the environmental kuznets curve environmental protection policy and income distribution abstract the effect of economic growth on pollution emissions differs substantially among high income countries i address this issue by analyzing public environmental policy decisions individual heterogeneity relative income effect and the political framework in which policy decisions are taken determine the emergence of the downward sloping segment of the environmental kuznets curve ekc income inequality produces a gap between the country s ability to pay for environmental protection and a country s willingness to pay i test this result by using oecd data on public r d expenditure for environmental protection the conclusion is that contrary to the ek hypothesis moments of the income distribution function other than the mean may be important for the emergence of a virtuous path of sustainable growth in high income countries

corporate environmental responsiveness in india lessons from a developing country abstract we examine corporate environmental responsiveness in business organizations in india based on theoretically informed case analysis we operationalize corporate environmental responsiveness as a two order construct we find that level one the lower level responsiveness is driven by pressures arising out of powerful supply chain customers and institutional pressures resulting from internationalization the drivers for organizations at level two the higher level responsiveness are associated with organizational identities and cultures rooted in a long history of social responsiveness

ownership and environmental regulation evidence from the european electricity industry abstract the paper investigates how ownership affects the environmental performance in developed countries where environmental regulation is introduced in the form of market based instrument by looking at a cross country panel dataset of 29 power markets around europe over the period 1990 2012 we find empirical evidence that an increase of public ownership as measured by the oecd etcr index is associated with a reduction of both greenhouse gas emissions and carbon intensity we also find that the implementation of the european emissions trading scheme ets had a limited impact on emissions reduction due to lax allocation of allowances the positive effect of public ownership on environmental performance has been significant even after the introduction of the ets giving additional incentives to mitigate emissions when the ets cap was not stringent enough this evidence suggests that government control over power companies in europe can has created idiosyncratic incentives to improve environmental quality complementing environmental regulation in the achievement of environmental goals when the latter was absent or sub optimal

industrial pollution in economic development the environmental kuznets curve revisited abstract using new international data this paper tests the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis for industrial water pollution we measure the effect of income growth on three determinants of pollution the share of industry in national output the share of polluting sectors in industrial output and end of pipe eop pollution intensities per unit of output in the polluting sectors we find that the industry share of national output follows a kuznets type trajectory but the other two determinants do not when combined our results imply rejection of the ekc hypothesis for industrial water pollution it rises rapidly through middle income status and remains roughly constant thereafter

environmental compliance by firms in the manufacturing sector in mexico abstract to date little empirical evidence exists to help regulators understand why some firms comply even when there is little financial incentive to do so and others continually violate environmental regulations this paper examines data on compliance with environmental regulations within the manufacturing sector in mexico the probability of complying depends among other factors on the kind of management practices of the firm and the level of environmental training some firms in the manufacturing sector over comply with regulations our results show that providing environmental training to employees in the firm increases the probability of over compliance local community has a positive impact on over compliance however the magnitude of its impact is not as strong as is often suggested in the literature

confronting the environmental kuznets curve t he environmental kuznets curve posits an inverted u relationship between pollution and economic development kuznets s name was apparently attached to the curve by grossman and krueger 1993 who noted its resemblance to kuznets s inverted u relationship between income inequality and development in the first stage of industrialization pollution in the environmental kuznets curve world grows rapidly because people are more interested in jobs and income than clean air and water communities are too poor to pay for abatement and environmental regulation is correspondingly weak the balance shifts as income rises leading industrial sectors become cleaner people value the environment more highly and regulatory institutions become more effective along the curve pollution levels off in the middle income range and then falls toward pre industrial levels in wealthy societies the environmental kuznets curve model has elicited conflicting reactions from researchers and policymakers applied econometricians have generally accepted the basic tenets of the model and focused on measuring its parameters their regressions typically fitted to cross sectional observations across countries or regions suggest that air and water pollution increase with development until per capita income reaches a range of 5000 to 8000 when income rises beyond that level pollution starts to decline as shown in the conventional ekc line in figure 1 in developing countries some policymakers have interpreted such results as conveying a message about priorities grow first then clean up numerous critics have challenged the conventional environmental kuznets curve both as a representation of what actually happens in the development process and as a policy prescription some pessimistic critics argue that crosssectional evidence for the environmental kuznets curve is nothing more than a

