IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iuk/wpaper/2007-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public Voluntary Programs Reconsidered

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas P. Lyon

    (Ross School of Business, University of Michigan)

  • John W. Maxwell

    (Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University Kelley School of Business)

Abstract

“Public voluntary programs” (PVPs) involve government offers of positive publicity and technical assistance to firms that reach certain environmental goals. A growing body of empirical evidence suggests these programs often have little impact on the behavior of their participants. A natural policy conclusion would be to eliminate these programs, but this paper offers several reasons not to jump to such a conclusion. We first present a political-economic framework in which PVPs are viewed as modest subsidies used when political opposition makes stronger environmental regulation infeasible. We then explore the design of PVPs in detail, showing how PVPs can potentially enhance the diffusion of cost-effective techniques for pollution abatement, so long as the information involved is not competitively sensitive. Identifying the effects of PVPs econometrically is difficult because information is likely to diffuse to non-participants. Thus, after the early phases of even a successful PVP, it may well be impossible to detect a difference in performance between participants and non-participants.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2007. "Public Voluntary Programs Reconsidered," Working Papers 2007-07, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2007-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/RePEc/iuk/wpaper/bepp2007-07-lyon-maxwell.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lyon,Thomas P. & Maxwell,John W., 2004. "Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521819473, January.
    2. Eric W. Welch & Allan Mazur & Stuart Bretschneider, 2000. "Voluntary behavior by electric utilities: Levels of adoption and contribution of the climate challenge program to the reduction of carbon dioxide," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 407-425.
    3. Maxwell, John W & Lyon, Thomas P & Hackett, Steven C, 2000. "Self-Regulation and Social Welfare: The Political Economy of Corporate Environmentalism," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 583-617, October.
    4. Segerson, Kathleen & Miceli, Thomas J., 1998. "Voluntary Environmental Agreements: Good or Bad News for Environmental Protection?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 109-130, September.
    5. Vidovic, Martina & Khanna, Neha, 2007. "Can voluntary pollution prevention programs fulfill their promises? Further evidence from the EPA's 33/50 Program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 180-195, March.
    6. Carlo Carraro & Domenico Siniscalco, 1996. "Voluntary agreements in environmental policy: a theoretical appraisal," Chapters, in: Anastasios Xepapadeas (ed.), Economic Policy for the Environment and Natural Resources, chapter 4, pages 80-94, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Khanna, Madhu & Damon, Lisa A., 1999. "EPA's Voluntary 33/50 Program: Impact on Toxic Releases and Economic Performance of Firms," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-25, January.
    8. DeCanio, Stephen J, 1998. "The efficiency paradox: bureaucratic and organizational barriers to profitable energy-saving investments," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 441-454, April.
    9. Gamper-Rabindran, Shanti, 2006. "Did the EPA's voluntary industrial toxics program reduce emissions? A GIS analysis of distributional impacts and by-media analysis of substitution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 391-410, July.
    10. John Maxwell & Christopher Decker, 2006. "Voluntary Environmental Investment and Responsive Regulation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 33(4), pages 425-439, April.
    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. Daniel Matisoff, 2015. "Sources of specification errors in the assessment of voluntary environmental programs: understanding program impacts," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(1), pages 109-126, March.
    2. Huan Li & Neha Khanna & Martina Vidovic, 2018. "The effects of third party certification on voluntary self-regulation of accidents in the U.S. chemical industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 327-356, June.
    3. Allen Blackman & Sarah Darley & Thomas P. Lyon & Kris Wernstedt, 2010. "What Drives Participation in State Voluntary Cleanup Programs? Evidence from Oregon," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(4), pages 785-799.
    4. Runa Sarkar, 2008. "Public policy and corporate environmental behaviour: a broader view," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(5), pages 281-297, September.
    5. Martina Vidovic & Neha Khanna, 2012. "Is Voluntary Pollution Abatement in the Absence of a Carrot or Stick Effective? Evidence from Facility Participation in the EPA’s 33/50 Program," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 52(3), pages 369-393, July.
    6. Abdoul Sam, 2010. "Impact of government-sponsored pollution prevention practices on environmental compliance and enforcement: evidence from a sample of US manufacturing facilities," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 266-286, June.
    7. 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.
    8. Andreas Ferrara and Ian Lange, 2014. "Voluntary Programs to Encourage Diffusion: The Case of the Combined Heat-and-Power Partnership," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    9. Brouhle, Keith & Griffiths, Charles & Wolverton, Ann, 2009. "Evaluating the role of EPA policy levers: An examination of a voluntary program and regulatory threat in the metal-finishing industry," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 166-181, March.
    10. Harrington, Donna Ramirez, 2012. "Two-stage adoption of different types of pollution prevention (P2) activities," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 349-373.
    11. Stephen Finger & Shanti Gamper-Rabindran, 2013. "Testing the effects of self-regulation on industrial accidents," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 115-146, April.
    12. Li, Huan & Khanna, Neha, 2016. "Does Voluntary Regulation Provide Regulatory Relief? A Lesson from the Responsible Care Program," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235652, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Carrión-Flores, Carmen E. & Innes, Robert, 2010. "Environmental innovation and environmental performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 27-42, January.
    14. Blackman, Allen & Guerrero, Santiago, 2012. "What drives voluntary eco-certification in Mexico?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 256-268.
    15. Pizer, William A. & Morgenstern, Richard & Shih, Jhih-Shyang, 2010. "Evaluating Voluntary Climate Programs in the United States," RFF Working Paper Series dp-08-13-rev, Resources for the Future.
    16. Robert Innes & Abdoul G. Sam, 2008. "Voluntary Pollution Reductions and the Enforcement of Environmental Law: An Empirical Study of the 33/50 Program," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(2), pages 271-296, May.
    17. David P. Baron, 2016. "Self‐Regulation and the Market for Activism," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 584-607, September.
    18. Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2014. "Self-Regulation and Regulatory Flexibility: Why Firms May be Reluctant to Signal Green," Working Papers 2014-11, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    19. Shanti Gamper-Rabindran & Stephen Finger, 2013. "Does industry self-regulation reduce pollution? Responsible Care in the chemical industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 1-30, January.
    20. Keith Brouhle & Charles Griffiths & Ann Wolverton, 2007. "Evaluating the Effectiveness of EPA Voluntary Programs: An Examination of the Strategic Goals Program for Metal Finishers," NCEE Working Paper Series 200706, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised May 2007.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iuk:wpaper:2007-07. 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: Rick Harbaugh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpiubus.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.