Corporate social responsibility and tariff policy in a differentiated mixed duopoly

Abstract

In this paper, we assume that the domestic public firm competes in the market with a foreign private firm that cares about consumer surplus and the domestic government imposes tariffs on foreign firm. We aim to analyze the influence of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) level of foreign firm on privatization and tariff policy. It shows that if the government implements a privatization policy for the domestic public firm, the optimal degree of privatization decreases in the CSR level of foreign firm. Under the optimal privatization policy, if the product differentiation is relatively small, the equilibrium tariff increases in the CSR level; if the product differentiation is relatively large, the equilibrium tariff decreases in the CSR level; if the product differentiation is moderate, the relationship between the equilibrium tariff and CSR level is an inverted U-shape. We further consider the policy implications under sequential moves of firms.