income effect or policy result a test of the environmental kuznets curve abstract taipei municipal city tmc began implementing a policy of a plastic bag based disposal fee for household solid waste treatment in july 2000 while other counties kept their same charge of a disposal fee based on potable water consumption taiwan s epa has highly valued the outcome of tmc s new policy and has thus required all counties to follow tmc in employing a policy of a plastic bag based disposal fee accompanied by a compulsory sorting system we attempt to verify whether the new policy implemented by tmc is successful in the reduction of general waste collected and then we seek to identify what other factors contribute to such a successful result this paper provides a general overview of household waste management practices employed in taiwan and the changes of household waste collected over time through simple statistical analysis and management practices including evaluating waste recovery and recycling initiatives the authors employ statistical analysis to verify tmc s new policy and to examine the factors that affect its success in addition to the policy changes through a test on the environmental kuznets curve ekc we separate the data into three groups tmc non tmc regions and the pooled data combination of tmc and non tmc the results show that 1 the policy of a plastic bag based disposal fee is significantly effective in the reduction of general waste collected and 2 the per capita household solid waste collected in both regions tmc and non tmc is significantly related with household incomes in an ekc relationship however the test of ekc relationships on the pooled data is not significant

enforcement of pollution levies in china abstract this paper investigates how industrial plants react to inspections conducted by environmental authorities under the pollution levy taxation regulation in china contrary to studies in the united states and canada magat and viscusi 1990 laplante and rilstone 1996 and previous studies in china dasgupta et al 2001 we find that inspections increase plants self reported pollution by 3 45 we provide a model to analyze plants strategic reactions to the pollution levy regulation in china the model concludes that under the specific regulation plants actual pollution might increase with inspections our study provides a key policy implication that inspections by environmental authorities in china are effective for verifying plants self reported pollution but not for reducing their pollution

determinants of environmental investments testing the structural model abstract the main purpose of this study is to provide the needed additional quantitative evidence regarding the introduction of environmental technologies and to increase the possibility for generalization and thus policy application of conclusions to achieve that purpose a conceptual model is developed and then tested on a large database of firms from various industries with the use of structural equation modeling the results show that policy measures past environmental investments the importance of environmental technologies for customers and the firm performance have a positive effect on environmental investments furthermore the results show that policy measures are a second order three factor construct

the determinants of est adoption by manufacturing plants in developing countries abstract this article reports on the findings of a survey undertaken in late 2001 early 2002 on the determinants of environmentally sound technology est adoption by 98 plants in eight developing countries we review the literature on technology diffusion and technology capabilities as well as empirical studies with an exclusive focus on developing countries that explicitly addressed environmental performance or est adoption to formulate our heuristic model that guided our investigation we examine in some detail the determinants of both prevention and abatement technologies which has seldom been investigated in developing countries in full recognition of literature that cites a host of reasons that cause plants to adopt est we take into account both contextual and plant specific factors we use an ordered choice model that revealed that plant specific factors assume a pre dominant role in explaining the adoption of higher order of complexity est plant specific factors specifically environmental commitment technological capabilities and ownership and market factors specifically foreign involvement and water and energy price perception matter in determining the type of technological response and thus in explaining the adoption of higher order complexity est two governmental factors regulatory implementation strategy and international donor assistance also play a role in the adoption of est however civil society in particular community pressure that has been identified as an important determinant of environmental performance does not play a role because of the way the dependent variable is constructed to capture higher orders of technological complexity

