Information and coercive regulation: The impact of fuel mix information disclosure on states’ adoption of renewable energy policy

Abstract

This study examines whether the publicly provided information performs the role of a procedural policy expediting the adoption of a more coercive and substantive regulation by heightening public awareness and political legitimacy. Under the assumption this role of procedural policy may be critical, especially for the policy with distributed benefits and concentrated costs such as the renewable energy policy, this study examined the relationship between mandatory disclosure of the fuel mix information of electric utilities and states’ adoption of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). Our event history analysis results show that existence of the mandatory information disclosure rule on fuel fix and greenhouse gas emissions significantly increases the probability of adoption of the coercive regulation (RPS). The findings indicate states’ appropriate mix of policy tools could play a vital role in initiating high-resistance policy adoption.