Emissions permit allocation and strategic firm behavior: Evidence from the oil sector in the European Union emissions trading scheme

With the growing urgency of climate change, governments around the world are increasingly implementing new regulations for greenhouse gases. This trend elevates the importance of examining how firms engage in strategic efforts to influence regulations before they are in place and how they respond once they are in effect (i.e., their ex-ante and ex-post strategic behavior). This paper examines the outcomes of such strategic efforts by multinational and domestic oil companies within the European Union emissions trading scheme. An analysis of a panel dataset of oil firms (2008-2012) shows that on average the outcome of ex-ante strategies did not differ significantly between multinational companies (MNCs) and domestic firms. However, the findings indicate that among those firms that received positive net benefits from the new climate policy, domestic firms were able to maximize these benefits better than MNCs through their ex-post strategies. In contrast, among the firms that faced net costs due to the policy, MNCs were able to minimize these costs better than domestic firms, ex-post. This paper advances our understanding of whether and to what extent MNCs differ from domestic firms in their economic outcomes stemming from strategic behavior related to emissions trading. This question is especially pertinent for regulations related to climate change, which is one of humanity's grand challenges and has important consequences for our economic, social, and political systems.