bilateral bargaining with externalities this paper provides an analysis of a non cooperative pairwise bargaining game between agents in a network we establish that there exists an equilibrium that generates a coalitional bargaining division of the reduced surplus that arises as a result of externalities between agents that is we provide a non cooperative justification for a cooperative division of a non cooperative surplus the resulting division is related to the myerson shapley value with properties that are particularly useful and tractable in applications we demonstrate this by examining buyer seller networks and vertical foreclosure

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

does foreign environmental policy influence domestic innovation evidence from the wind industry this paper analyses the relative influence of domestic and foreign demand pull policies in wind power across oecd countries on the rate of innovation in this technology we use annual wind power generation to capture the stringency of the portfolio of demand pull policies in place e g guaranteed tariffs investment and production tax credits and patent data as an indicator of innovation activity we find that wind technology improvements respond positively to policies both home and abroad but the marginal effect of domestic policies is 12 times greater the influence of foreign polices is reduced by barriers to technology diffusion in particular lax intellectual property rights reducing such barriers therefore constitutes a powerful policy leverage for boosting environmental innovation globally

an empirical study on the institutional factors of energy conservation and emissions reduction evidence from listed companies in china corporate excessive energy consumption and emissions are negative externality problems with the basic countermeasure of establishing a series of institutional programs to promote corporate energy conservation and emissions reduction this paper analyzes the influence of institutional factors such as laws tax policies credit policies government subsidies media supervision and marketization degree on corporate energy conservation and emissions reduction from the institutional perspective the data from 84 listed chinese chemical and steel companies from 2006 to 2010 was analyzed using both a fixed effect model and the generalized method of moments gmm model the empirical results demonstrate that these institutional factors positively affect corporate energy conservation and emissions reduction specifically four factors tax policies government subsidies credit policies and media supervision have a significant positive relationship with corporate energy conservation and emissions reduction whereas laws and marketization degree exhibit no significant effects the research findings are theoretically and practically significant to the chinese government with regard to improving the institutional environment and promoting corporate energy conservation and emissions reduction

do deployment policies pick technologies by not picking applications a simulation of investment decisions in technologies with multiple applications abstract the role of deployment policies that aim to foster technological change has grown considerably especially in the fields of energy and climate however recent research has shown that the adoption of deployment policies carries the potential of locking in the technology that is most cost effective at the point of policy introduction but may be inefficient in the long term the present paper contributes to the emerging literature on the role of deployment policies in creating path dependency and eventually technology lock in while previous studies focused on the relationship between lock in and the technology specificity of deployment policies this paper introduces a new factor the existence of multiple applications for a technology we argue that this factor is highly relevant for technological lock in and should be considered by policy makers to support our argument we simulate the competition among four stationary battery technologies across energy system applications in an investment simulation model this simulation shows that the degree of competition among technologies differs strongly across applications which corresponds with a highly varying lock in probability hence selecting applications in deployment policies very likely corresponds to selecting technologies we discuss the implications of these results for both policy makers and for the academic debate on deployment policies and technological lock in as well as on technology assessment and governance more generally based on the notion that policies can have different technology specificity levels we develop the idea of the application specificity of policies and provide examples of currently enacted deployment policies that vary in terms of their technology and application specificity

countervailing power revisited abstract the paper uses the nash bargaining concept to study the predictions of the theory of countervailing power within two theoretical models a cournot model and a model of perfect competition within the cournot model a decrease in the number of retailers unambiguously leads to an increase in equilibrium consumer prices in the model of perfect competition the reverse is true one may thus conclude that countervailing power can have positive effects for the consumers only if competiton at the retail level is very fierce

the transition to chlorine free pulp revisited nordic heterogeneity in environmental regulation and r d collaboration the purpose of this paper is to analyze the development paths leading to the transition to cleaner bleaching technologies in the pulp industry it devotes particular attention to the key features o

the relationship between international financial reporting standards carbon emissions and r d expenditures evidence from european manufacturing firms abstract this study examines the impact of research and development r d expenditures on carbon dioxide co2 emissions prior to and under the mandatory adoption of international financial reporting standards at the firm level within the manufacturing sectors of three european countries i e germany france and the u k estimation of a threshold autoregressive model using quarterly data from 1998 to 2011 reveals that in the post ifrs mandatory adoption year r d expenditures show a reduction in co2 emissions to firms i e rising co2 abatement this is likely due to the presence of incentives provided by the new accounting disclosure regime our results remain robust in terms of a sector analysis firm size and the introduction of the european union emission trading scheme eu ets across the three countries

sustainable production and consumption systems cooperation for change assessing and simulating the willingness of the firm to adopt develop cleaner technologies the case of the in bond industry in northern mexico abstract over the last decade literature on the greening of industry and environmental policy has provided numerous important insights into the determinants of the firm s innovative behaviour in cleaner technologies however this literature still lacks empirically tested theoretical models this paper contributes to fill this gap proposing a definitional system that enables the testing of hypotheses of dependence between willingness to innovate in cleaner technologies and its determinants and to explore the conditions under which the firms innovative behaviour could be fostered regression and simulation outcomes indicate against the general wisdom that stringent environmental regulation without consideration to the dynamics of technical change and environmental and economic risk perceptions in the part of firms would play against the promotion of innovation in cleaner production

lead markets and regulation a framework for analyzing the international diffusion of environmental innovations abstract environmental regulations are often intended to stimulate the generation and adoption of eco efficient innovations an important argument in the public debate is also the creation of new markets for environmentally benign products processes and services in other countries and the generation as a result of export opportunities for the pioneering country lead markets research on lead markets has not however focused on environmental innovations to date we therefore extend the lead market model to environmental innovations and take particular account of the peculiarities of such innovations in particular the public good character of environmental benefits and the role of regulations this approach is applied to two case studies wind energy and fuel efficient passenger cars in both cases the innovation was initially adopted in one country other countries subsequently adopted the same innovation design favored by the lead market which in turn developed into a large exporter in the wind generation and car industries respectively we discuss the regulations employed and the reasons for the international success of the innovations induced by them our findings demonstrate that when supported by global demand or regulatory trends strict regulation results in the creation of lead markets finally we provide recommendations on how our model could be used for further research and in the development of a coordinated environmental and innovation policy

the political economy of an energy tax the united kingdom s climate change levy energy taxes designed to control energy consumption and to assist the achievement of climate change control targets under the kyoto protocol are fairly common in european union countries yet many of these taxes bear little resemblance to the design guidance that is given in economics textbooks political economy analysis in which the interaction of economics and political reality is emphasised explains the gap between theoretical ideals and practical reality a closer look at the factors that influence real world policy design should help policy oriented economists in designing measures that have a greater chance of adoption the end result may well be nth best solutions which simply have to be lived with but there may also be room for design improvements that still honour the political constraints of policy design this paper illustrates these issues in the context of one tax the uk climate change levy

