IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/2571.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Liability for Past Environmental Contamination and Privatization

Author

Listed:
  • Earnhart, Dietrich

Abstract

This paper examines the role of liability for past environmental contamination in the privatization processes of Central and Eastern Europe. The theoretical section establishes a link between a risk-averse investor’s amount of information regarding the extent of past environmental contamination (and its cleanup costs) and the investor’s willingness to pay for a particular enterprise, i.e., bid. As the investor obtains a more precise estimate of the uncertain cleanup costs, the investor faces less risk; therefore, the investor’s risk premium falls and the investor’s bid rises. This link generates four hypotheses regarding a privatization agency’s responses to the investor’s knowledge of cleanup costs. The empirical section of this paper proposes to test these hypotheses with forthcoming analysis using data from the Czech Republic.

Suggested Citation

  • Earnhart, Dietrich, 2000. "Liability for Past Environmental Contamination and Privatization," CEPR Discussion Papers 2571, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:2571
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP2571
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Segerson Kathleen, 1993. "Liability Transfers: An Economic Assessment of Buyer and Lender Liability," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 46-63, July.
    2. Sigman, Hilary, 1998. "Liability Funding and Superfund Clean-Up Remedies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 205-224, May.
    3. Segerson, Kathleen, 1989. "Risk and incentives in the financing of hazardous waste cleanup," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-8, January.
    4. Anthony Heyes (ed.), 2001. "The Law and Economics of the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2037.
    5. Farber, Stephen, 1991. "Regulatory schemes and self-protective environmental risk control: a comparison of insurance, liability, and deposit/refund systems," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 231-245, September.
    6. Randall Bluffstone & Theodore Panayotou, 2000. "Environmental Liability and Privatization in Central and Eastern Europe: Toward an Optimal Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 17(4), pages 335-352, December.
    7. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    8. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1971. "Increasing risk II: Its economic consequences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 66-84, March.
    9. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    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. Anke D. Wurzbacher, 2004. "Dynamic Ecological Constraints to Economic Growth," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 909, The University of Melbourne.
    2. Earnhart, Dietrich & Lízal, Lubomír, 2002. "Effects of Ownership and Financial Status on Corporate Environmental Performance," CEPR Discussion Papers 3557, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Satoru Komatsu & Andrey Kalugin & Shinji Kaneko, 2012. "Allocating Costs of Environmental Management among Generations: A Case of Environmental Liabilities in Transition Economies," Transition Studies Review, Springer;Central Eastern European University Network (CEEUN), vol. 19(2), pages 225-243, November.
    4. Leroux, Anke D. & Creedy, John, 2007. "Optimal land conversion and growth with uncertain biodiversity costs," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 542-549, March.
    5. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:17:y:2006:i:5:p:1-9 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Earnhart, Dietrich & Lizal, Lubomir, 2006. "Effects of ownership and financial performance on corporate environmental performance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 111-129, March.
    7. Shuichi Ohori, 2006. "Trade liberalization, consumption externalities and the environment: a mixed duopoly approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 17(5), pages 1-9.
    8. Bluffstone, Randall, 2007. "Privatization and contaminated site remediation in Central and Eastern Europe: Do environmental liability policies matter?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 31-41, June.

    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. Michael Faure, 2009. "Environmental Liability," Chapters, in: Michael Faure (ed.), Tort Law and Economics, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Alexander Reisz, 1999. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty, the Investment Policy of Levered Firms and Corporate Debt Yields," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 99-044, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    3. John, Kose & Reisz, Alexander S., 2010. "Temporal resolution of uncertainty, disclosure policy, and corporate debt yields," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 655-678, December.
    4. Tracy Mott, 2012. "Risk," Chapters, in: Jan Toporowski & Jo Michell (ed.), Handbook of Critical Issues in Finance, chapter 39, pages i-ii, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Nocetti, Diego C., 2013. "The LeChatelier principle for changes in risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 460-466.
    6. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Lance Lochner & Youngmin Park, 2017. "Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why Do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 102-147, January.
    7. Alessandro Spiganti, 2022. "Wealth Inequality and the Exploration of Novel Alternatives," Working Papers 2022:02, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    8. Cerreia-Vioglio, Simone & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo & Montrucchio, Luigi, 2012. "Probabilistic sophistication, second order stochastic dominance and uncertainty aversion," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 271-283.
    9. Kiyohiko G. Nishimura & Hiroyuki Ozaki, 2001. "Search under the Knightian Uncertainty," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-112, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    10. Baker, Erin, 2005. "Uncertainty and learning in a strategic environment: global climate change," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 19-40, January.
    11. Jang Ok Cho & Hyo-Youn Chu & Hyung Seok E. Kim & Jaywon Lee, 2016. "Productivity Distribution and Economic Growth," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 32, pages 23-40.
    12. Eeckhoudt, Louis & Schlesinger, Harris, 2008. "Changes in risk and the demand for saving," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1329-1336, October.
    13. Christian Gollier & James Hammitt & Nicolas Treich, 2013. "Risk and choice: A research saga," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 129-145, October.
    14. Raymond H. Chan & Ephraim Clark & Xu Guo & Wing-Keung Wong, 2020. "New development on the third-order stochastic dominance for risk-averse and risk-seeking investors with application in risk management," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(2), pages 108-132, June.
    15. Terrance Hurley & Jawoo Koo & Kindie Tesfaye, 2018. "Weather risk: how does it change the yield benefits of nitrogen fertilizer and improved maize varieties in sub‐Saharan Africa?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(6), pages 711-723, November.
    16. Saïd Hanchane & Abraham Lioui & David Touahri, 2006. "Human capital as a risky asset and the effect of uncertainty on the decision to invest," Working Papers halshs-00010139, HAL.
    17. Hoy, Michael & Huang, Rachel J., 2017. "Measuring discrimination using principles of stochastic dominance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 39-52.
    18. Chiu, W. Henry, 2019. "Comparative statics in an ordinal theory of choice under risk," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 113-123.
    19. Christian Gollier, 2007. "Whom should we believe? Aggregation of heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 107-127, October.
    20. Jeffrey Zabel, 2007. "The Impact of Imperfect Information on the Transactions of Contaminated Properties," NCEE Working Paper Series 200703, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Jan 2007.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Liability; Risk; Privatization; environmental contamination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law

    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:cpr:ceprdp:2571. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.