Does self-regulation improve social welfare? We develop a policy game featuring a regulator and a firm that can unilaterally commit to better environmental or social behavior in order to preempt future public policy efforts. We show that the answer depends on the set of policy instruments...

The paper analyzes the efficiency of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for waste management. We consider a vertically differentiated duopoly where endogenous market quality affects waste disposal costs. Each producer has to meet a take-back requirement that forces it to collect and treat...