i don t want to be green prosocial motivation effects on firm environmental innovation rejection decisions although the political and consumer consciousness has turned increasingly green many firms continue to resist the adoption of environment friendly technological innovations even in the face of higher costs negative health effects and stricter government oversight this article examines how business owners weigh the trade offs associated with environment friendly innovations by examining the role of prosocial motivation in their decision making process we use primary data to overcome a common restriction in studying environmental innovations the scarcity of relevant data to analyze how business owners expectations perceptions and motivations affect innovation in organizational processes and consequently the level of environmental friendliness of their products or services we found that prosocial motivation had a significant negative impact on innovation adoption and that it is expressed differently under high and low levels of customer compatibility possibly because business owners have a larger number of competing social objectives and priorities our results further showed that the innovation s ability to satisfy downstream customer demands has the greatest impact on environment friendly innovation adoption decisions by business owners this study enhances our understanding of how business owners make innovation decisions based on competing business environmental and social objectives and provides a foundation for future research in this area

on the sources of technological change assessing the evidence this paper uses a selective review of the economic literature on technological change to support four points that are important for interpreting and incorporating technological change into formal models of energy and the environment the review 1 supports the notion that no single source dominates the process of technological change it supports roles for rd 3 indicates that these spillovers are often indirect requiring own industry activities to utilize and 4 indicates that simple experience curve calibrations often used in formal models likely include a range of sources of technological change in addition to learning by doing some of which might not be induced by the sorts of policies typically considered in the climate context

the influence of regulations on innovation a quantitative assessment for oecd countries abstract regulatory framework conditions have been identified as important factors influencing the innovation activities of companies industries and whole economies however in the empirical literature the impacts of regulation have been assessed as rather ambivalent for innovation different types of regulations generate various impacts and even a single type of regulation can influence innovation in various ways depending on how the regulation is implemented the endogenous growth approach developed by carlin and soskice 2006 and empirically applied by crafts 2006 which determines endogenously the rate of technological progress and therefore innovation allows a conceptual analysis of the influence of different types of regulation on innovation in general the negative effect of compliance costs should be compared with the more dynamic effect of regulations generating additional incentives for innovative activities based on this approach we derive hypotheses on the impact of different specific regulations on innovation we differentiate between economic social and institutional regulations following the oecd taxonomy on regulations existing economic analyses are surveyed which are characterised by rather heterogeneous approaches data bases and results the paper aims to apply a comprehensive and comparative approach to investigate quantitatively the innovation impacts in 21 oecd countries using panel data for the period between 1998 and 2004 in summary the empirical results confirm the hypotheses derived from the conceptual theoretical framework determining technical progress and innovation endogenously and allowing a distinction between short term and long term effects consequently the theoretical approach is an appropriate starting point for the empirical analysis of the influence of different regulations on innovation

retailer power recent developments and policy implications retailing is big business ranking firms by revenue retailing includes belgium s largest company delhaize le lion tesco and j sainsbury from the uk top ten the giant metro group in germany and wal mart stores number four in the usa and the eighth largest company in the world with 119 billion turnover and 825 000 employees fortune 3 8 98 retailing is getting more concentrated over time the top ten grocers in europe were 28 of the market in 1992 but 36 by 1997 1 the behaviour of retailers matters for consumers cross country studies of pricing for near identical products e g cars televisions compact discs branded sportswear groceries find big differences between prices across european countries and between europe and the usa 2 the european commission is to start examining why europeans pay substantially more on average than us consumers

robust predictions for bilateral contracting with externalities the paper studies bilateral contracting between one principal and n agents when each agent s utility depends on the principal s unobservable contracts with other agents we show that allowing deviations to menu contracts from which the principal chooses bounds equilibrium outcomes in a wide class of bilateral contracting games without imposing ad hoc restrictions on the agents beliefs this bound yields for example competitive convergence as n in environments in which an appropriately defined notion of competitive equilibrium exists we also examine the additional restrictions arising in two common bilateral contracting games the offer game in which the principal makes simultaneous offers to the agents and the bidding game in which the agents make simultaneous offers to the principal

the two faces of market support how deployment policies affect technological exploration and exploitation in the solar photovoltaic industry the recent years have seen a strong rise in policies aiming to increase the diffusion of clean energy technologies while there is general agreement that such deployment policies have been very effective in bringing technologies to the market it is less understood how these policies affect technological innovation to shed more light on this important question we conducted comparative case studies with a global sample of 9 firms producing solar photovoltaic pv modules complemented by in depth interviews with 16 leading pv industry experts we propose that on the one hand policy induced market growth serves as an important catalyst for innovative activity as it raises the absolute level of firm investments in technological exploration on the other hand however deployment policies create an incentive for firms pursuing more mature technologies to shift their balance between exploitation and exploration toward exploitation firms focusing on less mature technologies cannot tap the potentials of exploitative learning to the same extent as those with more mature technologies therefore stimulating strong market growth may raise the barrier to market entry for less mature technologies we conclude that when designing deployment policies great care should be taken to avoid adverse effects on technological diversity and a premature lock in into more established technologies

negotiating reductions in agricultural support implications of technology and factor mobility this paper highlights the joint significance of agricultural technology and factor mobility in determining the impact of changing support policies the impact of across the board reductions in farm support on output exports employment and land values will vary systematically across countries depending on their relative reliance on export output and input subsidies furthermore considerable maneuvering room exists even after an aggregate reduction in support is agreed upon for example the aggregate u s producer subsidy equivalent could be reduced while leaving unchanged the demand for farm labor by shifting the mix of remaining subsidies toward inputs which are complementary

demand pull and technology push public support for eco innovation the case of the biofuels sector the purpose of this paper is to explore the differentiated impact of demand pull and technology push policies in shaping technological patterns in the biofuels sector the empirical analysis is based on a novel and original database biopat containing patents in the field of biofuels selected using appropriate keywords and classified according to the technological content of the invention our results generally show that technological capabilities and environmental regulation spur innovative activities in the biofuels sector both demand pull and technology push factors are found to be important drivers of innovation in the biofuels sector however technology exploitation activities in first generation technologies are found to be mainly driven by quantity and price based demand pull policies on the contrary the pace of technology exploration efforts in advanced generation biofuels is shown to react positively to price based demand pull incentives but also to technology push policy the clear diversity in the impact of different public support instruments provides new insights which fuel discussion on the optimal policy mix debate and offers new elements for the design of future policy strategies

