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A Whiter Shade of Pale: on the Political Economy of Regulatory Instruments

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Abstract

We consider an intertemporal policy game between changing governments that differ in their attitudes towards a particular feature of market outcomes, exemplified with environmental pollution. When in power, a government will choose policy instruments and set strictness of regulation with a view to influencing the policy of future, possibly different, governments. We demonstrate that a ‘brown’ government favours emission quotas over effluent taxes, as quotas establish property rights that are costly to reverse. Conversely, a ‘green’ government prefers to regulate by taxes, in order to limit the incentives of future ‘brown’ governments to ease regulations. Strategic behaviour tends to exaggerate policy differences (making ‘green’ governments ‘greener’ and ‘brown’ governments ‘browner’) compared to when such strategic considerations were not an issue.

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  • Baldursson, Fridrik M & von der Fehr, Nils-Henrik M, 2004. "A Whiter Shade of Pale: on the Political Economy of Regulatory Instruments," Memorandum 29/2004, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:osloec:2004_029
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    File URL: http://www.sv.uio.no/econ/english/research/unpublished-works/working-papers/pdf-files/2004/Memo-29-2004.pdf
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    Cited by:

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    2. Xavier Vives, 2009. "Strategic complementarity in multi-stage games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(1), pages 151-171, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    regulation; political economy; effluent taxes; tradable quotas; property rights; commitment; environmental management;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • Q38 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy (includes OPEC Policy)

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