Environmental Information Provision as a Public Policy Instrument

Emmanuel Petrakis, Eftichios Sartzetakis () and Anastasios Xepapadeas

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2005, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-31

Abstract: We examine information provision as a public policy instrument when products generate damages to consumers as well as environmental externalities. We show that information provision dominates taxation in terms of welfare, if information can be provided at low cost. This is because a uniform tax alone levies a heavier than optimal burden on informed consumers and allows the uninformed consumer to free ride partially on the informed consumers' voluntary actions. If the cost of information provision is substantial, taxation is welfare superior. A policy regime that combines information provision and taxation leads to higher welfare relative to the use of either instrument alone.

Keywords: information provision; environmental taxation; individual and external damages; differentiated goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1538-0645.1365 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
Working Paper: Environmental Information Provision as a Public Policy Instrument (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:contributions.4:y:2005:i:1:n:14

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/bejeap/html

DOI: 10.2202/1538-0645.1365

Access Statistics for this article

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy is currently edited by Hendrik Jürges and Sandra Ludwig

More articles in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().