the action mechanism analysis of environmental pressures on the development of environmentally friendly technologies using a neo schumperian model in order to analyze the action mechanism of environmental pressures on the development of environmentally friendly technologies efts this paper constructs a neo schumpeterian simulation model containing firms production pricing pollution abatement investment environmental r d entry exit decision making and consumer choice behavior the objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of consumer demand preferences and environmental policies on firms environmental investment decision making as well as the development of eft results showed that consumers prefer product price a market based instrument mbi combined with an information oriented instrument ioi can promote the development of eft while mbi applied alone will reduce environmental investment under scenarios that consumers prefer product quality a command and control environmental policy cac can promote the development of eft to a greater extent but it inhibits environmental investment and damages the average profit rate of profit of the industry if consumers prefer environmental performance of firms cac or ioi is advantageous to the change of eft however in such a case environmental investment and consumer utility are reduced

do renewable electricity policies promote renewable electricity generation evidence from panel data using the poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimation technique this paper evaluates the effects of renewable electricity policies on renewable electricity generation using a large panel dataset that covers 122 countries over the period of 1980 2010 the results suggest that renewable electricity policies play a crucial role in promoting renewable electricity generation but their effectiveness is subject to diminishing returns as the number of policies increases there is also evidence that the effects of renewable electricity policies are more pronounced before 1996 as well as in developed and emerging market countries and the negative policy interaction effect fades with the stage of economic development lastly policy effectiveness varies by the type of renewable electricity policy and energy source only investment incentives and feed in tariffs are found to be effective in promoting the development of all types of renewable energy sources for electricity considered in this paper

the effects of environmental regulation on technology diffusion the case of chlorine manufacturing we use a hazard model to estimate the effect of environmental regulation on the diffusion of membrane cell production technology in the chlorine manufacturing industry we estimate the effect of regulation on both the adoption of the membrane technology at existing plants and on the exit of existing plants using older technologies we find that environmental regulation did affect the diffusion of the cleaner technology in the chlorine industry however it did so not by encouraging the adoption of membrane cells by existing facilities but by reducing the demand for chlorine and hence encouraging the shutdown of facilities using the environmentally inferior options this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

can vertical integration by a monopsonist harm consumer welfare abstract vertical integration by a monopsonist is generally believed not to harm consumers this paper demonstrates in a natural economic setting that this conventional wisdom may not hold we model one on one bargaining between a monopsonist and independent suppliers when the set of suppliers cannot be expanded easily ex post and show that a vertically separated monopolist is vulnerable to holdup without integration we demonstrate that a bottleneck monopsonist has an incentive to encourage more upstream entry than would arise in a pure neoclassical monopoly having more suppliers mitigates the holdup power of any one this however distorts the cost structure of the industry toward greater industry output and hence lowers final good prices vertical integration mitigates the hold up problem faced by the monopsonist it allows it to generate and appropriate a greater level of industry profits at the expense of consumers

environmental policy and the international diffusion of cleaner energy technologies technology transfer is an important channel of technological change and sustainable development for countries with less innovative ability than technological leaders this paper studies whether domestic environmental policies affect the inward technology transfer of cleaner innovation from abroad we focus specifically on the power sector for its important role in the decarbonization process by looking at zero carbon renewable and carbon saving efficient fossil technologies for energy production using data on cross country patent applications we provide evidence that environmental policy contributes to attracting foreign cleaner technology options to oecd markets but not to non oecd markets we show that this is due to the nature of the implemented policy instruments market based approaches positively impact technology transfer to both oecd and non oecd economies while non market based approaches have at best only a weak effect in oecd countries domestic environmental policies may provide too weak a signal for foreign innovators in countries off the technological frontier this calls for a strengthening of policy incentives for technology transfer in light of pressing climate change objectives

sectoral patterns of technical change towards a taxonomy and a theory abstract the purpose of the paper is to describe and explain sectoral patterns of technical change as revealed by data on about 2000 significant innovations in britain since 1945 most technological knowledge turns out not to be information that is generally applicable and easily reproducible but specific to firms and applications cumulative in development and varied amongst sectors in source and direction innovating firms principally in electronics and chemicals are relatively big and they develop innovations over a wide range of specific product groups within their principal sector but relatively few outside firms principally in mechanical and instrument engineering are relatively small and specialised and they exist in symbiosis with large firms in scale intensive sectors like metal manufacture and vehicles who make a significant contribution to their own process technology in textile firms on the other hand most process innovations come from suppliers these characteristics and variations can be classified in a three part taxonomy based on firms 1 supplier dominated 2 production intensive 3 science based they can be explained by sources of technology requirements of users and possibilities for appropriation this explanation has implications for our understanding of the sources and directions of technical change firms diversification behaviour the dynamic relationship between technology and industrial structure and the formation of technological skills and advantages at the level of the firm the region and the country

the limits of monopolization through acquisition we address the question of whether competitive acquisition of firms by their rivals can result in complete or partial monopolization of a homogeneous product industry this question is modeled in terms of two distinct three stage noncoopera tive games analysis of subgame perfect pure strategy nash equilibria of these games discloses that under simplifying assumptions monopolization of an industry through acquisition is limited to industries with relatively few firms partial monopolization is either limited in scope or can be completely eliminated by prohibiting any owner from acquiring over 50 percent of the firms in the industry

international trade in grains domestic policies and trade impacts this paper contains a brief summary of the nature of domestic policies and international agreements in agriculture and an outline of a simple computable general equilibrium model of the grain market preliminary results presented here suggest that the gains from global liberalization in agriculture could exceed the gains from further liberalization on trade in manufactured goods by the developed world i introduction this is a shortened version of a longer paper presented at the bergen conference see trela et al 1986 in this we raised some of the issues which will be encountered in addressing the current global situation in agricultural trade in the new negotiating round under the gatt we summarized how agricultural policies work in the three major trading areas the eec the u s and japan emphasizing their perverse effects on global agricultural trade we also discussed how both previous and current international agricultural agreements do little to fundamentally liberalize agricultural trade finally we reported some preliminary results from a modelling project designed to provide a quantitative evaluation of the potential gains from global trade liberalization in grains in this paper we describe the modelling work done thus far and present the same preliminary results as reported at bergen

