Discretionary Exemptions from Environmental Regulation
研究了环境规制中监管者自由裁量豁免权的利弊，发现灵活豁免在特定条件下可提升社会福利并减少污染，但也可能被滥用。
<h3>Abstract</h3> Many environmental regulations impose limits on harmful activities yet include discretionary “safety valve” provisions allowing the regulator to grant exemptions that provide relief to regulated parties. We construct a theoretical model and explore cases in which this discretion serves good or ill. We show that when a regulation is otherwise inflexible, exemptions can improve social welfare, and perhaps reduce pollution, by distributing abatement more cost-effectively across polluters. However, these beneficial predictions rely on an unconstrained, fully informed, and benevolent regulator. In other cases, exemptions may not offer such gains; further, the discretionary nature of exemptions allows them to be abused.