dynamic governance of clean energy markets how technical innovation could accelerate climate policies abstract this article explores the governmental means to accelerate technical progress in climate protection it is based on selected best practice cases in which the diffusion of low carbon technologies has been accelerated by ambitious policies the empirical cases involve not just renewable energies but also energy efficiency the latter being considered more difficult in terms of governance the examples are taken from advanced oecd countries as well as from emerging economies this article will explore which factors have caused this dynamic development the conclusion reached will show that the interaction of positive feedback mechanisms which has already been described as virtuous cycle provides only a plausible theoretical explanation if the policy cycle is added to the market cycle and the innovation cycle climate policy should not only define ambitious targets but also address all three feedback mechanisms

does environmental information disclosure benefit waste discharge reduction evidence from china as a tool for regulating the environment in china does environmental information disclosure reduce pollutant discharge to answer this question we empirically analyzed the emission data of the three wastes i e waste gas wastewater and solid waste in unit industrial gdp in 31 provincial units as a measure to reduce institutional emission environmental information disclosure only slightly influenced waste discharge reduction in the implementation period of the eleventh five year plan of china instead command control and market based tools significantly affected waste discharge reduction representative measures included penalties and charges with the continuously enhanced pressure of control environmental information disclosure facilitates the effects of command control tools on waste discharge reduction content analysis of environmental information disclosed by sample listed companies in jiangsu province was conducted the disclosure of insufficient environmental information on emission reduction can be attributed to adverse selection in system performance i e the selective disclosure trend considering greenwashing in the listed companies and to the limited quality of overall environmental information disclosure this study provides empirical evidence for chinese policy makers to improve the system for environmental information disclosure of listed companies

boundary choice interdependency evidence from the construction industry extant research on the theory of the firm has stressed the need to consider interdependencies when analyzing firm boundary choices we study the existence of interdependencies between boundary decisions using a unique database that includes detailed organizational information on 59 of the construction projects undertaken in the chilean housing sector between the years 2005 and 2009 specifically we show that integration between design and construction activities increases the likelihood of integration between ownership development and construction activities and vice versa this result is of a large magnitude supporting the view that boundary choices need to be studied in relation to each other a careful identification strategy also allows us to shed light on the mechanisms that likely drive this interdependency a coordination effect a transaction hazard effect and a production effect the latter is shown to be the most important mechanism at work suggesting that boundary choice complementarity is primarily motivated by the need to align investment incentives for the joint development of capabilities

environment friendly behaviour and competitiveness a study of pulp and paper industry in india this paper seeks to examine the relationship between competitiveness and environment friendly behaviour of producers under an economic liberalisation regime for that purpose it employs a probit model and estimates the influence of the prime movers of industrial growth such as technical change and economies of scale on environmental degradation the empirical results of the study of pulp and paper industry identified as one of the most polluting industries in india indicate that these variables as the key players of competitiveness improvement have positive influence on environment friendly behaviour such findings therefore fail to provide support to a view that articulates ruthless exploitation of the environment under economic liberalisation programme

incorporating green purchasing into the frame of iso 14000 abstract more and more firms have begun to voluntarily adopt iso 14001 as a tool for continuous improvements to meet the goals of sustainability at the same time these firms have also encouraged their suppliers to apply for the certification of iso 14001 and to regulate the certification as a minimum requirement in selecting suppliers ind mark manage 4 1997 363 j qual manage 4 1999 111 renew energy 23 2001 579 by contrast green purchasing is increasingly being used as an effective tool to mitigate the environmental impacts of consumption and to promote the development of clean production technology am prospect 11 1992 71 it mainly focuses on product design and process improvement acad manage rev 20 1995 18 harv bus rev 75 1997 67 eventually bringing about a competitive advantage in international markets harv bus rev 75 1997 67 harv bus rev 73 1995 120 this paper highlights the role of iso 14000 and green purchasing in achieving sustainable development when firms focus their concerns on improving both financial and environmental performance and asserts the importance of the incorporation of green purchasing into the frame of iso 14000 we propose that 1 environmental purchasing is an effective tool in controlling pollution externalities and provides a positive effect on the implementation of iso 14001 environmental management and 2 with the incorporation of green purchasing into the framework of iso 14000 it can encourage firms to implement pollution prevention from the source and to educate the public to engage themselves in green consumption which leads to the attainments of both environmental and financial performance in this paper we also present a framework of guidelines for green purchasing and the related implementing procedures