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

dynamic incentives of environmental regulations the effects of alternative policy instruments on technology diffusion abstract we develop a framework for comparing empirically the effects of alternative environmental policy instruments on the diffusion of new technology market based and command and control approaches can he quantitatively compared by estimating the economic penalty that firms through their actions reveal to be associated with violation of standards in the context of concerns about global climate change we empirically examine the likely effects of pigouvian taxes technology adoption subsidies and technology standards we employ state level data on the diffusion of thermal insulation in new home construction comparing the effects of energy prices insulation cost and building codes

bilateral monopolies and incentives for merger the paper presents a model of duopoly in which firms acquire inputs through bilateral monopoly relations with suppliers it combines a bargaining model with a duopoly model to examine how input pri

economic instruments and induced innovation the european policies on end of life vehicles abstract the paper addresses the mechanisms by which specific economic instruments based on the producer responsibility principle prp can influence innovation when environmental policy has impact on very complex industrial subsystems we consider the eu policy on end of life vehicles directive 2000 53 ec on elvs as a representative case study of multiple industry prp instrument dynamic efficiency problems in order to achieve ambitious policy targets on elv recovery recycling reuse interrelated sequences of single innovations in both upstream car making and downstream car recycling recovery should take place we explore the extent to which the introduction of a free take back ftb instrument can influence industrial actors in contributing to innovation paths that are still marked by technological uncertainty evolving capabilities and different cost benefit balances for actors themselves we conclude that differently from static approaches in which the ei and its formulation is neutral with respect to policy effectiveness the dynamic efficiency of eis in elv like problems depends both on where along the production to waste chain and how in terms of net cost allocation the specific incentive is introduced consequently in order to generate a policy desired innovation path the way in which the ei related incentive allocated to a certain industry is transmitted to other industries whether upward or downward along the chain is also relevant disregarding these effects can imply a dissipation of innovation incentives and the generation of regulation induced rents for some actors cannot be ruled out policies based on prp should consider eis in conjunction with enforceable voluntary agreements

vertical integration in the presence of upstream competition we analyse vertical integration when there is upstream competition and compare outcomes to the case where upstream assets are owned by a single agent i e upstream monopoly in so doing we make two contributions to the modelling of strategic vertical integration first we base industry structure namely the ownership of assets firmly within the property rights approach to firm boundaries second we model the potential multilateral negotiations using a fully specified non cooperative bargaining model designed to easily compare outcomes achieved under upstream competition and monopoly given this we demonstrate that vertical integration can alter the joint payoffs of integrating parties in ex post bargaining however this bargaining effect is stronger for firms integrating under upstream competition than upstream monopoly we also consider the potential for integration to internalise competitive externalities in manner that cannot be achieved under non integration we demonstrate that ex post monopolization is more likely to occur when there is an upstream monopoly than when there is upstream competition our general conclusion is that the simple intuition that the presence of upstream competition can mitigate and reduce the incentives for socially undesirable vertical integration is misplaced and depending upon the strength of downstream competition i e product differentiation the opposite could easily be the case journal of economic literature classification number l42

investigating external and internal pressures on corporate environmental behavior in papermaking enterprises of china abstract as china s ecological environmental problem becomes severe corporate environmental behavior ceb has become the focus of a range of stakeholders policy makers and the whole society since the operating activities of companies is the main source of environmental pollution this study used a questionnaire survey and structural equation model sem to examine the relative importance of external and internal pressures eip on driving ceb data was obtained from 702 papermaking companies in china the mechanism of eip effects on ceb was tested employing sem through path analysis using amos 21 0 the results showed that government pressure economic pressure and internal pressure played significant positive roles in environmental behavior of papermaking companies in china economic pressure was the most important factor on environmental behaviors including defensive accommodative and proactive behaviors of papermaking companies furthermore the role of internal pressure on ceb defensive and proactive was second only to economic pressure while the role of government pressure on ceb was much weaker than our expectation however the role of social pressure which was imposed by general public and environmental non governmental organizations ngos was not significant thus policy makers should emphasize on the interactions of economic mechanism government regulation and internal incentive mechanism to stimulate firms to adopt active environmental behavior more concerns from the general public shall be addressed to enhance their driving effect on ceb in chinese papermaking industry

productivity growth environmental regulation and win win opportunities the case of chemical industry in italy and germany abstract this paper analyzes the environmental and economic efficiency of a sample of firms located in italy and germany operating in the chemical sector and included in the european pollution release and transfer register e prtr the directional distance function ddf approach in a conditional setting has been applied to obtain efficiency score and total factor productivity tfp growth indexes considering pollution in computations emissions increase in absolute term between 2004 and 2007 with a worse performance of italian firms but efficiency indicators show a reduction of inefficiency over time with similar performance of firms from the two countries the formal test for the porter s hypothesis suggests that chemical firms suffering higher compliance costs in the first period react with investment increasing productivity in the following years the empirical evidence robust to different specifications and estimation methods supports the presence of win win opportunities

the welfare effects of upstream mergers in the presence of downstream entry barriers we examine the incentives for upstream firms to consolidate horizontally and the impact of this process on industry performance when there are downstream entry barriers and firms negotiate bilaterally in the short run consumers are not worse off with upstream mergers since consolidation only results in a redistribution of industry rents in the long run consumers are better off after upstream mergers since they induce more entry into that segment when social welfare is evaluated a limit on upstream consolidation may prevent excessive entry but upstream entry can be sometimes insufficient if the retailers intrinsic bargaining power is excessive

determinants of environmental innovation in us manufacturing industries abstract this paper provides new evidence on the determinants of environmental innovation we employ panel data models to study how environmental innovation by us manufacturing industries responded to changes in pollution abatement expenditures and regulatory enforcement during the period 1983 through 1992 we find that 1 environmental innovation as measured by the number of successful environmental patent applications granted to the industry responded to increases in pollution abatement expenditures however 2 increased monitoring and enforcement activities related to existing regulations did not provide any additional incentive to innovate we also find some empirical evidence that environmental innovation is more likely to occur in industries that are internationally competitive

a tale of two market failures technology and environmental policy abstract market failures associated with environmental pollution interact with market failures associated with the innovation and diffusion of new technologies these combined market failures provide a strong rationale for a portfolio of public policies that foster emissions reduction as well as the development and adoption of environmentally beneficial technology both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the rate and direction of technological advance is influenced by market and regulatory incentives and can be cost effectively harnessed through the use of economic incentive based policy in the presence of weak or nonexistent environmental policies investments in the development and diffusion of new environmentally beneficial technologies are very likely to be less than would be socially desirable positive knowledge and adoption spillovers and information problems can further weaken innovation incentives while environmental technology policy is fraught with difficulties a long term view suggests a strategy of experimenting with policy approaches and systematically evaluating their success

community pressure and clean technology in the informal sector an econometric analysis of the adoption of propane by traditional mexican brickmakers abstract in many developing countries the informal sector comprised of low technology unlicensed micro enterprises is a major source of pollution environmental management in this sector is exceptionally challenging though clean technologies offer a means of mitigating the problem to our knowledge there has been no rigorous empirical research on why informal or even small scale firms do and do not adopt them as a first step toward filling this gap this paper presents the results of an econometric analysis of the diffusion of propane among informal traditional brickmakers in cd juarez mexico a leading source of air pollution owing to their reliance on cheap highly polluting fuels such as used tires and scrap wood the two key policy implications of our analysis are that 1 it is possible to successfully promote the adoption of a clean technology by intensely competitive informal firms even when the new technology significantly raises variable costs and 2 community pressure applied by competing firms and private sector local organizations can generate incentives for adoption

