{"title":"Environmental sustainability under production competition with costly adjustments: An appraisal of firms’ behavior with regard to pollution dynamics","authors":"Konstantin Kogan , Fouad El Ouardighi","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2024.103163","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The waning efficiency of natural pollution sinks and the predicted consequence of their irreversible transformation into pollution sources within the current century call into question the environmental sustainability of economic activity and, more specifically, its basic engine: horizontal competition. Among factors likely to cast doubt on the environmental sustainability of competition, competing firms’ approaches to pollution control deserve particular attention because myopic approaches that ignore pollution dynamics accelerate such transformations. Another potentially harmful factor is the cost of adjusting production, which can hinder firms’ ability to reduce their polluting emissions in a timely way. In the context of a Cournot market structure, we consider competing firms that incur a cost when adjusting production and are subject to pollution emission taxes. We analyze how production adjustment costs and firms’ choice of myopic or farsighted pollution control policies affect their competitiveness and the long-run sustainability of the environmental system. We show that competition is not compatible with environmental sustainability under a myopic pollution control policy when the maximum threshold of pollution absorption has already been exceeded. Myopic policies cannot neutralize history dependency, and extremely large production adjustment costs exacerbate the problem. In contrast, farsighted pollution control policies can eliminate history-dependency as long as the tax policy is not too restrictive, though they lead to a more polluted environment than myopic policies operating below the maximum absorption efficiency threshold.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"129 ","pages":"Article 103163"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305048324001282","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The waning efficiency of natural pollution sinks and the predicted consequence of their irreversible transformation into pollution sources within the current century call into question the environmental sustainability of economic activity and, more specifically, its basic engine: horizontal competition. Among factors likely to cast doubt on the environmental sustainability of competition, competing firms’ approaches to pollution control deserve particular attention because myopic approaches that ignore pollution dynamics accelerate such transformations. Another potentially harmful factor is the cost of adjusting production, which can hinder firms’ ability to reduce their polluting emissions in a timely way. In the context of a Cournot market structure, we consider competing firms that incur a cost when adjusting production and are subject to pollution emission taxes. We analyze how production adjustment costs and firms’ choice of myopic or farsighted pollution control policies affect their competitiveness and the long-run sustainability of the environmental system. We show that competition is not compatible with environmental sustainability under a myopic pollution control policy when the maximum threshold of pollution absorption has already been exceeded. Myopic policies cannot neutralize history dependency, and extremely large production adjustment costs exacerbate the problem. In contrast, farsighted pollution control policies can eliminate history-dependency as long as the tax policy is not too restrictive, though they lead to a more polluted environment than myopic policies operating below the maximum absorption efficiency threshold.
期刊介绍:
Omega reports on developments in management, including the latest research results and applications. Original contributions and review articles describe the state of the art in specific fields or functions of management, while there are shorter critical assessments of particular management techniques. Other features of the journal are the "Memoranda" section for short communications and "Feedback", a correspondence column. Omega is both stimulating reading and an important source for practising managers, specialists in management services, operational research workers and management scientists, management consultants, academics, students and research personnel throughout the world. The material published is of high quality and relevance, written in a manner which makes it accessible to all of this wide-ranging readership. Preference will be given to papers with implications to the practice of management. Submissions of purely theoretical papers are discouraged. The review of material for publication in the journal reflects this aim.