IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwm/wpaper/26.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Self-Policing in a Targeted Enforcement Regime

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah L. Stafford

    (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)

Abstract

This paper adds to the debate over whether self-policing can increase environmental protection by considering an aspect of self-policing that has been ignored in previous models Ð that self-policing may influence future enforcement. The model combines self-policing with targeted enforcement and allows for both deliberate and inadvertent violations. As expected, rewarding self-policers with more lenient future enforcement increases auditing, remediation, and disclosure of inadvertent violations. Self-policing can also serve as a complement to deliberate compliance and can thus further increase environmental performance. However, under reasonable conditions self-policing can be a substitute for deliberate compliance and could therefore be detrimental to environmental protection.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah L. Stafford, 2006. "Self-Policing in a Targeted Enforcement Regime," Working Papers 26, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwm:wpaper:26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economics.wm.edu/wp/cwm_wp26.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexander Pfaff & Chris William Sanchirico, 2004. "Big field, small potatoes: An empirical assessment of EPA's self-audit policy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 415-432.
    2. Friesen, Lana, 2006. "The social welfare implications of industry self-auditing," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 280-294, May.
    3. Innes, Robert, 1999. "Remediation and self-reporting in optimal law enforcement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 379-393, June.
    4. Heyes, Anthony G., 1996. "Cutting environmental penalties to protect the environment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 251-265, May.
    5. Innes, Robert, 2001. "Violator Avoidance Activities and Self-Reporting in Optimal Law Enforcement," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 239-256, April.
    6. Sarah L. Stafford, 2006. "Should You Turn Yourself In? The Consequences of Environmental Self-Policing," Working Papers 27, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary, revised 08 Sep 2006.
    7. Mishra, Birendra K. & Paul Newman, D. & Stinson, Christopher H., 1997. "Environmental regulations and incentives for compliance audits," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 187-214.
    8. Friesen, Lana, 2003. "Targeting enforcement to improve compliance with environmental regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 72-85, July.
    9. Raymond, Mark, 1999. "Enforcement leverage when penalties are restricted: a reconsideration under asymmetric information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 289-295, August.
    10. Eric Helland, 1998. "The Enforcement Of Pollution Control Laws: Inspections, Violations, And Self-Reporting," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 141-153, February.
    11. Harrington, Winston, 1988. "Enforcement leverage when penalties are restricted," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 29-53, October.
    12. McKenna, C.J. & Livernois, J., 1996. "Truth or Consequences? Enforcing Pollution Standards," Working Papers 1996-7, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    13. Harford, Jon D. & Harrington, Winston, 1991. "A reconsideration of enforcement leverage when penalties are restricted," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 391-395, August.
    14. Livernois, John & McKenna, C. J., 1999. "Truth or consequences: Enforcing pollution standards with self-reporting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 415-440, March.
    15. Kaplow, Louis & Shavell, Steven, 1994. "Optimal Law Enforcement with Self-Reporting of Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(3), pages 583-606, June.
    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. Sarah L. Stafford, 2006. "Should You Turn Yourself In? The Consequences of Environmental Self-Policing," Working Papers 27, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary, revised 08 Sep 2006.

    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. Sarah L. Stafford, 2008. "Self‐Policing in a Targeted Enforcement Regime," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(4), pages 934-951, April.
    2. Alm, James & Shimshack, Jay, 2014. "Environmental Enforcement and Compliance: Lessons from Pollution, Safety, and Tax Settings," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 10(4), pages 209-274, December.
    3. Carmen Arguedas, 2013. "Pollution standards, technology investment and fines for non-compliance," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 156-176, October.
    4. Guerrero, Santiago & Innes, Robert, 2008. "Statutory Rewards to Environmental Self-Auditing: Do They Reduce Pollution and Save Regulatory Costs? Evidence from a Cross-State Panel," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6204, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    5. Arguedas, Carmen & Rousseau, Sandra, 2012. "Learning about compliance under asymmetric information," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 55-73.
    6. Lin, Shi-Woei, 2010. "Self-reporting mechanism for risk regulation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 528-534, May.
    7. Sang-Hyun Kim, 2015. "Time to Come Clean? Disclosure and Inspection Policies for Green Production," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 1-20, February.
    8. Nyborg, Karine & Telle, Kjetil, 2004. "A dissolving paradox: Firms’ compliance to environmental regulation," Memorandum 02/2004, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    9. Takayoshi Shinkuma & Shunsuke Managi, 2012. "Effectiveness of policy against illegal disposal of waste," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 14(2), pages 123-145, April.
    10. Sarah L. Stafford, 2007. "Should you turn yourself in? The consequences of environmental self-policing," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 305-326.
    11. Friesen, Lana, 2006. "The social welfare implications of industry self-auditing," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 280-294, May.
    12. Suurmond, Guido, 2007. "The effects of the enforcement strategy," MPRA Paper 21142, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Christian Langpap, 2007. "Pollution abatement with limited enforcement power and citizen suits," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 57-81, February.
    14. Sarah L. Stafford, 2006. "Should You Turn Yourself In? The Consequences of Environmental Self-Policing," Working Papers 27, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary, revised 08 Sep 2006.
    15. Robert Innes, 2017. "Lie aversion and self-reporting in optimal law enforcement," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 107-131, October.
    16. Michael W. Toffel & Jodi L. Short, 2011. "Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Does Voluntary Self-Reporting Indicate Effective Self-Policing?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 609-649.
    17. Michael W. Toffel, 2008. "Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 45-71, May.
    18. Lars Hansen & Frank Jensen & Linda Nøstbakken, 2014. "Quota Enforcement in Resource Industries: Self-Reporting and Differentiated Inspections," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(4), pages 539-562, August.
    19. Coria, Jessica & Zhang, Xiao-Bing, 2015. "The Harrington Paradox Squared," Working Papers in Economics 608, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    20. Khanna Madhu & Widyawati Diah, 2011. "Fostering Regulatory Compliance: The Role of Environmental Self-Auditing and Audit Policies," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 125-160, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Self-Policing; Environmental Audit; Enforcement; Targeting; Compliance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    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:cwm:wpaper:26. 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: Daifeng He or Alfredo Pereira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decwmus.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.