IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeeman/v88y2018icp69-94.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting for loss of variety and factor reallocations in the welfare cost of regulations

Author

Listed:
  • Andersen, Dana C.

Abstract

This paper develops a multi-sector general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms to account for both the direct cost of regulations on regulated firms as well as the indirect cost associated with loss of variety and factor reallocations. The model derives an analytical marginal abatement cost function, dividing the cost according to these direct and indirect effects, and explores the implications for optimal environmental policy. The model is numerically simulated using parameters for the U.S. manufacturing sector for criteria air pollutants, demonstrating that the direct cost of regulations understates the true cost. Moreover, because marginal abatement costs vary across industries, reallocating pollution across industries to achieve cost-effectiveness can generate modest cost savings.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersen, Dana C., 2018. "Accounting for loss of variety and factor reallocations in the welfare cost of regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 69-94.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:88:y:2018:i:c:p:69-94
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2017.10.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069616301978
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeem.2017.10.005?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Zhe & Sun, Jianfei, 2015. "Emission taxes and standards in a general equilibrium with entry and exit," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 34-60.
    2. Wayne B Gray & Ronald J Shadbegian, 1994. "Pollution Abatement Costs, Regulation And Plant-Level Productivity," Working Papers 94-14, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Randy Becker & Vernon Henderson, 2000. "Effects of Air Quality Regulations on Polluting Industries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 379-421, April.
    4. John A. List & Daniel L. Millimet & Per G. Fredriksson & W. Warren McHone, 2003. "Effects of Environmental Regulations on Manufacturing Plant Births: Evidence from a Propensity Score Matching Estimator," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 944-952, November.
    5. W. Reed Walker, 2013. "The Transitional Costs of Sectoral Reallocation: Evidence From the Clean Air Act and the Workforce," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(4), pages 1787-1835.
    6. de Bovenberg, A Lans & Mooij, Ruud A, 1994. "Environmental Levies and Distortionary Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 1085-1089, September.
    7. Dana C. Andersen, 2016. "Credit Constraints, Technology Upgrading, and the Environment," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(2), pages 283-319.
    8. 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.
    9. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Francis Kramarz, 2011. "An Anatomy of International Trade: Evidence From French Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1453-1498, September.
    10. Lawrence H. Goulder & Marc A. C. Hafstead & Roberton C. Williams III, 2016. "General Equilibrium Impacts of a Federal Clean Energy Standard," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 186-218, May.
    11. Nicholas Bloom & Christos Genakos & Ralf Martin & Raffaella Sadun, 2010. "Modern Management: Good for the Environment or Just Hot Air?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 551-572, May.
    12. Anouliès, Lisa, 2017. "Heterogeneous firms and the environment: a cap-and-trade program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 84-101.
    13. Meredith Fowlie & Mar Reguant & Stephen P. Ryan, 2016. "Market-Based Emissions Regulation and Industry Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 249-302.
    14. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2018. "Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3814-3854, December.
    15. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    16. Yoshifumi Konishi & Nori Tarui, 2015. "Emissions Trading, Firm Heterogeneity, and Intra-industry Reallocations in the Long Run," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-42.
    17. Cole, Matthew A. & Elliott, Robert J.R. & Shimamoto, Kenichi, 2005. "Industrial characteristics, environmental regulations and air pollution: an analysis of the UK manufacturing sector," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 121-143, July.
    18. Bernard, Alain L. & Fischer, Carolyn & Fox, Alan K., 2007. "Is there a rationale for output-based rebating of environmental levies?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 83-101, May.
    19. Mark Doms & Eric J. Bartelsman, 2000. "Understanding Productivity: Lessons from Longitudinal Microdata," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 569-594, September.
    20. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and the Environment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 7-71, March.
    21. Holland, Stephen P., 2012. "Emissions taxes versus intensity standards: Second-best environmental policies with incomplete regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 375-387.
    22. Buchanan, James M, 1969. "External Diseconomies, Corrective Taxes, and Market Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 174-177, March.
    23. Don Fullerton & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2002. "Environmental Controls, Scarcity Rents, and Pre-existing Distortions," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 26, pages 504-522, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    24. Michael Greenstone, 2002. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulations on Industrial Activity: Evidence from the 1970 and 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments and the Census of Manufactures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1175-1219, December.
    25. Shapiro, Joseph S. & Walker, Reed, 2015. "Why is Pollution from U.S. Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Trade, Regulation, Productivity, and Preferences," IZA Discussion Papers 8789, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    26. Michael Greenstone & John A. List & Chad Syverson, 2011. "The Effects of Environmental Regulation on the Competiveness of U.S. Manufacturing," Working Papers 11-03, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    27. Ian W.H. Parry, 2002. "Pollution Taxes and Revenue Reycling," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 15, pages 235-248, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    28. Becker, Randy A., 2005. "Air pollution abatement costs under the Clean Air Act: evidence from the PACE survey," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 144-169, July.
    29. Henderson, J Vernon, 1996. "Effects of Air Quality Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 789-813, September.
    30. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    31. Stephen P. Ryan, 2012. "The Costs of Environmental Regulation in a Concentrated Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 1019-1061, May.
