Environmental Research Joint Ventures and Time-Consistent Emission Tax

This paper presents an examination of the socially efficient formation of environmental R&D in Cournot duopoly in a setting where a regulator has no precommitment ability for an emission tax. The results reveal that if the environmental damage is slight, alternatively, given severe environmental damage and large inefficiency in environmental R&D costs, then environmental research joint venture (ERJV) cartelization is socially efficient. However, if environmental damage is severe, and if a firm’s R&D costs are limited, then, in stark contrast to results of previous studies, environmental R&D competition is socially more efficient than the other three scenarios (i.e., environmental R&D cartelization, ERJV competition, and ERJV cartelization), although R&D competition is the case of “NO information sharing and NO R&D coordination.”