Noncooperative and Cooperative Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

We formulate several quantity and price competition models that investigate the adoption of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) by firms competing in the market. First, we consider emission cap commitments. Under quantity competition, ECSR is adopted by joint-profit-maximizing industry associations because of its effect of weakening quantity competition. However, it is not adopted without industry associations. By contrast, under price competition, individual firms voluntarily adopt ECSR without the industry associations and they choose a higher level of ECSR with the industry associations. Second, we consider emission intensity commitments (commitment to per-output emissions) and find that it is less likely to restrict market competition.