uk innovation systems for new and renewable energy technologies drivers barriers and systems failures abstract a better understanding of the systemic processes by which innovation occurs is useful both conceptually and to inform policy making in support of innovation in more sustainable technologies this paper analyses current innovation systems in the uk for a range of new and renewable energy technologies and generates policy recommendations for improving the effectiveness of these innovation systems although incentives are in place in the uk to encourage innovation in these technologies system failures or gaps are identified in moving technologies along the innovation chain preventing their successful commercialisation sustained investment will be needed for these technologies to achieve their potential it is argued that a stable and consistent policy framework is required to help create the conditions for this in particular such a framework should be aimed at improving risk reward ratios for demonstration and pre commercial stage technologies this would enhance positive expectations stimulate learning effects leading to cost reductions and increase the likelihood of successful commercialisation

identifying roles of international institutions in clean energy technology innovation and diffusion in the developing countries matching barriers with roles of the institutions abstract the development of clean energy technologies is a central issue in climate change negotiation the signatory countries to the united nations convention on climate change agreed to organize the technology executive committee and the climate technology centre and network the objectives of this paper are twofold the first objective is to show a broad landscape of barriers in technology development the paper summarizes the results of key case studies that were conducted to uncover technology specific barriers in technology development these case studies include both technologies for industrial use such as wind bio energy and building energy efficiency and technologies for individual use such as light emitting diodes and photovoltaic panels the case studies also contain technologies at the innovation stage such as integrated gasification combined cycle and carbon capture and storage the second objective of this paper is to highlight and define roles of international institutions in overcoming identified barriers in clean energy technology development in this paper four areas of focus for international institutions are discussed including 1 increasing r d cooperation at the innovation stage 2 facilitation of intellectual property rights 3 supporting finance and 4 enhancing the enabling environment at the diffusion stage

the innovation impact of the eu emission trading system findings of company case studies in the german power sector abstract this paper provides a detailed analysis of how the european emission trading system eu ets as the core climate policy instrument of the european union has impacted innovation towards this end we investigate the impact of the eu ets on research development and demonstration rd d adoption and organizational change in doing so we pay particular attention to the relative influences of context factors policy mix market factors and public acceptance and firm characteristics value chain position technology portfolio size and vision empirically our qualitative analysis is based on multiple case studies with 19 power generators technology providers and project developers in the german power sector which were conducted in 2008 09 we find that the innovation impact of the eu ets has remained limited so far because of the scheme s initial lack of stringency and predictability and the relatively greater importance of context factors additionally the impact varies significantly across technologies firms and innovation dimensions and is most pronounced for rd d on carbon capture technologies and organizational changes our analysis suggests that the eu ets on its own may not provide sufficient incentives for fundamental changes in corporate innovation activities at a level which ensures political long term targets can be achieved

stimulating different types of eco innovation in the uk government policies and firm motivations in this paper we adopt a recent oecd framework and examine the role of external policy tools and internal firm specific factors for stimulating three different types of eco innovations that range on a spectrum of lower to higher technological and environmental impacts end of pipeline pollution control technologies integrated cleaner production technologies and environmental r d using a novel firm level dataset from a defra survey we estimate a tobit model which provides empirical evidence showing that these eco innovations are motivated by different external policy tools and internal firm specific factors our findings indicate that end of pipeline technologies and integrated cleaner production technologies are mainly driven by equipment upgrade motives with a view of improving efficiency while environmental regulations are effective in stimulating the end of pipeline technologies and environmental r d interestingly alongside government induced regulations we find that market factors mainly motivated by cost savings are effective in driving environmental r d finally iso14001 certification is effective in strengthening the positive impact of environmental management systems on both end of pipeline technologies and environmental r d while csr policies have no significant impact on motivating any of the eco innovations

on a clear day you might see an environmental kuznets curve we shed some new light on the environmental kuznets curve ekc and show how it can be viewed as a particular form of equilibrium relationship where technology and preference parameters determine the shape of the curve in contrast to most of the literature on the ekc we estimate a theoretically consistent model on long run data swedish sulfur emission covering the period 1900 2002 furthermore we test and date structural change the model suggests four regimes 1900 1918 1919 1933 1934 1967 and 1968 2002 generating four rather different patterns for pollution over time the policy conclusions are consonant with pearce s general view about the ekc there is no theoretical presumption that it has an inverted u shape nor should any country try to grow out of the environmental problems without analyzing the benefits and costs of so doing

what are the determinants of investment in environmental r d to face the challenges posed by climate change environmental rd yet investment in environmental r d remains below the social optimum the aim of this paper is to analyse the determinants of investment in environmental innovation and to detect the differences if any with the determinants of investment in general innovation in addition this paper examines the relationship between environmental innovation r d expenditure and a range of policy instruments including environmental regulation and other policy measures including r d subsidies and environmental taxes the empirical analysis is carried out for 22 manufacturing sectors in spain for the period 2008 2013 to overcome problems of data availability we construct a comprehensive database from different surveys the main implications from our results are 1 managerial strategy appears as a relevant driver of environmental r d investments 2 the establishment of a policy mix between environmental energy and technological regulatory measures is recommended 3 the promotion of self regulation through actions that encourage companies to follow a policy that affects their energy efficiency and is environmentally friendly

adoption of green chemistry an analysis based on us patents abstract green chemistry patents are an indicator of environmental innovation and r d over 3200 green chemistry patents were granted in the us patent system between 1983 and 2001 with most assigned to the chemical sector the university and government sectors place greater emphasis on green chemistry than most industrial sectors worldwide the emphasis on green chemistry technology relative to chemical plastic rubber and polymer technologies has increased since 1988 the united states appears to have a competitive advantage in green chemistry the most rapid growth in the emphasis on us green chemistry patents coincides with revisions to major us environmental laws in the late 1980s and early 1990s however the ratio of green chemistry patents to patents in other areas of chemical sciences in heavily regulated industries are low suggesting that these industries did not necessarily embrace green chemistry as a means to reduce their regulatory burden

