Regulating altruistic agents
Heyes, A. and Kapur, Sandeep (2011) Regulating altruistic agents. Canadian Journal of Economics 44 (1), pp. 227-246. ISSN 0008-4085.
Abstract
Altruism or 'regard for others' can encourage self-restraint among generators of negative externalities, thereby mitigating the externality problem. We explore how introducing impure altruism into standard regulatory settings alters regulatory prescriptions. The optimal calibration of both quantitative controls and externality taxes is affected. It also leads to surprising results on the comparative performance of instruments. Under quantity-based regulation, welfare is increasing in the propensity for altruism in the population; under price-based regulation, the relationship is non-monotonic. Price-based regulation is preferred when the population is either predominantly altruistic or predominantly selfish; quantity-based regulation is preferred for cases in between. JEL classification: D62, D64
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | School of Business, Economics & Informatics > Economics, Mathematics and Statistics |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Innovation Management Research, Birkbeck Centre for |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Jun 2011 14:21 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Oct 2019 08:57 |
| URI: | http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/3643 |
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