Opening the Brown Box: Production Responses to Environmental Regulation

Regulated firms outsource power and shift product mix, reducing product variety.

Rebecca De Simone, S. Lakshmi Naaraayanan, Kunal Sachdeva

Working paper, 2026

Regulated firms outsource power and shift product mix, reducing product variety.

Firms reduce pollution through strategic production choices: sourcing electricity externally and shifting toward higher-margin products. However, aggregate effects include reduced product variety and decreased business formation.

All research