Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information

We focus on the incentives of an industry with a continuum of small firms to invest in a cleaner technology under two environmental policy instruments: tradable emission permits and emission taxation. We assume asymmetric information, in that the firms' abatement costs with the new technology a...

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Main Authors: D'Amato, Alessio, Dijkstra, Bouwe
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2015
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31341/
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author D'Amato, Alessio
Dijkstra, Bouwe
author_facet D'Amato, Alessio
Dijkstra, Bouwe
author_sort D'Amato, Alessio
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description We focus on the incentives of an industry with a continuum of small firms to invest in a cleaner technology under two environmental policy instruments: tradable emission permits and emission taxation. We assume asymmetric information, in that the firms' abatement costs with the new technology are either high or low. Environmental policy is set either before the firms invest (commitment) or after (time consistency). Under commitment, the welfare comparison follows a modified Weitzman rule, featuring reverse probability weighting for the slope of the marginal abatement cost curve. Both instruments can lead to under- or overinvestment ex post. Tradable permits lead to less than optimal expected new technology adoption. Under time consistency, the regulator infers the cost realization and implements the full-information social optimum.
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spelling nottingham-313412020-05-04T17:08:12Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31341/ Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information D'Amato, Alessio Dijkstra, Bouwe We focus on the incentives of an industry with a continuum of small firms to invest in a cleaner technology under two environmental policy instruments: tradable emission permits and emission taxation. We assume asymmetric information, in that the firms' abatement costs with the new technology are either high or low. Environmental policy is set either before the firms invest (commitment) or after (time consistency). Under commitment, the welfare comparison follows a modified Weitzman rule, featuring reverse probability weighting for the slope of the marginal abatement cost curve. Both instruments can lead to under- or overinvestment ex post. Tradable permits lead to less than optimal expected new technology adoption. Under time consistency, the regulator infers the cost realization and implements the full-information social optimum. Elsevier 2015-05-22 Article PeerReviewed D'Amato, Alessio and Dijkstra, Bouwe (2015) Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information. Resource and Energy Economics, 41 . pp. 224-247. ISSN 0928-7655 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928765515000354 doi:10.1016/j.reseneeco.2015.05.001 doi:10.1016/j.reseneeco.2015.05.001
spellingShingle D'Amato, Alessio
Dijkstra, Bouwe
Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information
title Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information
title_full Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information
title_fullStr Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information
title_full_unstemmed Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information
title_short Technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information
title_sort technology choice and environmental regulation under asymmetric information
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31341/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31341/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31341/