IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v3y1994i2p34-42.html

The greening of the EC agrochemical market: Regulation and competition

Author

Listed:
  • Alain Nadaï

Abstract

This paper analyses the process of harmonisation of national pesticides regulations in the EC. One of the outcomes of this process was, in 1991, the adoption of an EC regulation which includes new environmental requirements for pesticides to be sold on the EC market. This regulatory process shows an example of trade‐off between competition policy and environmental policy. After having described the competition in the agrochemical sector, the paper examines this trade‐off in two ways. Firstly, the behaviour of industrial interest groups throughout the process and their influence in the devising of the regulation is considered. Secondly, the impact of competitive issues on the implementation of part of the 1991 regulation (i.e. the re‐registration of old pesticides commercialised in the EC) is analysed. This case study confirms some general results of the regulatory capture theory but it also points out some limits of these theories: firms seemed to be much more sensitive to negative pay‐offs than to positive ones when deciding to become involved in this regulatory process. A second insight brought up by this case study concerns the link between competition policy and environmental policy and its influence on the efficiency of the latter. Environment‐competition trade‐off in the agrochemical sector confronts the regulator, when it adopts environmental policy, with two risks: a risk of changing the structure of the industry (from a differentiated and innovative one to a commodity one) if the regulator does not provide sufficient pay‐offs for environmental R&D costs, or a risk of allowing part of the industry to increase monopoly rents. Both risks would affect environmental efficiency, either by reducing the innovation in the sector or by over‐protecting ‘greener’ pesticides from competition on price.

Suggested Citation

  • Alain Nadaï, 1994. "The greening of the EC agrochemical market: Regulation and competition," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 34-42.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:3:y:1994:i:2:p:34-42
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.3280030205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3280030205
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.3280030205?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, December.
    2. Noll, Roger G., 1989. "Economic perspectives on the politics of regulation," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1253-1287, Elsevier.
    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. Stanley Reiter, 1996. "On endogenous economic regulation," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 2(1), pages 211-243, December.
    2. Miravete, Eugenio & Seim, Katja & Thurk, Jeff, 2013. "Complexity, Efficiency, and Fairness of Multi-Product Monopoly Pricing," CEPR Discussion Papers 9641, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Óscar A. Alfonso R. (ed.) & Pedro Ignacio Bernal F. (ed.), 2022. "Las carencias de agua potable en Colombia. Análisis del derecho humano al agua y la eficacia de las políticas," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Economía, number 84.
    4. Hiriart, Yolande & Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jerome, 2010. "The public management of risk: Separating ex ante and ex post monitors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1008-1019, December.
    5. Adwoa Asantewaa & Tooraj Jamasb & Manuel Llorca, 2022. "Electricity Sector Reform Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Parametric Distance Function Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-29, March.
    6. Eugenio J. Miravete & Katja Seim & Jeff Thurk, 2020. "One Markup to Rule Them All: Taxation by Liquor Pricing Regulation," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 1-41, February.
    7. P. Hägg, 1997. "Theories on the Economics of Regulation: A Survey of the Literature from a European Perspective," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 337-370, December.
    8. Paul L. Joskow, 2010. "Market Imperfections versus Regulatory Imperfections," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 8(03), pages 3-7, October.
    9. Jeff Thurk, 2015. "Measuring the Unequal Implications of One Size Fits All Regulation," 2015 Meeting Papers 1251, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Ghosh, Ranjan & Kathuria, Vinish, 2016. "The effect of regulatory governance on efficiency of thermal power generation in India: A stochastic frontier analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 11-24.
    11. Evangelinos, Christos & Püschel, Ronny & Niemeier, Hans-Martin, 2020. "Special interest groups and price-structure: An application to noise charging at Zurich Airport," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Antonio Estache & L. Wren-Lewis, 2008. "Towards a Theory of Regulation for Developing Countries: Following Laffont's Lead," Working Papers ECARES 2008_018, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Evangelinos, Christos, 2013. "Interessengruppen und Preissetzung im Verkehr," Discussion Papers 2/2013, Technische Universität Dresden, "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, Institute of Transport and Economics.
    14. Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1996. "Industrial policy and politics," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-27.
    15. Robert Hahn & Robert Metcalfe & Florian Rundhammer, 2020. "Promoting customer engagement: A new trend in utility regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(1), pages 121-149, January.
    16. repec:ces:ifodic:v:8:y:2010:i:3:p:14566927 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. J.A. den Hertog, 2010. "Review of economic theories of regulation," Working Papers 10-18, Utrecht School of Economics.
    18. Francesca Barigozzi & Bertrand Villeneuve, 2006. "The Signaling Effect of Tax Policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(4), pages 611-630, October.
    19. David Martimort & Jérôme Pouyet, 2024. "Promotional Allowances: Loss Leading as an Incentive Device," Working Papers hal-04758824, HAL.
    20. christoph Engel, 2005. "Voice over IP. Competition Policy and Regulation," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2005_26, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    21. Klein, Michael, 1996. "Competition in network industries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1591, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    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:bla:bstrat:v:3:y:1994:i:2:p:34-42. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    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.