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

the role of technology in sustaining agriculture and the environment abstract visions of sustainable development often leave unanswered the question what actions taken by the current generation will ensure that future generations can meet their economic and environmental needs in this context we assess the role of technology in steering agriculture along a more sustainable path from the agricultural sector s perspective this requires an optimal investment plan for a nation s stock of environmental assets that accounts for an intergenerational fulfillment of sustainability s dual goals 1 satisfying food and fiber needs at reasonable costs to consumers and 2 providing environmental service flows in reviewing agricultural indicators to assess the nation s performance in meeting these goals we find productivity growth has increased while rates of soil erosion wetland conversion and pesticide application have declined however individuals continue to demand more environmental services while private markets undersupply environmental services the capacity of the agricultural sector to meet food and fiber and environmental service demands partially depends on the availability and adoption of new technology several market impediments explain the undersupply of sustainable technologies 1 firms cannot fully appropriate rents from technology development 2 success may vary with farm structure 3 the heterogeneity of the resource base influences adoption and 4 farmers cannot capture the benefits of environmental services to address these market failures sustainable agriculture policy should 1 support research and development in sustainable technologies and provide incentives to encourage adoption 2 ensure that conservation efforts reflect the efficient and sustainable allocation of environmental assets and 3 legitimize markets for foods produced under more sustainable practices

characterizing the policy mix and its impact on eco innovation a patent analysis of energy efficient technologies abstract this paper provides an empirical investigation of the role played by selected characteristics of the policy mix in inducing innovation in energy efficiency technologies an original dataset covering 23 oecd countries over the period 1990 2010 combines the full set of policies in the energy efficiency domain for the residential sector with data on patents applied over the same period in this specific technological sector the econometric results suggest that when the policy mix is characterised by a more balanced use in demand pull and technology push instruments its positive effects on eco innovation tend to be greater moreover a more comprehensive policy mix is shown to be able to enhance innovation activities for the generation of new energy efficient technologies however the simple addition of an indiscriminate number of simultaneous policy instruments may reduce policy mix effectiveness finally the empirical findings confirm previous evidence on the importance of policy spillover effects and suggest that policy similarity between countries may represent an important aspect to be accounted for in policy mix design

does the development of environmental innovation require different resources evidence from spanish manufacturing firms in recent years environmental innovations are getting increasingly at the center both of the scientific debate and of the policy maker agenda adopting the resource based view this paper provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the specific role of internal external and hybrid resources in the environmental innovation development using a dataset of 4829 spanish manufacturing firms and estimating probit models it is found that internal resources have greater importance for environmental innovations moreover green innovators seem to be characterized by more intensive external relationships for hybrid resources acquisition of equipment but not of patents is more relevant finally evidence suggest the relevance of complementing the analysis of the external factors triggering environmental innovations with those of the internal resources the firm has access to in order to fully understand and support the development of environmental innovations

countervailing power and consumer prices this paper considers the importance of countervailing power manifested as the effects of increased retail concentration on consumer prices and welfare within a market setting where imperfectly competitive retailers negotiate intermediate prices with a monopoly supplier only when retailer services are regarded as very close substitutes do final prices fall following a reduction in the number of retailers even in these circumstances the social benefits of countervailing power may not be realised as the supplier may seek to protect its profits by using a refusal to supply restraint to engage in exclusive trading

redefining innovation eco innovation research and the contribution from ecological economics while innovation processes toward sustainable development eco innovations have received increasing attention during the past years theoretical and methodological approaches to analyze these processes are poorly developed against this background the term eco innovation is introduced in this paper addressing explicitly three kinds of changes towards sustainable development technological social and institutional innovation secondly the potential contribution of neoclassical and co evolutionary approaches from environmental and innovation economics to eco innovation research is discussed three peculiarities of eco innovation are identified the double externality problem the regulatory push pull effect and the increasing importance of social and institutional innovation while the first two are widely ignored in innovation economics the third is at the least not elaborated appropriately the consideration of these peculiarities may help to overcome market failure by establishing a specific eco innovation policy and to avoid a technology bias through a broader understanding of innovation finally perspectives for a specific contribution of ecological economics to eco innovation research are drawn it is argued that methodological pluralism as established in ecological economics would be very beneficial for eco innovation research a theoretical framework integrating elements from both neoclassical and evolutionary approaches should be pursued in order to consider the complexity of factors influencing innovation decisions as well as the specific role of regulatory instruments and the experience gathered in ecological economics integrating ecological social and economic aspects of sustainable development is highly useful for opening up innovation research to social and institutional changes 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

trade and environment an empirical analysis of the technology effect in the steel industry abstract the objective of this paper is to study the impact of free trade on global environmental quality by focusing on the technology effect that is the relationship between trade openness and the adoption diffusion of clean technologies the paper attempts to empirically verify the existence of the technology effect by looking at the relationship between trade policy regime or openness and the speed of clean technology diffusion in the steel industry focusing on a cleaner steel technology the electric arc furnace eaf in 30 steel producing countries over 25 years the results show that eaf technology is diffused faster in countries that have more open trade policy regimes thereby supporting the existence of the technology effect for the industry considered

policy mixes for sustainability transitions an extended concept and framework for analysis reaching a better understanding of the policies and politics of transitions presents a main agenda item in the emerging field of sustainability transitions one important requirement for these transitions such as the move towards a decarbonized energy system is the redirection and acceleration of technological change for which policies play a key role in this regard several studies have argued for the need to combine different policy instruments in so called policy mixes however existing policy mix studies often fall short of reflecting the complexity and dynamics of actual policy mixes the underlying politics and the evaluation of their impacts in this paper we take a first step towards an extended interdisciplinary policy mix concept based on a review of the bodies of literature on innovation studies environmental economics and policy analysis the concept introduces a clear terminology and consists of the three building blocks elements policy processes and characteristics which can be delineated by several dimensions based on this we discuss its application as analytical framework for empirical studies analyzing the impact of the policy mix on technological change throughout the paper we illustrate the proposed concept by using the example of the policy mix for fostering the transition of the german energy system to renewable power generation technologies finally we derive policy implications and suggest avenues for future research

the diffusion of biological waste water treatment plants in the dutch food and beverage industry this article develops an economic model of environmental technology adoption decisions the model is applied econometrically to the diffusion of biological waste water treatment plants in the dutch food and beverage industry it shows that it is possible to explain the overall diffusion pattern of biological waste water treatment plants in terms of a rational choice model in which prospective adopters trade off the costs of effluent treatment against the savings on effluent tax payments effluent charges are shown to be a significant positive factor in the timing of adoption of biological effluent treatment plants this result is brought out by both the rational choice and the epidemic models none of the models however can explain year to year changes in the ownership of biological waste water treatment plants during the 1974 91 period which suggests that there are other factors not included in the model that affect the timing of adoption

does host market regulation induce cross border environmental innovation this paper evaluates the effect of host country environmental policy stringency on the offshoring of environmental patents for 2000 top world r d performers it is shown that a more stringent environmental regulation triggers both the extensive and intensive margin of patent offshoring in the field of environmental technologies results are robust to various different specifications alternative definitions of innovation offshoring and of regulation restrictions and to the consideration of possible endogeneity of regulation it is suggested inter alia that r d subsidies and non market based regulatory measures are more important than market based instruments as drivers of cross border environmental innovation length 26 pages

