As part of a recent trend toward more cooperative relations between regulators and industry, novel government programs are encouraging firms to monitor their own regulatory compliance and voluntarily report their own violations. In this study, we examine how regulatory enforcement activities...

As part of a recent trend toward more cooperative relations between regulators and industry, novel government programs are encouraging firms to monitor their own regulatory compliance and voluntarily report their own violations. In this study, we examine how enforcement activities, statutory...

We study the cost-effectiveness of a transferable emissions permit system (TEPS) vis a vis a system of emissions standards. Our analysis includes along with abatement costs, the costs of enforcing the system to induce compliance. Further, the analysis considers complete and incomplete...

It has often been claimed that firms' compliance to environmental regulations is higher than predicted by standard theory, a result labeled the "Harrington paradox" in the literature. Enforcement data from Norway presented here appears, at first glance, to confirm this "stylized fact": Firms are...

In recent years, companies have begun to pursue “green business” by taking actions that enhance both the firm’s environmental performance and its competitiveness. This Article describes the green business phenomenon and offers a new theory as to how environmental law and policy can promote...

We extend the economic theory of regulation to allow for strategic self-regulation that preempts political action. When political "entry" is costly for consumers, firms can deter it through voluntary restraints. Unlike standard entry models, deterrence is achieved by overinvesting to raise the...

In 2008 we raised the question, “Will the EU REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances) Regulation influence and change the chemical regulatory system of Asia, as EU RoHS has done in China, Japan and Korea?” and forecasted that ”the answer is...

Temperature records compiled by the International Panel on Climate Change are biased by non-climatic factors that are largely socioeconomic in origin. The result is that as much as 50 percent of the land-surface warming that has been detected in recent decades may not be the product of global...

The recent wave of global warming legislation and litigation represents a triumph for climate change activists. But it is in no way a rational, economically sound response to the problems potentially raised by global warming. It ignores the likely costs and benefits of global warming on...

This paper suggests that a mixture of measures may be needed to encourage renewable energy under the Kyoto Protocol. It explains that the goal of maximizing short term cost effectiveness tends to conflict with the goal of encouraging the long-term technological development that the world will...