E-commerce and parcel delivery: environmental policy with green consumers

Abstract

We study how consumers’ environmental awareness (CEA) affects the design of environmental policy in the e-commerce sector. We also examine if there is a need for regulation requiring delivery operators to reveal their emissions. We consider a model with two retailers who sell a differentiated product and two parcel delivery operators. Delivery generates CO2 emissions and their total level creates a global (atmosphere) externality. We assume that it is more expensive for the delivery operator to use less polluting technologies. We consider different scenarios reflecting the type of competition and the vertical structure of the industry. We shown that CEA mitigates the inefficiency of the equilibrium by bringing the level of emissions closer to its optimal level. This is true under perfect and imperfect competition. This efficiency enhancing effect of CEA also affects the design of emissions taxes, which leads to an amended Pigouvian rule. Under perfect competition the tax is reduced by exactly the level of CEA expressed in monetary terms. Under imperfect competition the adjustment exceeds this level.

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Reference

Claire Borsenberger, Helmuth Cremer, Denis Joram, Jean-Marie Lozachmeur, and Estelle Malavolti, “E-commerce and parcel delivery: environmental policy with green consumers”, TSE Working Paper, n. 22-1318, March 2022.