trade and the environment with pre existing subsidies a dynamic general equilibrium analysis abstract countries that wish to erect trade barriers have a variety of instruments at their disposal in addition to tariffs and quotas countries can offer tax relief low interest financing reduced regulation and other subsidies to domestic industries facing foreign competition in a trade agreement countries typically agree to reduce not only tariffs but also subsidies we consider the effect of a free trade agreement on pollution emissions we show that while reducing tariffs may indeed increase output and pollution reductions in some subsides required by the trade agreement reduce pollution in general equilibrium for reasonable parameter values reducing subsidies has three effects on pollution 1 reducing subsidies to firms reduces pollution causing capital accumulation 2 if subsidized firms are more pollution intensive then reducing subsides moves capital and labor from more to less pollution intensive firms and 3 reducing subsidies concentrates production in more productive firms increasing output and thus pollution we derive straightforward conditions for which 1 and 2 outweigh 3 we then calibrate the model to china in 1997 and find that pollution has a more elastic response to reducing subsidies than to reducing tariffs while a 5 reduction in tariffs increases all pollutants by approximately 1 a 5 reduction in subsidies reduces pollution by 1 8 11 6 depending on the pollutant the reductions in pollution occur without any environmental side agreements or abatement policy changes

determinants of pollution abatement in developing countries evidence from south and southeast asia abstract developing countries pa ticularly those in asia are fast adopting industrial pollution control standards similar to those in developed countries formal regulation has been greatly hampered however by the absence of clear and legally binding regulations limited institutional capacity lack of appropriate equipment and trained personnel and inadequate information on emissions one would predict highly pollution intensive production under such conditions our research however has uncovered strongly contradictory evidence despite weak or nonexistent formal regulation there are many clean plants in the developing countries of south and southeast asia of course there are also many plants which are among the world s most serious polluters what explains such extreme interplant variation this paper reviews evidence drawn from three empirical studies of plant level abatement practices conducted 1992 1994 the analyses test the importance of plant characteristics economic considerations and external pressure in determining environmental performance the results consistently show that pollution intensity is negatively associated with scale productive efficiency and the use of new process technology it is strongly and positively associated with public ownership but foreign ownership has no significant effect once other plant characteristics are taken into account among external sources of pressure community action or informal regulation emerges as a clear source of interplant differences in all three studies the results suggest that local income and education are powerful predictors of the effectiveness of informal regulation they also show that existing formal regulation has measurably beneficial effects even when it is quite weakly developed

a survey study of energy saving activities of industrial companies in the republic of korea abstract this study measures industrial energy saving activities esas in the republic of korea and identifies their determinant factors by a questionnaire survey to the energy intensive companies more than 90 of the samples have practiced the institutional and managerial esas requiring relatively lower costs and efforts although the companies have felt strong pressures from the governmental regulations and recognized the importance of industrial associations the externally coercive normative and mimetic factors still indicate no significant influence on their esas at present as internal factors the willingness for energy saving support from top management and internal training specific for energy saving determine a company s practice level of esas economic incentives like financial subsidies are useful for encouraging the company s involvement in esas korean government shall also provide more technical support to the companies particularly the small and medium sized ones for enhancing their capacities in promptly reacting to the newly initiated mandatory regulations on industrial energy efficiency

