Suchergebnisse

Environmental markets distribute tradable rights on natural resources that are available forfree on the earth such as water, biomass or clean air. In a framework where users differ solely inrespect of their access to the resource, I investigate the allocation of rights that are accepted inthe sense that, after trading, users obtain at least what they can achieve by sharing the resourcesthey control. I show that, among all accepted rights, the more egalitarian ones do not allow anyredistribution among users. Consequently, compared to an efficient allocation of resources, thenet trading of rights always increases inequality.

National audience ; La réduction des impacts environnementaux des activités de l'entreprise se fait-elle au détriment de sa performance économique ? Il n'en est pas toujours ainsi quand on prend en compte les gains de productivité liés aux innovations environnementales. Une série de travaux alliant argumentation théorique, études de cas et analyses empiriques à partir de données d'enquête ont été mobilisés pour savoir si innover pour répondre aux contraintes environnementales peut s'avérer rentable pour la firme. Tout en identifiant les circonstances et mécanismes en cause, les résultats suggèrent que, si les politiques environnementales favorisent l'innovation, elles sont en général coûteuses pour les firmes qui y sont soumises.

National audience ; La réduction des impacts environnementaux des activités de l'entreprise se fait-elle au détriment de sa performance économique ? Il n'en est pas toujours ainsi quand on prend en compte les gains de productivité liés aux innovations environnementales. Une série de travaux alliant argumentation théorique, études de cas et analyses empiriques à partir de données d'enquête ont été mobilisés pour savoir si innover pour répondre aux contraintes environnementales peut s'avérer rentable pour la firme. Tout en identifiant les circonstances et mécanismes en cause, les résultats suggèrent que, si les politiques environnementales favorisent l'innovation, elles sont en général coûteuses pour les firmes qui y sont soumises.

La réduction des impacts environnementaux des activités de l'entreprise se fait-elle au détriment de sa performance économique ? Il n'en est pas toujours ainsi quand on prend en compte les gains de productivité liés aux innovations environnementales. Une série de travaux alliant argumentation théorique, études de cas et analyses empiriques à partir de données d'enquête ont été mobilisés pour savoir si innover pour répondre aux contraintes environnementales peut s'avérer rentable pour la firme. Tout en identifiant les circonstances et mécanismes en cause, les résultats suggèrent que, si les politiques environnementales favorisent l'innovation, elles sont en général coûteuses pour les firmes qui y sont soumises.

National audience ; We propose informational spillovers as a new rationale for the use of multiple policy instruments to mitigate a single externality. We investigate the design of a pollution standard when the firms' abatement costs are unknown and emissions are taxed. A firm might abate pollution beyond what is required by the standard by equalizing its marginal abatement costs to the tax rate, thereby revealinginformation about its abatement cost. We analyze how a regulator can take advantage of this information to design the standard. In a dynamic setting,the regulator relaxes the initial standard in order to induce more informationrevelation, which would allow her to set a standard closer to the first best in the future. Updating standards, though, generates a ratchet effect since a lowcost firm might strategically hide its cost by abating no more than required by the standard. We characterize the optimal standard and its update across time depending on the firm's abatement strategy. We illustrate our theoretical results with the case of NOx regulation in Sweden. We find evidence that the firms that pay the NOx tax experience more frequent standard updates and more stringent revisions than those who are exempted.

We propose informational spillovers as a new rationale for the use of multiple policy instruments to mitigate a single externality. We investigate the design of a pollution standard when the firms' abatement costs are unknown and emissions are taxed. A firm might abate pollution beyond what is required by the standard by equalizing its marginal abatement costs to the tax rate, thereby revealing information about its abatement cost. We analyze how a regulator can take advantage of this information to design the standard. In a dynamic setting, the regulator relaxes the initial standard in order to induce more information revelation, which would allow her to set a standard closer to the first best in the second period. Updating standards, though, generates a ratchet effect since the low-cost firms might strategically hide their cost by abating no more than required by the standard. We provide conditions for the separating equilibrium to hold when firms act strategically. We illustrate our theoretical results with the case of NO x regulation in Sweden. We find evidence that the firms that are taxed experience more frequent standard updates.

The presence of consumers able to respond to changes in wholesale electricity prices facilitates the penetration of renewable intermittent sources of energy such as wind or sun power. We investigate how adapting demand to intermittent electricity supply by making consumers price-responsive-thanks to smart meters and home automation appliances-impacts the energy mix. We show that it almost always reduces carbon emissions. Furthermore , when consumers are not too risk-averse, demand response is socially beneficial because the loss from exposing consumers to volatile prices is more than offset by lower production and environmental costs. However, the gain is decreasing when the proportion of reactive consumers increases. Therefore, depending on the costs of the necessary smart hardware, it may be non-optimal to equip the whole population.

We consider the redistributive effects of privatizing a resource previously exploited under free access. We assume that illegal extraction is punished but that the sanction is bounded by individuals' wealth. First, we show that a segment of intermediate-wealth individuals is the most adversely affected from the regime change, while the poorest segment is not only less severely affected, but may actually gain from it. Next, we show how the authorities may prefer to choose an intermediate enforcement level in order to maximize the political acceptability of the regime switch among the local community.