Negotiating Environmental Quality Policy Implementation in Germany and the United States

About this book

Using strategic game theory, this book carefully reviews the detailed negotiations between industry, regulating agencies and third parties in environmental policy implementation. The analysis is underpinned by an institutional comparison of German and American administrative and environmental law. After presenting an alternative model to address real-world bargaining, Markus Lehmann provides an economic rationale for the use of case-to-case regulation, a policy instrument traditionally neglected if not rejected by environmental economists. He discusses how and to what extent the shortcomings of this instrument can be overcome by a specific institutional design. He presents a clear-cut policy conlcusion which is shown to be quite robust under different model structures and varying sets of assumptions. This path-breaking study should be useful reading for economists studying environmental economics and political economy, political scientists working on policy implementation and design, as well as lawyers interested in administrative law and standing, and the economic theory of law.

Contents

Part 1 Introduction: the topic - game-theoretical analysis of environmental policy implementation; organization of the book; literature and methodology. Part 2 Discretion, agency control and judicial review in Germany and the United States: complexity and agency discretion; levels of administrative decision-making; the role of licensing procedures; agency control; standing; information rights; the costs of judicial review; an outlook on further proceedings. Part 3 Standing, collusion and collusion deterrence: the mode; agency discretion and legal standing; the choice of the regulatory regime; the court's decision rule; minimizing legal costs; collusion with the environmental group; discussion and conclusions. Part 4 Negotiations under uncertain court outcomes - asymmetrical standing: the framework; the role of the status quo; discussion; informality and self-enforcement; summary. Part 5 Negotiation under uncertain court outomes -symmetrical standing: the framework; the bargaining outcome - a comparison with Coase; comparing asymmetrical and symmetrical standing; a variant - standing and delay; bargaining and exogenous trial date; two examples; litigation costs; informal agreements and symmetrical standing; extortion in private bargaining; negotiated rule-making - some differences; summary. Part 6 Negotiations under uncertain court outcomes - incomplete information: the court's outcome - common or private values?; bargaining under privately-known profit; bargaining under privately-known environmental damage; summary and discussion. Part 7 Conclusions: summary; the policy conclusion; objections and caveats.

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