perspectives on multinational enterprises in emerging economies multinational enterprises mnes play a pivotal role in the development of many emerging economies in consequence they became the focus of scholarly research by economists and policy analysts in contrast international business scholars have been comparatively uninterested in analysing this role of mnes yet they could make important contributions to these debates first studies taking the individual firms as starting point would enhance understanding of the interaction between mnes and the local environment second theories and research methodologies developed in international business research could provide new insights into the dynamics of mnes in emerging economies the objective of this paper is to motivate more international business scholars to engage in research on positive and negative spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in emerging economy societies to advance this research agenda scholars need to analyse the specific activities and capabilities of the firms involved and the impact of fdi on the broader social and environmental context for management this agenda raises the ethical question to what extent ought businesses to care about their local stakeholders

formal and informal regulation of industrial pollution economic theory and recent empirical work suggest that when formal regulation of pollution is absent or less than 100 percent effective affected communities are often able to negotiate abatement f

buyer power and mutual dependency in a model of negotiations we study bilateral bargaining between several buyers and sellers in a framework that allows both sides in case of a bilateral disagreement flexibility to adjust trade with each of their other trading partners and receive the gross benefit generated by each adjustment a larger buyer pays a higher per unit price when buyers bargaining power in bilateral negotiations is sufficiently low and a lower price otherwise an analogous result holds for sellers these predictions and the implications of different technologies are explained by the fact that size is a source of mutual dependency and not an unequivocal source of power

pollution regulation and abatement efforts evidence from china abstract this paper empirically tests pollution abatement efforts of chinese industries in response to pollution regulations especially the pollution charge instrument practiced in china for about 20 years the impacts of pollution regulation on abatement expenditures are examined for one thousand large and medium chinese industrial polluters the results show that plant level expenditures on end of pipe wastewater treatment are strongly responsive to the pollution charges the estimated elasticities of operation cost and new investment with respect to pollution price are 65 and 27 respectively other command and control regulatory approaches however are not found to have systematic and significant impacts on abatement expenditures

pollution control and foreign direct investment in mexico an industry level analysis foreign direct investment fdi flows into developing countries have been increasing dramatically over the past decade at the same time there has been widespread concern that lax environmental standards are in part responsible for this surge this paper revisits the question of the existence of a pollution haven effect by examining the extent to which the pollution intensity of production helps explain fdi in mexico we focus on pollution intensities which are directly related to emission regulations rather than unobservable pollution taxes and allow for substitution between capital and pollution examining several different pollutants we find a positive correlation between fdi and pollution that is statistically and economically significant in the case of the highly regulated sulfur dioxide emissions industries for which the estimated relationship between fdi and pollution is positive receive up to 30 of total fdi and 30 of manufacturing output although we confirm the importance of mexico s comparative advantage in labor intensive production processes consistent with the previous literature our results suggest that environmental considerations may matter as well for firms investment decisions

chinese companies awareness and perceptions of the emissions trading scheme ets evidence from a national survey in china abstract china announced the launch of a national emissions trading scheme ets in 2017 however companies appear show little enthusiasm for participation in the ets in china this paper identifies the factors affecting companies awareness and perceptions of ets by conducting a national survey based on an online questionnaire from may to november 2015 in seven carbon trading pilots the results indicate that companies attitudes towards the ets are positively influenced by government regulations and policy public relations management and estimated economic benefit of these public relations management is the decisive factor and estimated economic benefit is confirmed to be a relatively weak predictor a company s environmental and energy strategy exerts insignificant effects on its preference for the ets although the sampled companies are very willing to save energy and reduce emissions there exists an inverted u shape relationship between a company s level of mitigation technologies and its attitudes towards the ets the carbon price fails to stimulate companies to upgrade mitigation technologies the majority of companies treat participation in the ets only as a means of improving ties with governments as well as of earning a good social reputation rather than as a cost effective mechanism to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions

