It has been observed that upon trading-off the costs and benefits of pollution control, profit-maximizing firms may choose not to invest their resources in pollution abatement since the expected penalty imposed by regulators falls considerably short of the investment costs. Regulators have recently embarked on a deliberate strategy to release information to markets (investors and consumers) regarding firms' environmental performance in order to enhance incentives for pollution control. In this paper, we analyze the role that capital markets may play to create such incentives. Evidence drawn from American and Canadian studies indicates that capital markets react to the release of information, and that large polluters are affected more significantly from such releases than smaller polluters. This result appears to be a function of the regulator's willingness to undertake strong enforcement actions as well as the possiblity for capital markets to rank and compare firms with respect to their environmental performance.
Il a été observé que, par rapport au compromis entre les coûts et les bénéfices du contrôle de la pollution, les entreprises maximisant leurs profits peuvent choisir de ne pas investir leurs ressources dans la réduction de la pollution puisque la pénalité imposée par le législateur est considérablement plus faible que les coûts de l'investissement nécessaire. Récemment, les législateurs se sont engagés dans une stratégie délibérée qui a pour objet de rendre disponibles, aux agents économiques (investisseurs et consommateurs), des informations portant sur la performance environnementale des entreprises. Dans cet article, nous analysons le rôle que le marché des capitaux joue dans la création de tels incitatifs. Les résultats obtenus d'études américaines et canadiennes indiquent que le marché des capitaux réagit à la publication d'information, et que les grands pollueurs sont plus affectés que les petits. Ces résultats semblent être fonction de la capacité pour le marché des capitaux de classer et de comparer les entreprises selon leur performance environnementale et de la crédibilité du législateur quant aux actions coercitives qu'il peut entreprendre.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
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