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The impacts of firms’ mobility on the environmental policy

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  • Yu-Bong Lai

    (National Chengchi University)

Abstract

This paper investigates the impacts of firms’ mobility on the environmental policy. We focus on two issues. The first one is the relationship between the stringency of environmental regulation and the distribution of environmental rents; the second one is how the interjurisdictional competition shapes the selection of instruments. We find that, in the absence of firms’ mobility, an instrument that allocates more rents to firms will give rise to a lower pollution tax rate, but, in the presence of mobile firms, this result may be reversed. Another finding is that the interjurisdictional competition for mobile firms can lead the governments to adopt non-revenue-raising instruments. This provides an explanation for the prevalence of such instruments without relying on political reasoning. We also find that a larger number of jurisdictions may tighten the regulation, which differs from the conventional results.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu-Bong Lai, 2019. "The impacts of firms’ mobility on the environmental policy," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 21(3), pages 349-369, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:envpol:v:21:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10018-018-0233-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s10018-018-0233-x
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental policy; Instrument selection interjurisdictional competition; Mobile firms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F64 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Environment
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

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