Performance of the Ambient Tax: Does the Nature of the Damage Matter?

Abstract

The ambient tax is often considered as an e¢ cient instrument to achieve a …rst best outcome of ambient pollution when the regulator is less informed than the polluters. Since the ambient tax was never implemented in the …eld, empirical evidence is missing. Available experimental …ndings provide mixed evidence: e¢ ciency is higher under external damage, i.e. if ambient pollution a¤ects non-polluters (Spraggon, 2002(Spraggon, , 2003 than under internal damage, i.e. if ambient pollution a¤ects polluters themselves (Cochard et al., 2005). Since these two types of experiments relied on very di¤erent designs, it is worthwhile to compare them under a common experimental design. Our main …nding is that the ambient tax is equally e¢ cient under external damage than under internal damage.

On the use of group performance and rights for environmental protection and resource management

“…The existence of within-group externalities can create possible gains from collaboration in addition to those identified above and can also affect optimal policy design. In particular, research suggests that group policies can be efficient in addressing externalities both inside and outside of the group, although rewards and punishments would need to be adjusted to reflect the additional externality (41,47,48). In addition, somewhat counterintuitively, the existence of a within-group externality creates the possibility that group members could benefit from a topdown policy that would otherwise be viewed as costly.…”

Cooperative Management of Ecosystem Services: Coalition Formation, Landscape Structure and Policies

“…in case of within-group externalities (Kotchen and Segerson 2019). This issue has been so far investigated for fishery (Zhou and Segerson 2016) and pollution control (Willinger et al 2014). On biodiversity conservation, few papers analyse these collective measures in this context other than in rather abstract ways (Ansink and Bouma 2013;Zavalloni et al 2019).…”

Coordination face à un mixte d’instruments pour réguler la pollution diffuse. Une étude expérimentale

“…Dans un premier cas, il s'agira de se coordonner vers une réduction suffisante des effluents pour éviter de payer la taxe ambiante, dans l'autre, de contribuer suffisamment au bien public (zone tampon). Les expériences précédentes en laboratoire ont montré que les joueurs sont capables de se coordonner dans le cadre d'une taxe ambiante seule (Poe et al, 2004 ;Spraggon, 2002Spraggon, , 2004Cochard et al 2005 ;Vossler et al, 2006 ;Suter et al, 2008Suter et al, , 2009Suter et al, , 2010Cochard et Rozan, 2010 ;Spraggon et Oxoby, 2010 ;Camacho et Requate 2012 ;Vossler et al, 2013 ;Willinger et al, 2014 ;, et de même, dans le cadre de la production d'un bien public avec seuil (Isaac et al, 1989 ;Marks et Croson, 1998). La présence simultanée des deux instruments, quant à elle, interroge sur la capacité des joueurs à réussir cette double coordination, ce qui n'a jamais été testé expérimentalement auparavant.…”