Over time, inspection agencies gather information about firms that cause harmful externalities. This information may allow agencies to differentiate their monitoring strategies in the future, since inspections can be influenced by firms' past performance relative to other competitors in the market. If a firm is less successful than it peers in reducing the externality, if faces the risk of being targeted for increased inspections in the next period This risk of stricter monitoring might induce high cost firms to mimic low cost firms, while the latter might try to avoid being mimicked We show that under certain circumstances, mimicking, or even the threat of mimicking, might reduce socially harmful activities and thus be welfare improving.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
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