Do Private Regulations Ratchet Up? How to Distinguish Types of Regulatory Stringency and Patterns of Change

IF 4.2 4区 管理学 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Devin Judge-Lord, C. McDermott, B. Cashore
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引用次数: 19

Abstract

Due to inconsistent concepts of regulatory stringency, scholars offer conflicting accounts about whether competing private governance initiatives “race to the bottom,” “ratchet up,” “converge,” or “diverge.” To remedy this, we offer a framework for more systematic comparisons across programs and over time. We distinguish three often-conflated measures of stringency: regulatory scope, prescriptiveness, and performance levels. Applying this framework, we compare competing U.S. forestry certification programs, one founded by environmental activists and their allies, the other by the national industry association. We find ‘upwardly divergent’ policy prescriptiveness: both programs increased in prescriptiveness, but this increase was greater for the activist-backed program. Furthermore, requirements added by the activist-backed program were more likely to impose costs on firms than requirements added by the industry-backed program, many of which may even benefit firms. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that industry-backed programs emphasize less costly types of stringency than activist-backed programs. They also reveal patterns of change that previous scholarship failed to anticipate, illustrating how disentangling types of stringency can improve theory building and testing.
私人监管力度加大了吗?如何区分监管严格程度的类型和变化模式
由于监管严格性的概念不一致,学者们对相互竞争的私人治理举措是“竞相垫底”、“逐步上升”、“趋同”还是“分化”提出了相互矛盾的说法。为了弥补这一点,我们提供了一个框架,以便在项目之间和一段时间内进行更系统的比较。我们区分了三种经常混淆的严格性衡量标准:监管范围、规定性和绩效水平。应用这个框架,我们比较了相互竞争的美国林业认证项目,一个由环境活动家及其盟友创建,另一个由国家工业协会创建。我们发现“向上发散”的政策规定性:两个项目的规定性都有所增加,但对于活动家支持的项目来说,这种增加更大。此外,活动家支持的计划增加的要求比行业支持的计划添加的要求更有可能给企业带来成本,其中许多甚至可能使企业受益。这些结果与行业支持的项目比活动家支持的项目强调成本更低的严格类型的假设一致。它们还揭示了以前学术界未能预料到的变化模式,说明了解开严格性类型可以如何改善理论构建和测试。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
11.20
自引率
5.70%
发文量
19
期刊介绍: Organization & Environment encourages informed discussion about the social roots and consequences of environmental problems and stimulates deeper reflection on the meaning and significance of the natural world. By critically examining the impact of human production and consumption systems on the natural environment, Organization & Environment develops new perspectives on organizations that encourage environmentally sensitive reflection, inquiry, and practice.
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