patent quality and research productivity measuring innovation with multiple indicators we analyse the determinants of the decline in research productivity using panel data on manufacturing firms in the us for the period 1980 93 we focus on three factors the level of demand the quality of patents and technological exhaustion we develop an index of patent quality using detailed patent information and show that using multiple indicators substantially reduces the measured variance in quality research productivity at the firm level is inversely related to patent quality and the level of demand as predicted by theory and patent quality is positively associated with the stock market value of firms

environmental policy vs public pressure innovation and diffusion of alternative bleaching technologies in the pulp industry abstract in the late 1980s and early 1990s concern over dioxin in both paper products and wastewater led to the development of techniques that reduced the use of chlorine in the pulp industry both regulatory and consumer pressure motivated this change unlike previous studies we use patent data to examine the evolution of two competing bleaching technologies in five major paper producing countries both of which reduce the use of chlorine in the pulping process the use of patent data allows us to focus on the invention stage however adoption data are also presented and by the end of the 1990s nearly all pulp production in these countries used one of these technologies while previous studies emphasize the importance of regulation for inducing innovation here we find substantial innovation occurring before regulations were in place instead pressure from consumers and the public at large to reduce the chlorine content of paper drove invention prior to the introduction of environmental policies in any of the countries concerned

the empirical analysis of the determinants for environmental technological change a research agenda abstract technological change is usually considered a necessary albeit not sufficient condition for a transition to sustainability however the empirical analysis of the determinants to environmental technological change has not received too much attention in the environmental ecological economics literature and many open questions remain in this context based on a careful review of the literature this paper argues that further analysis should address several issues at different levels i e regarding the conceptual framework the thematic scope of the studies some methodological issues and other aspects related to the environmental policy variable first an integrated conceptual framework which takes into account the interplay between relevant variables influencing environmental technological change i e factors internal and external to the firm and characteristics of the environmental technologies and all the stages of this process with a greater emphasis on the invention stage should be developed other aspects should then be tackled including a focus on several themes i e a greater attention to cross sectoral technologies the barriers to different types of environmental technologies the international dimension of environmental technological change and environmental technological change in small and medium size enterprises methodological issues combination of case studies and econometric modelling and several issues related to the environmental policy variable

local demand pull policy and energy innovation evidence from the solar photovoltaic market in china abstract market demand is an important driver for inducing innovation with many empirical studies supporting the demand induced innovation hypothesis critiques of such studies however emphasize that new empirical evidence that can address existing empirical challenges is needed furthermore existing literature disagrees about whether the locus of demand pull policy matters in this paper we use empirical evidence from the distributed solar photovoltaic pv market in china to address the following questions 1 is there evidence of demand induced innovation 2 does the effect of local demand pull policy differ from the effect of non local demand pull policy on demand induced innovation to address these questions we develop and analyze an original database of pv balance of system bos patents in the distributed pv market filed between 2005 and 2014 in china our results support the demand induced innovation hypothesis and suggest that only local demand significantly induces pv bos innovations in the distributed pv market in china the different effects of local demand and non local demand emphasize the importance of local markets and local policies lending some support to bottom up approaches to clean energy governance

customer regulatory and competitive pressure as drivers of environmental innovation we develop an economic analysis in order to examine the effects of consumer regulatory and competitive pressure on firm investments in environmentally friendly production specifically we ask why do firms vary in their levels of environmental innovation under what conditions are such pressures effective in bringing about environmental innovation we first consider a monopolist who faces the twin pressures of reduced customer demand and regulatory penalties as a result of its emissions in response to these pressures the firm has the opportunity to make a costly investment in reduction of emissions secondly we consider a competitive scenario in which two firms compete for environmentally sensitive customers solving our model we find that pressure has the intended effect as long as the firm s initial level of emissions is below a certain threshold if the emissions are above this threshold we find that pressure might have an adverse effect on the firm s environmental investment and that subsidies that support environmental innovation can be a better alternative we also show that competition over environmentally sensitive customers can improve the effectiveness of environmental pressures

demand heterogeneity and technology evolution implications for product and process innovation the evolution of technology has been a central issue in the strategy and organizations literature however the focus of much of this work has been on what is essentially the supply side of technical change the evolution of firm capabilities we present a demand based view of technology evolution that is focused on the interaction between technology development and the demand environment in which the technology is ultimately evaluated we develop a formal computer simulation model that explicitly considers the influence of heterogeneity in market demand the presence of consumers with different needs and requirements on firms innovation choices the model is used to examine the dynamics of product and process innovation utterback and abernathy 1975 the analysis reveals that demand heterogeneity offers an alternative to supply side explanations of the technology life cycle further by considering the implications of decreasing marginal utility from performance improvements the model highlights the role of technologically satisfied consumers in shaping innovation incentives and suggests a rationale for a new stage in the technology life cycle characterized by increasing performance at a stable price the stage has not yet been treated formally in the literature but is widely observed most prominently in digital and information based technologies

new approaches to cleaner production applying the sasi method to micro tanneries in colombia the literature on micro and small sized enterprises in developing countries shows their existential difficulties this is particularly true for those in marginal areas with multiple challenges including pollution prevention environmental agencies tend to require capital intensive end of pipe solutions or regulatory measures that close down polluting enterprises both knowledge of and interest in how to make poor micro enterprises more sustainable are needed this paper addresses this by a developing a problem driven and context oriented systematic approach to social inclusion sasi method and b applying it successfully in the context of micro tanneries in villapinzon colombia over a period of eight years the concept of cleaner production was systematically integrated into this method that was inspired by lewin s theory of change and insights from negotiation and conflict resolution the results show that cleaner production implementation needs comprehensive systemic policy mechanisms based on participatory approaches taking into account the socio economic constraints of the micro industries that combine supportive capacity building and command and control policies moreover rules encouraging cleaner production need to be sensitive to the regulatory context in which it is applied which in this case concerned land use planning and zoning regulations the sasi approach effectively encouraged micro tanners to make their industries more viable and clean while it simultaneously convinced the environmental agency to recognise and value these industries this paper argues that integrating cleaner production in sasi is a learning and socio technical change process urgently needed for micro industries

free entry and social inefficiency our goal is to provide a simple yet general exposition of the conditions under which the number of entrants in a free entry equilibrium is excessive insufficient or optimal our analysis compares the number of firms that enter a market when there is free entry with the number that would be desired by a social planner who is unable to control the behavior of firms once they are in the market that is we consider the second best problem of choosing the welfare maximizing number of firms while we take as given their noncompetitive behavior after entry we demonstrate that the crucial conditions for establishing the presence of an entry bias can be stated quite simply in terms of the outcome of the postentry game played by entrants in contrast to previous work we do not need to model this postentry game explicitly

