms. Our results indicate that the expense of monitoring relative to the regulator's power to levy penalties helps to explain the differences between 'compliance* and "deterrence' enforcement styles. We find that in most circumstances firms with higher abatement costs will receive a larger share of regulatory resources and thus face higher penalties than firms with lower costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Garvie, Devon & Keeler, Andrew, 1993. "Incomplete Enforcement with Endogenous Regulatory Choice," Queen's Institute for Economic Research Discussion Papers 275224, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:queddp:275224
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.275224
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/275224/files/QUEENS-IER-PAPER-873.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.275224?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. Shaffer, Sherrill, 1990. "Regulatory Compliance with Nonlinear Penalties," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 99-103, March.
    2. Harford, Jon D., 1991. "Measurement error and state-dependent pollution control enforcement," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 67-81, July.
    3. George J. Stigler, 1974. "The Optimum Enforcement of Laws," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 55-67, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Baron, David P., 1985. "Regulation of prices and pollution under incomplete information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 211-231, November.
    5. Carol Adaire Jones, 1989. "Standard setting with incomplete enforcement revisited," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(1), pages 72-87.
    6. Harford, Jon D. & Harrington, Winston, 1991. "A reconsideration of enforcement leverage when penalties are restricted," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 391-395, August.
    7. Spulber, Daniel F., 1988. "Optimal environmental regulation under asymmetric information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 163-181, March.
    8. Harrington, Winston, 1988. "Enforcement leverage when penalties are restricted," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 29-53, October.
    9. Harford, Jon D., 1978. "Firm behavior under imperfectly enforceable pollution standards and taxes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 26-43, March.
    10. Kambhu, John, 1989. "Regulatory Standards, Noncompliance and Enforcement," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 103-114, June.
    11. John Kambhu, 1989. "Regulatory standards, noncompliance and enforcement," Research Paper 8902, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    12. Polinsky, Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1979. "The Optimal Tradeoff between the Probability and Magnitude of Fines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(5), pages 880-891, December.
    13. Jones, Carol Adaire & Scotchmer, Suzanne, 1990. "The social cost of uniform regulatory standards in a hierarchical government," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 61-72, July.
    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. Anthony Heyes, 1994. "Environmental enforcement when ‘inspectability’ is endogenous: A model with overshooting properties," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(5), pages 479-494, October.
    2. Williamson David & Pugh Geoff & Akinbote Mayowa, 2024. "A Compliance Return Method to Evaluate Different Approaches to Implementing Regulations: The Example of Food Hygiene Standards," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-24.
    3. Heyes, Anthony & Doucet, Joseph, 1997. "2-Stage Enforcement and Regulatory Polarisation: a Simple Model with Application to the USEPA," Cahiers de recherche 9717, Université Laval - Département d'économique.

    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. Ya-Po Yang & Jin-Li Hu, 2012. "Gresham’s law in environmental protection," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 14(2), pages 103-122, April.
    2. Andrew Keeler, 1995. "Regulatory objectives and enforcement behavior," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 6(1), pages 73-85, July.
    3. Carmen Arguedas & Francisco Cabo & Guiomar Martín-Herrán, 2017. "Optimal Pollution Standards and Non-compliance in a Dynamic Framework," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(3), pages 537-567, November.
    4. Batabyal, Amitrajeet A., 1995. "Leading issues in domestic environmental regulation: A review essay," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 23-39, January.
    5. Franckx, Laurent, 2002. "The Use of Ambient Inspections in Environmental Monitoring and Enforcement When the Inspection Agency Cannot Commit Itself to Announced Inspection Probabilities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 71-92, January.
    6. Harford, Jon D., 2000. "Initial and Continuing Compliance and the Trade-Off between Monitoring and Control Cost," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 151-163, September.
    7. Carmen Arguedas, 2008. "To Comply or Not To Comply? Pollution Standard Setting Under Costly Monitoring and Sanctioning," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 41(2), pages 155-168, October.
    8. Jin-Li Hu & Chung-Huang Huang & Wei-Kai Chu, 2004. "Bribery, hierarchical government, and incomplete environmental enforcement," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 6(3), pages 177-196, September.
    9. Arguedas, Carmen, 1999. "Enviromental standards and costly monitoring," UC3M Working papers. Economics 6099, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    10. Villegas, Clara & Coria, Jessica, 2009. "Taxes, Permits and the Adoption of Abatement Technology under Imperfect Compliance," Working Papers in Economics 368, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    11. Arguedas, Carmen & Rousseau, Sandra, 2009. "A note on the complementarity of uniform emission standards and monitoring strategies," Working Papers 2009/12, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    12. Liu, Lirong & Neilson, William, 2013. "Enforcement Leverage with Fixed Inspection Capacity," Strategic Behavior and the Environment, now publishers, vol. 3(4), pages 305-328, August.
    13. Carmen Arguedas & Dietrich Earnhart & Sandra Rousseau, 2017. "Non-uniform implementation of uniform standards," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 159-183, April.
    14. Heyes, Anthony & Doucet, Joseph, 1997. "2-Stage Enforcement and Regulatory Polarisation: a Simple Model with Application to the USEPA," Cahiers de recherche 9717, Université Laval - Département d'économique.
    15. Arguedas, Carmen & Cabo, Francisco & Martín-Herrán, Guiomar, 2020. "Enforcing regulatory standards in stock pollution problems," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    16. Bose, Pinaki, 1995. "Anticipatory compliance and effective regulatory activity," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 151-159, June.
    17. Vicki M. Bier & Shi‐Woei Lin, 2013. "Should the Model for Risk‐Informed Regulation be Game Theory Rather than Decision Theory?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(2), pages 281-291, February.
    18. Eckert, Heather, 2004. "Inspections, warnings, and compliance: the case of petroleum storage regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 232-259, March.
    19. Cheng, Chu-Chuan & Lai, Yu-Bong, 2012. "Does a stricter enforcement policy protect the environment? A political economy perspective," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 431-441.
    20. Telle, Kjetil, 2013. "Monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 24-34.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics;

    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:ags:queddp:275224. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/qedquca.html .

    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.