IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ilewps/5.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Joint Use of Liability and Regulation in Environmental Law

Author

Listed:
  • Michel, Stephan
  • Romano, Alessandro
  • Zannini, Ugo

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that the joint use of ex-ante regulation and ex-post liability rules is efficient when there are uncertainty surrounding causal investigations and regulatory myopia. As these conditions are generally met in environmental cases, we provide an explanation for the frequent coexistence of these two instruments to control activities that create a risk for the environment. Moreover, we suggest that a joint use of liability and regulation should more frequently be optimal at the European (Federal) level than at the Country (State) level.

Suggested Citation

  • Michel, Stephan & Romano, Alessandro & Zannini, Ugo, 2017. "Joint Use of Liability and Regulation in Environmental Law," ILE Working Paper Series 5, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ilewps:5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/157215/1/ile-wp-2017-5.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Aldred, 2012. "Climate change uncertainty, irreversibility and the precautionary principle," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 36(5), pages 1051-1072.
    2. Rouillon, Sebastien, 2008. "Safety regulation vs. liability with heterogeneous probabilities of suit," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 133-139, June.
    3. G.G.A. de Geest & G. Dari Mattiacci, 2005. "Soft Regulators, tough judges," Working Papers 05-06, Utrecht School of Economics.
    4. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2000. "On the joint use of liability and safety regulation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 371-382, September.
    5. Bhole, Bharat & Wagner, Jeffrey, 2008. "The joint use of regulation and strict liability with multidimensional care and uncertain conviction," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 123-132, June.
    6. Aldred, Jonathan, 2013. "Justifying precautionary policies: Incommensurability and uncertainty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 132-140.
    7. Michael G. Faure, 2014. "The complementary roles of liability, regulation and insurance in safety management: theory and practice," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 689-707, June.
    8. Innes, Robert, 2004. "Enforcement costs, optimal sanctions, and the choice between ex-post liability and ex-ante regulation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 29-48, March.
    9. Eberhard Feess & Gerd Muehlheusser & Ansgar Wohlschlegel, 2009. "Environmental liability under uncertain causation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 133-148, October.
    10. Helfand, W.H. & Lazarus, J. & Theerman, P., 2001. "Donora, Pennsylvania: An environmental disaster of the 20th century," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(4), pages 553-553.
    11. Alan Schwartz, 2000. "Statutory Interpretation, Capture, and Tort Law: The Regulatory Compliance Defense," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm144, Yale School of Management.
    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. Andrzej Baniak & Peter Grajzl, 2016. "Controlling Product Risks when Consumers Are Heterogeneously Overconfident: Producer Liability versus Minimum-Quality-Standard Regulation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 172(2), pages 274-304, June.
    2. Andrzej Baniak & Peter Grajzl, 2014. "Controlling Product Risks when Consumers are Heterogeneously Overconfident: Producer Liability vs. Minimum Quality Standard Regulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 5003, CESifo.
    3. Boyer, Marcel & Porrini, Donatella, 2011. "The impact of court errors on liability sharing and safety regulation for environmental/industrial accidents," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 21-29, March.
    4. Bentata Pierre, 2013. "Environmental Regulation and Civil Liability Under Causal Uncertainty: An Empirical Study of the French Legal System," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 239-263, October.
    5. Friehe, Tim & Langlais, Eric, 2015. "On the political economy of public safety investments," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 7-16.
    6. Grajzl, Peter & Baniak, Andrzej, 2009. "Industry self-regulation, subversion of public institutions, and social control of torts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 360-374, December.
    7. Pierre Bentata, 2014. "Liability as a complement to environmental regulation: an empirical study of the French legal system," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 16(3), pages 201-228, July.
    8. Marcel Boyer & Donatella Porrini, 2010. "Optimal liability sharing and court errors: an exploratory analysis," Working Papers hal-00463913, HAL.
    9. Massimo D’Antoni & Avraham D Tabbach, 2019. "The Complementary Role of Liability and Safety Regulation," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 21(1), pages 150-183.
    10. Calcott Paul, 2016. "Regulations to Supplement Weak Environmental Liability," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 1-14, October.
    11. Pierre Bentata & Karim Barkat, 2012. "Environmental Liability and Regulation: An Empirical Study of the French Institutional Division of Labour," CAE Working Papers 98, Aix-Marseille Université, CERGAM.
    12. Bhole, Bharat & Wagner, Jeffrey, 2008. "The joint use of regulation and strict liability with multidimensional care and uncertain conviction," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 123-132, June.
    13. Reinshagen, Felix, 2011. "Standards and Incentives in Safety Regulation," Munich Dissertations in Economics 13430, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    14. E. Rouvière & K. Latouche, 2014. "Impact of liability rules on modes of coordination for food safety in supply chains," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 111-130, February.
    15. Jonathan Yoder, 2008. "Liability, Regulation, and Endogenous Risk: The Incidence and Severity of Escaped Prescribed Fires in the United States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(2), pages 297-325, May.
    16. Nuno Garoupa, 2009. "Least-Cost Avoidance: The Tragedy of Common Safety," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 235-261, May.
    17. Michael Faure, 2009. "Environmental Liability," Chapters, in: Michael Faure (ed.), Tort Law and Economics, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Charreire, Maxime & Langlais, Eric, 2021. "Should environment be a concern for competition policy when firms face environmental liability?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    19. G.G.A. de Geest & G. Dari Mattiacci, 2005. "Soft Regulators, tough judges," Working Papers 05-06, Utrecht School of Economics.
    20. Hausken, Kjell, 2021. "The precautionary principle as multi-period games where players have different thresholds for acceptable uncertainty," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regulation; Liability; Joint Use; Causal Uncertainty; Regulatory Myopia; Precautionary Principle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General
    • 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

    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:zbw:ilewps:5. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/irhamde.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.