Abstract In recent years, several countries and organizations have enforced carbon tax and take-back legislation on firms, to mitigate environmental impacts. Accordingly, responsible firms have implemented remanufacturing and carbon emission reduction (CER) strategies to reduce carbon emissions. We examine the impact of carbon tax and take-back legislation on the production and CER decisions of firms. We then characterize the optimal solutions in a monopolistic environment where an integrated manufacturer is responsible for remanufacturing used-of-life products as well as producing brand-new ones, and in a competitive environment where the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) faces competition from an independent remanufacturer (IR). Subsequently, we compare and analyze the effects of carbon tax and take-back legislation on consumers and the environment under different settings. The results indicate that (i) compared with the case without CER, the CER strategy makes the IR in a competitive environment more willing to remanufacture products than the integrated manufacturer in a monopolistic environment. Additionally, the CER strategy can always increase the consumer surplus under both settings if the same remanufacturing strategy is adopted, but it cannot always benefit the environment; (ii) a higher imposed target remanufacturing level hurts (benefits) consumers in a monopolistic (competitive) environment. Moreover, it has different impacts on the environmental benefits in different scenarios; (iii) the regulations, i.e. carbon tax and take-back legislation, may not motivate firms to direct increased effort toward CER. Finally, we discuss the important insights and managerial implications for policy-makers and firms.

中文翻译：

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碳税和回收立法下再制造企业的生产和碳减排决策

摘要 近年来，一些国家和组织对企业实施了碳税和回收立法，以减轻对环境的影响。因此，负责任的公司已实施再制造和碳减排 (CER) 战略以减少碳排放。我们研究了碳税和回收立法对企业生产和 CER 决策的影响。然后，我们描述了在垄断环境中的最佳解决方案，其中集成制造商负责再制造废旧产品以及生产全新产品，以及在原始设备制造商 (OEM) 面临来自其他厂商的竞争的竞争环境中的最佳解决方案。独立再制造商 (IR)。随后，我们比较和分析了不同环境下碳税和回收立法对消费者和环境的影响。结果表明(i)与没有CER的情况相比，CER策略使得竞争环境中的IR比垄断环境中的集成制造商更愿意再制造产品。此外，如果采用相同的再制造策略，CER 策略在两种情况下总是可以增加消费者剩余，但它并不总是有益于环境；(ii) 在垄断（竞争）环境中，更高的目标再制造水平会伤害（利益）消费者。而且，它在不同情景下对环境效益的影响不同；(iii) 法规，即碳税和回收立法，可能不会激励公司将更多的努力用于 CER。最后，我们讨论了对决策者和公司的重要见解和管理意义。