Can the China's environmental tax reform improve the enterprises sustainable environmental protection practice?-from the perspective of ISO14001 certification.

From the perspective of ISO14001 certification, we explored the impact of environmental protection tax on enterprises' long-term environmental practice decisions based on the differential-in-difference model. Our results show that environmental protection tax reform can promote enterprise ISO14001 certification behavior. This positive effect comes from increased enforcement intensity and compliance costs. When the external supervision and governance environment of enterprises is better (i.e., higher degree of marketization and media attention), the shock of environmental tax reform on enterprises' ISO14001 certification behavior is more significant. Heterogeneity analysis found that the promotion of environmental protection fees-to-tax conversion to ISO14001 certification behavior of enterprises is mainly reflected in non-state-owned key enterprises, small-scale enterprises, and high financing constraints enterprises. Economic consequences test shows that environmental tax policy can improve the green innovation of enterprises in the current and subsequent years, but it does not improve the financial performance in the short term. Our study provides supporting evidence to identify whether environmental tax is a long-term mechanism to promote voluntary environmental management by enterprises.

Non-linear effects of heterogeneous environmental regulations on industrial relocation: Do compliance costs work?

Reasonably designing environmental regulations for compliance-driven industrial relocation can avoid new pollution havens. The Cournot duopoly model simulates that the necessary condition for industrial relocation is differentiated market costs. Then, based on the province-industrial data of six Chinese pollution-intensive industries during 2005-2019, this study applies spatial Durbin model to explore the non-linear effects of heterogeneous environmental regulations on industrial relocation. Results shown that command-and-control environmental regulation manifests a U-shaped curve with local industrial relocation, with inverted U-shaped spillover effect radiating a road distance of 650 km, and both internal and external costs play the mediating roles; Market incentive environmental regulation has inverted U-shaped curves with industrial relocation in local and neighboring regions, it creates dual costs and works well in both short and long terms, which is the most potential regulatory tool to avoid pollution relocation accompanying industrial relocation; Voluntary environmental regulation exhibits inverted U-shaped relationships with industrial relocation in direct and spillover effects, and works through increased external cost rather than internal cost. Its spatial spillover radiates the longest 1250 km due to rapid spread of public opinions, but this effect takes more than 3 years to be effective.

The Effects of Cooperative Compliance on Firms' Tax Risk, Tax Risk Management and Compliance Costs.

In cooperative compliance programs, firms and tax administrations agree on cooperation instead of confrontation. Firms provide full transparency and advanced tax control frameworks. Tax administrations, in turn, offer certainty as to the tax treatment of complex transactions. In this study, we test how firms' perceptions of tax risk, the quality of tax risk management, and compliance costs are related to cooperative compliance. To our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to analyze both reasons for and consequences of participation in cooperative compliance programs. We examine the Austrian cooperative compliance pilot project known as horizontal monitoring that was aimed at large businesses and launched in 2011. We use survey data from representatives of firms participating in the pilot project and a sample of comparable firms under a traditional ex-post audit regime. We conduct group comparisons to test differences between these groups, as well as mediation analyses to shed light on more complex relationships between variables. Results show that horizontal monitoring firms perceive a significantly higher increase in tax certainty, which is associated with significant relative decreases in tax risk and compliance costs. Furthermore, while the quality of tax risk management upon entering the pilot project appears significantly higher for horizontal monitoring firms, they do not report greater improvement in tax risk management compared to the control group. These results are relevant for the development of cooperative compliance programs and the decision to participate in them.

Impact of preparing for OSHA local emphasis program inspections of New York dairy farms: Case studies and financial cost analysis.

BACKGROUND: OSHA inspection of dairy farms began in July 1, 2014 in New York State. As of September 2014, a total of eight farms were randomly selected for inspection. This case study addresses how dairy farm managers prepared for these inspections, and identifies farm level costs preparing for inspection and/or being inspected. METHODS: Four farms that were OSHA inspected and 12 farms that were not inspected were included in this mixed method evaluation using a multimodal (telephone, email, or mail) survey. Descriptive analysis was carried out using frequencies, proportions, means, and medians. RESULTS: Overall, the impact of OSHA inspections was positive, leading to improved safety management and physical changes on the farm and worker trainings, although the farmers' perspectives about OSHA inspection were mixed. CONCLUSIONS: The cost of compliance was low relative to estimated overall production costs. Clarifications and engineering solutions for specific dairy farm hazard exposures are needed to facilitate compliance with OSHA regulations.

[Cross-sectoral quality assurance in ambulatory care]. / Sektorenübergreifende Qualitätssicherung in der ambulanten Versorgung.

Overcoming rigid sectoral segmentation in healthcare has also become a health policy target in quality assurance. With the Act to Enhance Competition in Statutory Health Insurance (GKV-WSG) coming into effect, quality assurance measures are to be designed in a cross-sectoral fashion for in- and outpatient sectors equally. An independent institution is currently mandated to develop specific quality indicators for eleven indications. For three of these operating tests have already been commissioned by the Federal Joint Committee. This article depicts the major results of a feasibility study, including a compliance cost estimate, for the aforementioned indications of cross-sectoral quality assurance (cQA). In conclusion, a number of both practical and conceptual basic challenges are still to be resolved prior to the full implementation of cQA, such as a sufficient specification to activate documentation requirements and an inspection system capable of separating actual quality problems from documentary deficits. So far, a comprehensive cost-utility analysis of cQA has not been provided, in particular with comparison to existing QA systems. In order to optimise cost and utility of cQA an evidence-based approach is required for both the extension of cQA areas and for QA provisions.