The purpose of this thesis was to test in laboratory the efficiency of two variants of the ambient tax (Average Pigovian Tax and Capped Ambient Tax) that present the advantage of reducing the financial burden imposed through taxation but whose efficiency requires that polluters coordinate their efforts. To enable this coordination, three types of communication (“cheap talk” or costless communication, exogenous costly communication and endogenous costly communication) are tested.The results show that the sucker’s payoff and the size of the groups are crucial in the potential of cheap talk to induce cooperation. When the communication is costly and exogenous, cooperation is limited in time. However when the decision to communicate for a price is up to the players, they decide not to communicate. We’ve also shown that cheap talk facilitates coordination towards the Pareto-dominant equilibrium and makes the Capped Ambient Tax efficient.
Efficiency and acceptability in the regulation of non-point source pollution : experiments on cooperative ambient-based instruments.