We investigate the possibility of using public firms to regulate polluting emissions in a Cournot oligopoly where production takes place at constant returns to scale and entails a negative environmental externality. We model the problem as a differential game and investigate (i) the Cournot-Nash...

Profit-seeking firms can be induced to internalise the environmental damages caused by production via several policy instruments, a widely used one being emission permits. In a very influential paper, Laffont and Tirole (J Public Econ 62:127-140, 1996) point out that the allocation of pollution...