DISCUSSION PAPERS IN ECONOMICS（讨论经济学论文）.pdf

DISCUSSION PAPERS IN ECONOMICS Working Paper No. 98-28 Environmental Compliance Under Uncertain Regulation Amanda Lee Department of Economics, University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, Colorado October 1998 Center for Economic Analysis Department of Economics University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, Colorado 80309 © 1998 Amanda Lee ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE UNDER UNCERTAIN REGULATION AMANDA LEE University of Colorado at Boulder Department of Economics Campus Box 256 Boulder, CO 80309-0256 October 1998 I would like to thank Professors James Alm, Yongmin Chen, Jack Robles, and Charles Howe for their invaluable comments. In addition, I would like to thank Bruce Fast of the Information Technology Services of the University of Colorado at Boulder for his help with the Mathematica. 1 INTRODUCTION In the late 1980s, the business communities began to advance the idea of voluntary over- compliance with the current air pollution regulations.1 These claims are contrary to the conclusions of the “crime-and-punishment” literature. Using constrained optimization frameworks, Allingham and Sandmo (1972), Alm, Jackson and McKee (1992), Alm, Sanchez, and DeJuan (1991), Becker (1968), Chu and Jiang (1993), Chua, Kennedy and Laplante (1992), Harford (1978, 1987), Polinsky and Shavell (1979),