Dynamic efficiency of extended producer responsibility instruments in a simulation model of industrial dynamics

This article presents an original approach to the impact of extended producer responsibility instruments for waste prevention upon firms' innovative strategies and market structure. Our analysis is based on a stylised framework of waste prevention developed by Brouillat. In this framework, products are modelled as multi-characteristic technologies whose evolution depends on firms' innovation strategies and on the interactions with consumers and postconsumption activities (recycling). This stylised framework has been adapted to explore the impact of waste prevention instruments upon industrial dynamics, and more particularly upon firms' innovative strategies and upon the evolution of products' characteristics and market structure. We focus on two types of policy instruments: recycling fees and norms. For each instrument, we will consider different policy designs in order to study their effects on industrial dynamics. The main contribution of this article is to show how this type of simulation model can be used to explore the impact of waste prevention policy instruments on the technological evolution of products, on innovation strategy, and on the evolution of firms' market shares. The introduction of policy instruments in a simulation agent-based model of industrial dynamics enables us to analyse more thoroughly how different policy designs can modify the dynamics of the system and, more particularly, how the incentives and the constraints linked to the policy instruments under consideration shape market selection.