IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qld/uq2004/548.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Prices versus quantities with distributional rent seeking

Author

Abstract

This article investigates prices versus quantities when regulation generates contestable rents. A two-stage process is outlined where, in stage one, a politician selects a policy level in the presence of uncertainty. In stage two, players invest in distributional rent seeking, i.e., rent-capturing activities to obtain the rents generated from regulation. A clear distinction is derived between prices, revenue-raising quantities as well as non-revenue-raising quantities. The politician’s payoff as well as equilibrium policy level are compared within a number of institutional environments, which take into account the politician’s preferences over rent-seeking transfers and social welfare. A key determinant is the interaction between the efficiency of rent transfer and the composition of rent seekers within the economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian A. MacKenzie, 2015. "Prices versus quantities with distributional rent seeking," Discussion Papers Series 548, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:qld:uq2004:548
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.uq.edu.au/files/46420/548.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence H. Goulder & Andrew R. Schein, 2013. "Carbon Taxes Versus Cap And Trade: A Critical Review," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(03), pages 1-28.
    2. Buchanan, James M & Tullock, Gordon, 1975. "Polluters' Profits and Political Response: Direct Controls Versus Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(1), pages 139-147, March.
    3. Cramton, Peter & Kerr, Suzi, 2002. "Tradeable carbon permit auctions: How and why to auction not grandfather," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 333-345, March.
    4. Wirl, Franz, 2012. "Global warming: Prices versus quantities from a strategic point of view," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 217-229.
    5. Hanley Nick & MacKenzie Ian A, 2010. "The Effects of Rent Seeking over Tradable Pollution Permits," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-26, July.
    6. Fell, Harrison & MacKenzie, Ian A. & Pizer, William A., 2012. "Prices versus quantities versus bankable quantities," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 607-623.
    7. Krysiak, Frank C., 2008. "Prices vs. quantities: The effects on technology choice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1275-1287, June.
    8. Ellerman,A. Denny & Buchner,Barbara K. & Carraro,Carlo (ed.), 2007. "Allocation in the European Emissions Trading Scheme," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521875684.
    9. Roberton Williams, 2002. "Prices vs. Quantities vs. Tradable Quantities," NBER Working Papers 9283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W.H. Parry & Roberton C. Williams III & Dallas Burtraw, 2002. "The Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Instruments for Environmental Protection in a Second-Best Setting," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 27, pages 523-554, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. MacKenzie, Ian A. & Ohndorf, Markus, 2012. "Cap-and-trade, taxes, and distributional conflict," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 51-65.
    12. D’Amato, Alessio & Dijkstra, Bouwe R., 2015. "Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 224-247.
    13. Miyamoto, Takuro, 2014. "Taxes versus quotas in lobbying by a polluting industry with private information on abatement costs," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 141-167.
    14. Malueg, David A. & Yates, Andrew J., 2006. "Citizen participation in pollution permit markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 205-217, March.
    15. Cameron Hepburn & Michael Grubb & Karsten Neuhoff & Felix Matthes & Maximilien Tse, 2006. "Auctioning of EU ETS phase II allowances: how and why?," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 137-160, January.
    16. Rohling, Moritz & Ohndorf, Markus, 2012. "Prices vs. Quantities with fiscal cushioning," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 169-187.
    17. Dijkstra, Bouwe R., 1998. "A two-stage rent-seeking contest for instrument choice and revenue division, applied to environmental policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 281-301, May.
    18. Garnaut,Ross, 2008. "The Garnaut Climate Change Review," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521744447.
    19. Pizer, William A., 2002. "Combining price and quantity controls to mitigate global climate change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 409-434, September.
    20. Aidt, T.S.Toke Skovsgaard & Dutta, Jayasri, 2004. "Transitional politics: emerging incentive-based instruments in environmental regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 458-479, May.
    21. Fredriksson, Per G., 1997. "The Political Economy of Pollution Taxes in a Small Open Economy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 44-58, May.
    22. Ellerman,A. Denny & Joskow,Paul L. & Schmalensee,Richard & Montero,Juan-Pablo & Bailey,Elizabeth M., 2005. "Markets for Clean Air," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521023894.