informal regulation of pollution in a developing country evidence from india abstract recent policy discussions recognise the limitations of formal regulations to stem pollution in developing countries as a result there is a growing interest in the potential of informal regulations to achieve environmental goals in india many polluting industries fall under the rubric of the unorganised sector in such a context localised pollution may be influenced by discussions and reports on pollution in the vernacular press this study attempts to test the hypothesis that the press can act as an informal agent of pollution control this hypothesis is tested using monthly water pollution data from four hot spots in the state of gujarat india for the period 1996 to 2000 the results show that the press can function as an informal regulator if there is sustained interest in news about pollution however not all pollution agents are affected by pollution news press coverage appears to mainly influence industrial estates with a mix of small medium and large industries

the impact of environmental regulation shadow economy and corruption on environmental quality theory and empirical evidence from china abstract mounting environmental pressures led china to focus on the effectiveness of the environmental regulation to control pollution since the shadow economy or underground economic activities that are not included in official statistics accounts for an increasing fraction of china s economy its impacts on environmental quality should be carefully evaluated in this study the main research questions are as follows 1 what is the extent of the effect of environmental regulation on environmental quality and 2 what are the factors that influence the impact of environmental regulation on environmental pollution a theoretical model is developed to explain the relationship among the environmental regulation shadow economy and environmental quality in china an empirical analysis is conducted to test the three propositions of the model thereby examining the explanatory power of the theoretical model concretely using panel data from 30 provinces for the period of 1998 2012 the generalized method of moments gmm method is employed to control for potential endogeneity and introduce dynamic effects the estimation results indicate that stringent environmental regulation and the level of the shadow economy are both positively related to china s environmental pollution however the results also indicate that tighter environmental control would help reduce pollution at a given level of the shadow economy moreover an increase in the proportion of corrupt officials may weaken the environmental regulation which would consequently lead to the increase in illegal production and total pollutant emissions besides many economic and social factors may also affect the environmental quality for instance the development of secondary industry contributes toward an increase in pollutant emissions however increased research and development r d spending on eco friendly industrial operations can help to reduce pollution

community pressure for green behavior the desire to avoid rousing community hostility may encourage firms to behave in an environmentally responsible manner firms may engage in corporate social responsibility csr to maintain community support and or to regain the support of a community where it has been lost it has been conjectured that such informal regulation could effectively replace formal intervention in some settings and usefully complement it in others we explore these conjectures with mixed results informal regulation is necessarily less efficient than a well designed formal alternative and the pattern of green behavior induced by the threat of community hostility may increase or decrease welfare the existence of community pressure may increase or decrease the optimal calibration of a formal intervention in this case an environmental tax and may complement or detract from the incentives generated by an optimally calibrated tax

formal and informal regulation of industrial pollution comparative evidence from indonesia and the united states the authors start from the premise that governments act as agents of the public in regulating pollution using the instruments at their disposal but when formal regulatory mechanisms are absent or ineffective communities will seek other means of translating their preferences into reality recent empirical work suggests the widespread existence of such informal regulation communities are often able to negotiate with or otherwise informally pressure polluting plants in their vicinity to clean up their thesis is that such informal regulation is likely wherever formal regulation leaves a gap between actual and locally preferred environmental quality they use plant level data from indonesia and the united states two countries that are very different both socio economically and in terms of pollution regulation to test a model of equilibrium pollution under informal regulation their results suggest three common elements across countries and pollutants abatement is generally subject to significant scale economies within country variations in labor and energy prices have little impact on pollution intensity community incomes have a powerful negative association with pollution intensity their findings on community income are especially important as they suggest a powerful role for informal regulation whether or not formal regulation is in place the impact of income disparity on inter county differences in u s pollution intensities seems to match the impact in indonesia undoubtedly this reflects differences in both preference for environmental quality and ability to bring pressure on polluting factories the fact that such disparities exist in the united states even for traditionally regulated pollutants shows that u s regulation has not been able to ensure uniform environmental quality for all citizens regardless of income class