IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v49y2012icp479-487.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can green building councils serve as third party governance institutions? An economic and institutional analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Sedlacek, Sabine
  • Maier, Gunther

Abstract

Green Building Councils (GBCs) have been established in many different countries in recent years. This paper discusses the role such organizations can play in the respective construction and real estate industry and under what circumstances a GBC can contribute positively to the development of a “greener” or “more sustainable” stock of buildings. The paper investigates the main informational problem of the industry by looking at the relation between a developer and an investor from an economic point of view. We argue that the investor's uncertainty about the true quality of a building and the corresponding incentive for the developer to cheat may lock them into a prisoners' dilemma trap. The corresponding barriers for a transition toward a “greener” buildings market are analyzed. GBCs are described as institutions of economic governance that can assist the economy in overcoming these problems. They can act as third party institutions in transactions between developers and investors. By certifying the quality of a building, they can reduce the risk for the investor to be cheated by the developer and also increase the incentive to develop good quality buildings for the developer. This task, however, raises some severe management challenges for the GBCs.

Suggested Citation

  • Sedlacek, Sabine & Maier, Gunther, 2012. "Can green building councils serve as third party governance institutions? An economic and institutional analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 479-487.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:49:y:2012:i:c:p:479-487
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.06.049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512005599
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.06.049?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. Michael Spence, 2002. "Signaling in Retrospect and the Informational Structure of Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 434-459, June.
    2. Oliver E. Williamson, 2005. "The Economics of Governance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 1-18, May.
    3. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 2001. "Who Wants a Good Reputation?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 68(2), pages 415-441.
    4. Oliver E. Williamson, 2000. "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 595-613, September.
    5. Ely, Jeffrey & Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2008. "When is reputation bad?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 498-526, July.
    6. Jeffrey C. Ely & Juuso Välimäki, 2003. "Bad Reputation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 785-814.
    7. Kreps, David M. & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Reputation and imperfect information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 253-279, August.
    8. Rothschild, Michael, 1973. "Models of Market Organization with Imperfect Information: A Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(6), pages 1283-1308, Nov.-Dec..
    9. Avinash Dixit, 2009. "Governance Institutions and Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 5-24, March.
    10. Avinash Dixit, 2003. "On Modes of Economic Governance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(2), pages 449-481, March.
    11. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1982. "Predation, reputation, and entry deterrence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 280-312, August.
    12. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    13. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    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. Michal Gluszak & Remigiusz Gawlik & Malgorzata Zieba, 2019. "Smart and Green Buildings Features in the Decision-Making Hierarchy of Office Space Tenants: An Analytic Hierarchy Process Study," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-16, July.
    2. Qianwen Li & Ruyin Long & Hong Chen & Feiyu Chen & Xiu Cheng, 2019. "Chinese urban resident willingness to pay for green housing based on double-entry mental accounting theory," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 95(1), pages 129-153, January.
    3. Fuerst, Franz & Warren-Myers, Georgia, 2018. "Does voluntary disclosure create a green lemon problem? Energy-efficiency ratings and house prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-12.
    4. Odilon Costa & Franz Fuerst & Spenser Robinson & Wesley Mendes-da-Silva, 2017. "Are Green Labels More Valuable in Emerging Real Estate Markets?," LARES lares_2017_paper_5, Latin American Real Estate Society (LARES).
    5. Shi, Qian & Lai, Xiaodong & Xie, Xin & Zuo, Jian, 2014. "Assessment of green building policies – A fuzzy impact matrix approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 203-211.
    6. Ghani Albaali & Mohammed Issa Shahateet & Hussam-edin Daoud & Abdul Ghafoor Saidi, 2021. "Economic and Environmental Impact of Construction and Demolition in Green Buildings: A Case Study of Jordan," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(1), pages 22-28.
    7. Giuliano Dall'O' & Annalisa Galante & Nicola Sanna & Karin Miller, 2013. "On the Integration of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ® ND Protocol with the Energy Planning and Management Tools in Italy: Strengths and Weaknesses," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(11), pages 1-26, November.
    8. Zhao, Dong-Xue & He, Bao-Jie & Johnson, Christine & Mou, Ben, 2015. "Social problems of green buildings: From the humanistic needs to social acceptance," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1594-1609.
    9. Zhang, Li & Wu, Jing & Liu, Hongyu, 2018. "Policies to enhance the drivers of green housing development in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 225-235.

    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. Sabine Sedlacek & Gunther Maier, 2012. "Green Building Councils: Their Economic Role as Governance Institutions," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2012_02, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    2. Zuazo-Garin, Peio, 2017. "Uncertain information structures and backward induction," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 135-151.
    3. Mailath, George J. & Samuelson, Larry, 2015. "Reputations in Repeated Games," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    4. Ely, Jeffrey & Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2008. "When is reputation bad?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 498-526, July.
    5. Bruno Jullien & In-Uck Park, 2009. "Seller Reputation and Trust in Pre-Trade Communication," Levine's Working Paper Archive 814577000000000330, David K. Levine.
    6. McCluskey, Jill J., 2000. "A Game Theoretic Approach to Organic Foods: An Analysis of Asymmetric Information and Policy," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-9, April.
    7. Chee Leong, 2012. "A Dynamic Game of Reputation and Economic Performances in Nondemocratic Regimes," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 2(4), pages 385-400, December.
    8. Sexton, Richard J., 1991. "Game Theory: A Review With Applications To Vertical Control In Agricultural Markets," Working Papers 225865, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    9. Holmstrom, Bengt R. & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "The theory of the firm," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-133, Elsevier.
    10. Eckardt, Martina, 2007. "Does signaling work in markets for information services? An empirical investigation for insurance intermediaries in Germany," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 77, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    11. Zhaohui Chen & Alan D. Morrison & William J. Wilhelm Jr., 2014. "Investment Bank Reputation and “Star” Cultures," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 2(2), pages 129-153.
    12. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and game theory. A 70th anniversary," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 1-7.
    13. V.V. Chari & Ali Shourideh & Ariel Zetlin-Jones, 2010. "Adverse Selection, Reputation and Sudden Collapses in Secondary Loan Markets," NBER Working Papers 16080, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Hartman-Glaser, Barney, 2017. "Reputation and signaling in asset sales," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 245-265.
    15. Chen, Yong & Mak, Barry & Li, Zhou, 2013. "Quality deterioration in package tours: The interplay of asymmetric information and reputation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 43-54.
    16. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Gossner, Olivier & Wilson, Andrea, 2012. "Impermanent types and permanent reputations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 162-178.
    17. Catherine Locatelli & Sylvain Rossiaud, 2011. "A neoinstitutionalist interpretation of the changes in the Russian oil model," Post-Print halshs-00631115, HAL.
    18. Dilmé, Francesc, 2019. "Dynamic quality signaling with hidden actions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 116-136.
    19. Trevon D. Logan & Manisha Shah, 2013. "Face Value: Information and Signaling in an Illegal Market," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 529-564, January.
    20. Philippe Jehiel & Larry Samuelson, 2012. "Reputation with Analogical Reasoning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1927-1969.

    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:eee:enepol:v:49:y:2012:i:c:p:479-487. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    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.