      • Ellerman,A. Denny & Joskow,Paul L. & Schmalensee,Richard & Montero,Juan-Pablo & Bailey,Elizabeth M., 2000. "Markets for Clean Air," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521660839, January.
    23. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2002. "Special Interest Politics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262571676, December.
    24. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W. H. Parry, 2008. "Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(2), pages 152-174, Summer.
    25. Robert N. Stavins, 1998. "What Can We Learn from the Grand Policy Experiment? Lessons from SO2 Allowance Trading," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 69-88, Summer.
    26. Dijkstra, Bouwe R., 2007. "An investment contest to influence environmental policy," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 300-324, November.
    27. Philippe Quirion, 2004. "Prices versus Quantities in a Second-Best Setting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 29(3), pages 337-360, November.
    28. Finkelshtain, Israel & Kislev, Yoav, 1997. "Prices versus Quantities: The Political Perspective," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 83-100, February.
    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. Ian A. MacKenzie, 2017. "Rent creation and rent seeking in environmental policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 145-166, April.
    2. Pezzey, John C.V. & Jotzo, Frank, 2010. "Tax-Versus-Trading and Free Emission Shares as Issues for Climate Policy Design," Research Reports 95049, Australian National University, Environmental Economics Research Hub.
    3. MacKenzie, Ian A. & Ohndorf, Markus, 2012. "Cap-and-trade, taxes, and distributional conflict," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 51-65.
    4. Alex Dickson & Ian A. MacKenzie, 2022. "Permit Markets with Political and Market Distortions," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 82(1), pages 227-255, May.
    5. Wood, Peter J. & Heindl, Peter & Jotzo, Frank & Löschel, Andreas, 2013. "Linking price and quantity pollution controls under uncertainty," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-025, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Tang, Bao-Jun & Wang, Xiang-Yu & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2019. "Quantities versus prices for best social welfare in carbon reduction: A literature review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 554-564.
    7. Pezzey, John C.V., 2006. "Neither the rock nor the hard place: using payment thresholds to balance the politics and the economics of emissions control," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 139892, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    8. Ashwin Rode, 2021. "Rent Seeking over Tradable Emission Permits," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 78(2), pages 257-285, February.
    9. Revesz, Richard & Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Law and Policy," Working Paper Series rwp04-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    10. Elisabetta Cornago & Renaud Foucart, 2014. "Instrument Choice and Cost Uncertainty in the Electricity Market," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-13, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. Burtraw, Dallas & Evans, David A., 2009. "Tradable rights to emit air pollution," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    12. Lehmann, Paul, 2010. "Combining emissions trading and emissions taxes in a multi-objective world," UFZ Discussion Papers 4/2010, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    13. Robert W. Hahn & Robert N. Stavins, 2011. "The Effect of Allowance Allocations on Cap-and-Trade System Performance," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(S4), pages 267-294.
    14. Pezzey, John C.V. & Jotzo, Frank, 2012. "Tax-versus-trading and efficient revenue recycling as issues for greenhouse gas abatement," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 230-236.
    15. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2009. "Market-Based Policy Options to Control U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 5-27, Spring.
    16. Roger Fouquet, 2012. "Economics of Energy and Climate Change: Origins, Developments and Growth," Working Papers 2012-08, BC3.
    17. Nikula Harri, 2020. "Instrument choice in the case of multiple externalities," Working Papers 2028, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    18. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen & Kahn, Danny, 2010. "A symmetric safety valve," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(9), pages 4921-4932, September.
    19. Yu-Bong Lai, 2009. "Is a Double Dividend Better than a Single Dividend?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 165(2), pages 342-363, June.
    20. David Anthoff & Robert Hahn, 2010. "Government failure and market failure: on the inefficiency of environmental and energy policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(2), pages 197-224, Summer.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    prices; quantities; rent seeking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:qld:uq2004:548. 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: SOE IT (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decuqau.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.