IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lvl/creacr/2011-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Certification as a Rationale for Voluntary Agreements

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Gonzalez

Abstract

I model the participation of firms in a voluntary agreement as a costly certification process whereby a firm informs the Regulator of its pollution intensity. Without this knowledge, the Regulator imposes the same tax on all firms in a heterogeneous industry, unduly hurting the clean ones with the lowest intensity. Certification allows clean firms to get a tax rebate. It also entails an informational externality as the dispersion of types decreases within the pool of non-participating firms, following an unraveling process. Because participation is a firm’s private decision, there is such a thing as a bad voluntary agreement.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Gonzalez, 2011. "Certification as a Rationale for Voluntary Agreements," Cahiers de recherche CREATE 2011-2, CREATE.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:creacr:2011-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.create.ulaval.ca/sites/create.ulaval.ca/files/Publications/create2011-2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Na Li Dawson & Kathleen Segerson, 2008. "Voluntary Agreements with Industries: Participation Incentives with Industry-Wide Targets," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 84(1), pages 97-114.
    2. Heyes, Anthony G., 2005. "A signaling motive for self-regulation in the shadow of coercion," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 238-246.
    3. Simon Ashby & Swee-Hoon Chuah & Robert Hoffmann, 2004. "Industry Self-Regulation: A Game-Theoretic Typology of Strategic Voluntary Compliance," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 91-106.
    4. Segerson, Kathleen & Miceli, Thomas J., 1998. "Voluntary Environmental Agreements: Good or Bad News for Environmental Protection?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 109-130, September.
    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. Rinaldo Brau & Carlo Carraro, 2011. "The design of voluntary agreements in oligopolistic markets," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 111-142, April.
    2. Anne-Sarah Chiambretto & Hubert Stahn, 2017. "Voluntary Management of Fisheries under an Uncertain Background Legislative Threat," Working Papers halshs-01500543, HAL.
    3. Delgado, Michael S. & Khanna, Neha, 2015. "Voluntary Pollution Abatement and Regulation," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 1-20, April.
    4. Pierre Fleckinger & Matthieu Glachant, 2009. "La responsabilité sociale de l’entreprise et les accords volontaires sont-ils complémentaires ?," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 190(4), pages 95-105.
    5. David M. McEvoy & John K. Stranlund, 2007. "Costly Enforcement of Voluntary Environmental Agreements with Industries," Working Papers 07-15, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    6. Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2014. "Self-Regulation and Regulatory Flexibility: Why Firms May be Reluctant to Signal Green," Working Papers 2014-11, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    7. Rasha Ahmed, 2012. "Promoting energy-efficient products: voluntary or regulatory approaches?," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 14(3), pages 303-321, July.
    8. Michael, Delgado & Neha, Khanna, 2010. "Voluntary pollution abatement and regulation in the presence of a green market," MPRA Paper 25026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Takuro Miyamoto, 2016. "Why regulators adopt voluntary programs: a theoretical analysis of voluntary pollutant reduction programs," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 18(4), pages 599-623, October.
    10. Kentaro Florian Mayr & Paolo Agnolucci, 2023. "Heterogeneous Impacts in Voluntary Agreements: A Changes-in-Changes Approach to the UK Climate Change Agreements," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(3), pages 345-379, November.
    11. Tong Wang & David A. Hennessy, 2012. "Modeling Interdependent Participation Incentives: Dynamics of a Voluntary Livestock Disease Control Program," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 12-wp527, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    12. Madhu Khanna, 2001. "Non‐Mandatory Approaches to Environmental Protection," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 291-324, July.
    13. Doncaster, C. Patrick & Tavoni, Alessandro & Dyke, James G., 2017. "Using Adaptation Insurance to Incentivize Climate-change Mitigation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 246-258.
    14. Fleckinger, Pierre & Glachant, Matthieu, 2011. "Negotiating a voluntary agreement when firms self-regulate," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 41-52, July.
    15. Segerson, Kathleen & Wu, JunJie, 2006. "Nonpoint pollution control: Inducing first-best outcomes through the use of threats," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 165-184, March.
    16. Lange Ian, 2009. "Evaluating Voluntary Measures with Treatment Spillovers: The Case of Coal Combustion Products Partnership," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-22, September.
    17. Rinaldo Brau & C. Carraro, 2004. "The economic analysis of voluntary approaches to environmental protection. A survey," Working Paper CRENoS 200420, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    18. Kimitaka Nishitani & Shinji Kaneko & Satoru Komatsu & Hidemichi Fujii, 2011. "Firm's reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and economic performance: analyzing effects through demand and productivity," IDEC DP2 Series 1-1, Hiroshima University, Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC).
    19. Ryo Ishida & Takuro Miyamoto, 2014. "Does an Optimal Voluntary Approach Flexibly and Efficiently Control Emissions from Heterogeneous Firms?," Discussion papers ron257, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan.
    20. Anastasios Xepapadeas & Constadina Passa, 2005. "Design of Public Voluntary Environmental Programs for Nitrate Pollution in Agriculture: An Evolutionary Approach," Working Papers 0512, University of Crete, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Certification; voluntary agreements; Pigovian taxes; pollution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:lvl:creacr:2011-2. 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: Manuel Paradis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/calvlca.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.