    32. Nick Bloom & Christos Genakos & Ralf Martin & Raffaella Sadun, 2010. "In brief: Modern Management: Good for the environment or just hot air?," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 303, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    33. Tombe, Trevor & Winter, Jennifer, 2015. "Environmental policy and misallocation: The productivity effect of intensity standards," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 137-163.
    34. Cole, Matthew A. & Elliott, Robert J.R. & Wu, Shanshan, 2008. "Industrial activity and the environment in China: An industry-level analysis," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 393-408, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bai, Caiquan & Liu, Hangjuan & Zhang, Rongjie & Feng, Chen, 2023. "Blessing or curse? Market-driven environmental regulation and enterprises' total factor productivity: Evidence from China's carbon market pilots," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    2. An, Qingxian & Tao, Xiangyang & Chen, Xiaohong, 2023. "Nested frontier-based best practice regulation under asymmetric information in a principal–agent framework," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(1), pages 269-285.
    3. Xiangdong Cao & Fuyi Ci, 2023. "Study on the Coupling Development of Industry, City and Population in the Yellow River Basin from the Perspective of Green Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-13, June.
    4. Li, Haoyang & Wu, Nan, 2022. "Emission pricing, emission rebound, and the coverage scope of incomplete regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    5. Xinze Li & Luojia Wang & Kerui Du, 2023. "How do environmental regulations influence resource misallocation in China? The role of investment flows," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 538-550, January.
    6. Yongmin Shang & Guoqing Lyu & Zefeng Mi, 2022. "Green Technology Transfer, Environmental Regulation, and Regional Green Development Chasm: Based on the Empirical Evidence from Yangtze River Delta," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-22, October.
    7. Alex Hollingsworth & Taylor Jaworski & Carl Kitchens & Ivan J. Rudik, 2022. "Economic Geography and the Efficiency of Environmental Regulation," NBER Working Papers 29845, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. McAusland, Carol, 2021. "Carbon taxes and footprint leakage: Spoilsport effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    9. Liu, Guixian & Sun, Wei & Kong, Zhaoyang & Dong, Xiucheng & Jiang, Qingzhe, 2023. "Did the pollution charge system promote or inhibit innovation? Evidence from Chinese micro-enterprises," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    10. Schaufele, Brandon, 2019. "Demand Shocks Change the Excess Burden From Carbon Taxes," MPRA Paper 92132, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Andersen, Dana C., 2016. "Accounting for Firm Exit and Loss of Variety in the Welfare Cost of Regulations," Working Papers 2016-9, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    2. Dana C. Andersen, 2020. "Default Risk, Productivity, and the Environment: Theory and Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(4), pages 677-710, April.
    3. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2018. "Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3814-3854, December.
    4. Shapiro, Joseph S. & Walker, Reed, 2015. "Why is Pollution from U.S. Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Trade, Regulation, Productivity, and Preferences," IZA Discussion Papers 8789, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Jevan M. Cherniwchan & M. Scott Taylor, 2022. "International Trade and the Environment: Three Remaining Empirical Challenges," NBER Working Papers 30020, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dana C. Andersen, 2016. "Credit Constraints, Technology Upgrading, and the Environment," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(2), pages 283-319.
    7. Li, Haoyang & Wu, Nan, 2022. "Emission pricing, emission rebound, and the coverage scope of incomplete regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    8. Curtis, E. Mark, 2020. "Reevaluating the ozone nonattainment standards: Evidence from the 2004 expansion," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    9. Alex Hollingworth & Taylor Jaworski & Carl Kitchens & Ivan Rudik, 2022. "Economic Geography and the Efficiency of Environmental Regulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 9644, CESifo.
    10. Wang, Huanhuan & Xiong, Jiaxin, 2022. "Governance on water pollution: Evidence from a new river regulatory system of China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    11. Jonathan Colmer & Ralf Martin & Mirabelle Muûls & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2020. "Does pricing carbon mitigate climate change? Firm-level evidence from the European Union emissions trading scheme," CEP Discussion Papers dp1728, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Cui, Jingbo & Moschini, GianCarlo, 2020. "Firm internal network, environmental regulation, and plant death," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    13. Martinsson, Gustav & Sajtos, László & Strömberg, Per & Thomann, Christian, 2022. "Carbon Pricing and Firm-Level CO2 Abatement: Evidence from a Quarter of a Century-Long Panel," Misum Working Paper Series 2022-10, Stockholm School of Economics, Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (Misum).
    14. Hartmut Egger & Udo Kreickemeier & Philipp M. Richter, 2021. "Environmental Policy and Firm Selection in the Open Economy," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(4), pages 655-690.
    15. Zhu, Junming & Ruth, Matthias, 2015. "Relocation or reallocation: Impacts of differentiated energy saving regulation on manufacturing industries in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 119-133.
    16. Andersen, Dana C., 2017. "Do credit constraints favor dirty production? Theory and plant-level evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 189-208.
    17. Xin Zhao & Gregmar I. Galinato & Tim A. Graciano, 2019. "The Welfare Effects of Opening to Foreign Direct Investment in Polluting Sectors," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 243-269, September.
    18. Yoshifumi Konishi & Nori Tarui, 2015. "Emissions Trading, Firm Heterogeneity, and Intra-industry Reallocations in the Long Run," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-42.
    19. Francesco Vona & Giovanni Marin & Davide Consoli & David Popp, 2015. "Green Skills," Working Papers 2015.72, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    20. Michael Greenstone & John A. List & Chad Syverson, 2011. "The Effects of Environmental Regulation on the Competiveness of U.S. Manufacturing," Working Papers 11-03, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    General equilibrium; Firm heterogeneity; Welfare cost of regulations; Manufacturing sector;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D51 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Exchange and Production Economies
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    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:eee:jeeman:v:88:y:2018:i:c:p:69-94. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622870 .

    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.