Partial cross-ownership and strategic environmental policy

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect that passive investment in rival firms has on the setting of cooperative and non-cooperative environmental taxes. We consider two firms located in different countries, one of which owns a stake in its rival. We show that partial cross-ownership affects the taxes set by the countries in the cooperative and non-cooperative cases. Depending on the stake that one firm has in its rival we show that cooperative taxes may he higher or lower than non-cooperative taxes. Moreover, for intermediate values of the stake, the non-cooperative tax is higher in one country and lower in the other than the cooperative tax.