IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/iasawp/ir99027.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Emissions Tax in Siberia: Economic Theory, Firm Response, and Noncompliance in Imperfect Markets

Author

Listed:
  • N.K. Warner-Merl

Abstract

The study sets out to discover the most important variables affecting the performance of an emissions tax in the context of a transition economy. An evaluation of the Siberian Pollution database confirms the acute severity of air pollution. Moving from the fact that the region has implemented an emissions charge system, the author examines some of the key theoretical variables explaining the degree of success of an emissions tax. After evaluating these variables, the author finds that most writings have underplayed or missed the most important factor affecting the implementation and functioning of an emissions tax in a transitional economy. Before implementing a market-oriented environmental policy, firms must respond to incentives in formal markets. These sources view the restructuring and environmental problem as a one of moving firms closer to formal markets, about which most Western models make their assumptions. However, the author implements a "compliance response boundary" framework, finding that the degree of market orientation of a firm may determine its response to the emissions tax. If firms fall outside of the compliance wedge, policy makers might expect the emissions tax to perform poorly in meeting policy goals of abatement and revenue. In this case, the tax provides few benefits in terms of enhancing efficiency, improving environmental conditions, or allowing "double dividends."

Suggested Citation

  • N.K. Warner-Merl, 1999. "An Emissions Tax in Siberia: Economic Theory, Firm Response, and Noncompliance in Imperfect Markets," Working Papers ir99027, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
  • Handle: RePEc:wop:iasawp:ir99027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Documents/IR-99-027.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Documents/IR-99-027.ps
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clifford Gaddy & Barry W. Ickes, 1998. "To Restructure or Not to Restructure: Informal Activities and Enterprise Behavior in Transition," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 134, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    2. Harford, Jon D., 1978. "Firm behavior under imperfectly enforceable pollution standards and taxes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 26-43, March.
    3. Bruce Larson & George Frisvold, 1996. "Uncertainty over future environmental taxes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(4), pages 461-471, December.
    4. Randall Bluffstone & Bruce A. Larson (ed.), 1997. "Controlling Pollution in Transition Economies," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1123.
    5. Fischer, Stanley & Sahay, Ratna & Vegh, Carlos, 1998. "From transition to market: Evidence and growth prospects," MPRA Paper 20615, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Andreoni, James & Levinson, Arik, 2001. "The simple analytics of the environmental Kuznets curve," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 269-286, May.
    7. McCain, Roger A, 1978. "Endogenous Bias in Technical Progress and Environmental Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(4), pages 538-546, September.
    8. Downing, Paul B. & Watson, William Jr., 1974. "The economics of enforcing air pollution controls," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 219-236, November.
    9. Magat, Wesley A., 1978. "Pollution control and technological advance: A dynamic model of the firm," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, March.
    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. Cropper, Maureen L & Oates, Wallace E, 1992. "Environmental Economics: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 675-740, June.
    2. Arguedas, Carmen & Rousseau, Sandra, 2009. "A note on the complementarity of uniform emission standards and monitoring strategies," Working Papers 2009/12, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    3. Carmen Arguedas, 2008. "To Comply or Not To Comply? Pollution Standard Setting Under Costly Monitoring and Sanctioning," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 41(2), pages 155-168, October.
    4. Jussi Lankoski & Erik Lichtenberg & Markku Ollikainen, 2010. "Agri-Environmental Program Compliance in a Heterogeneous Landscape," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 47(1), pages 1-22, September.
    5. Dasgupta, Susmita & Laplante, Benoit & Namingi, Nlandu & Hua Wang, 2000. "Industrial environmental performance in China - the impact of inspections," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2285, The World Bank.
    6. Bovenberg, A. Lans & Goulder, Lawrence H., 2002. "Environmental taxation and regulation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1471-1545, Elsevier.
    7. Jin-Li Hu & Chung-Huang Huang & Wei-Kai Chu, 2004. "Bribery, hierarchical government, and incomplete environmental enforcement," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 6(3), pages 177-196, September.
    8. Arguedas, Carmen & Cabo, Francisco & Martín-Herrán, Guiomar, 2020. "Enforcing regulatory standards in stock pollution problems," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    9. Rohling, Moritz & Ohndorf, Markus, 2012. "Prices vs. Quantities with fiscal cushioning," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 169-187.
    10. Carmen Arguedas & Francisco Cabo & Guiomar Martín-Herrán, 2017. "Optimal Pollution Standards and Non-compliance in a Dynamic Framework," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(3), pages 537-567, November.
    11. Cabo, Francisco & Martín-Herrán, Guiomar & Ramos, Laís, 2025. "Environmental regulation and tax evasion when the regulator has incomplete information," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. Bruce Larson & George Frisvold, 1996. "Uncertainty over future environmental taxes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(4), pages 461-471, December.
    13. Lehmann, Paul, 2008. "Using a policy mix for pollution control: A review of economic literature," UFZ Discussion Papers 4/2008, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    14. Arguedas, Carmen, 1999. "Enviromental standards and costly monitoring," UC3M Working papers. Economics 6099, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    15. Shigeru Matsumoto & Kenji Takeuchi, 2011. "The effect of community characteristics on the frequency of illegal dumping," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 13(3), pages 177-193, September.
    16. Dasgupta, Susmita & Laplante, Benoit & Mamingi, Nlandu & Wang, Hua, 2001. "Inspections, pollution prices, and environmental performance: evidence from China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 487-498, March.
    17. Liguo Lin, 2016. "Pollution Taxation in China: The Impact of Inspections," EEPSEA Research Report rr2016041, Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), revised Apr 2016.
    18. Chung-Huang Huang, 1996. "Effectiveness of environmental regulations under imperfect enforcement and the firm's avoidance behavior," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(2), pages 183-204, September.
    19. Lin, Liguo, 2013. "Enforcement of pollution levies in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 32-43.
    20. Aaron Hatcher, 2007. "Firm behaviour under pollution ratio standards with non-compliance," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 38(1), pages 89-98, September.

    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:wop:iasawp:ir99027. 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iiasaat.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.