successive oligopolies with differentiated firms and endogeneous entry we develop a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous entry allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets we show that downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two tier structure while upstream conditions mainly affect the distribution of profits we analyze how two part tariffs and resale price maintenance shape the endogenous market structure and study their welfare effects in contrast to previous literature we find that welfare under linear prices can be larger than under twopart tariffs although the latter avoids double marginalization this is because linear prices induce more downstream market entry

does entry regulation hinder job creation evidence from the french retail industry are product market and entry regulation key sources of low employment growth in many european countries we investigate this question in the context of the french retail trade industry since 1974 approval by regional zoning boards has been required for the creation or extension of any large retain store in france we exploit a unique database that provides time and region specific variation in boards approval decisions we show that stronger deterrence of entry by the boards increased retailer concentration and slowed down employment growth in france

environmental innovations and profitability how does it pay to be green an empirical analysis on the german innovation survey much of the empirical literature analysing the relation between environmental innovation and competitiveness has focused on the question whether it pays to be green we differentiate between different types of environmental innovations which will be disentangled in those aiming at reducing the negative externalities and those allowing for efficiency increases and cost savings what we analyze is at first the extent to which these two typologies have impacts on firms profitability with opposite signs and secondly whether the motivations driving the adoption of those innovations make the difference in terms of economic gains we find empirical evidence that both the typology of environmental innovation and the driver of their adoption affect the sign of the relationship between competitiveness and environmental performance the empirical strategy is based on a sample of german firms and makes use of a merge of two waves of the mannheim innovation panel in 2011 and 2009 that allow overcoming some endogeneity issues which may arise in a cross section setting

analysis of the generation of economic results in the different phases of the pro environmental change process abstract much of the research in environmental management has focused on analysing whether a firm s environmental efforts can be considered an argument in favour of or against its economic results concluding that favourable results are not guaranteed but depend on different aspects this paper studies pro environmental change processes in firms focusing on how economic profit is generated during the process of changing to high degrees of environmental proactivity based on a sample of 303 spanish firms located in the aragon region we classify four cluster categories of pro environmental change the description and comparative analysis of these categories leads us to consider that pro environmental change is related to economic performance the study s conclusions show that the economic benefits derived from pro environmental change are greater when said change is more advanced or proactive

the innovation effects of environmental policy instruments a typical case of the blind men and the elephant abstract in this paper we examine the innovation effects of environmental policy instruments in four literatures theoretical models on incentives for eco innovation econometric studies based on observed data survey analysis based on stated information and technology case studies the aim of this paper is to critically examine the methods and the results we argue that the case studies literature even when its results are specific and difficult to generalise is a necessary source of empirical evidence about policy impacts and the factors responsible for these impacts pointing to issues that are neglected in the theoretical and econometric literature such as the specifics of the innovation context and policy interaction effects the paper states five synthesised findings and makes a plea for multi method analysis one other important synthesised finding is that the influence of market based instruments on innovation such as emission trading and taxes is far weaker than assumed

the international effects of u s farm subsidies using dynamic programming this paper examines effects of farm subsidies on u s exports of corn cotton rice and wheat the six policy simulations described here explore alternative proposals in the current round of the general agreement on tariffs and trade the analysis leads to two conclusions first abolishing domestic subsidies lowers world prices of these crops second imposing tighter supply controls may not actually decrease exports in the short run

the competition effects of industry wide vertical price fixing in bilateral oligopoly this paper examines the competition and welfare effects of vertical price fixing through industry wide resale price maintenance rpm arrangements such as those benefiting from exemption from a general prohibition against rpm a bilateral oligopoly framework is employed incorporating differentiation between manufacturer products and between retailer services transactions between the stages involve prices being determined through bargaining we do not find rpm to be universally undesirable however where retailer power is strong the social effects of rpm are likely to be adverse since the practice can assist in coordinating final price levels and prevent socially desirable countervailing power arising

dynamic incentives by environmental policy instruments a survey abstract in this paper i survey and discuss recent developments on the incentives provided by environmental policy instruments for both adoption and development of advanced abatement technology a main conclusion to be drawn from the literature is that under competitive conditions market based instruments usually perform better than command and control moreover taxes may provide stronger long term incentives than tradable permits if the regulator is myopic if the government can anticipate new technology or is able to react on it optimally regulatory policies by virtue of administered prices taxes and policies by setting quantities issuing tradable permits are almost equivalent the literature also shows that under competitive conditions there is no difference between auctioning permits and grandfathering moreover timing and commitment of environmental policy is not crucial for adoption under competitive conditions commitment has positive incentive effects however if an r d sector has market power in the presence of market imperfections the ranking of the different policy instruments is ambiguous

vertical bargaining and retail competition what drives countervailing power this article investigates the effects of changes in market concentration on the equilibrium prices in a supply chain results are derived from a theoretical model of bilateral bargaining between upstream and downstream firms which allows for general forms of demand and retail competition whether countervailing buyer power arises in the form of lower input prices following greater concentration downstream depends on the pass through rate of input prices to retail prices countervailing buyer power generally does not translate into lower retail prices because of heightened market power at the retail level

domestic farm policy and the gains from trade this paper assesses the extent to which the gains from agricultural trade are influenced by both u s domestic policy and tariff and nontariff trade barriers it shows theoretically that the volume of trade can be substantial but the gains nonexistent empirical results along with rent seeking arguments support the no gains from trade hypothesis

policy entrepreneurship in the co evolution of institutions preferences and technology comparing the diffusion of totally chlorine free pulp bleaching technologies in the us and sweden abstract this paper uses the concept of policy entrepreneurship to explain the social processes underlying sustainable technical change in the pulp and paper industry in the 1990s it presents a detailed case study on the differences in the transition to and diffusion of totally chlorine free tcf pulp bleaching methods in sweden and the usa this change was sustained in the former while it was almost absent in the latter the paper studies the causes for this difference it looks at the complex coevolution of technology institutions and consumer preferences that has taken place in both countries and draws conclusions on how transitions to sustainable paths in production and consumption may be supported by economic and social policy

green technologies and environmental productivity a cross sectoral analysis of direct and indirect effects in italian regions abstract this paper provides empirical investigation of the effects of environmental innovations eis on environmental performances as proxied by the environmental productivity ep measure we focus on sectoral environmental productivity of italian regions by exploiting the regional accounting matrix including environmental accounts regional namea patent applications have been extracted by the patstat database and assigned to the environmental domain by adopting different international classifications of green technologies the latest release of the oecd env tech indicators and the union of this with the previously established wipo green inventory econometric results outline that regions sectors characterized by higher levels of green technologies gts are those facing better environmental performance these positive effects directly stem from the introduction of gt in the same sector as well as from the introduction of gt in vertically related sectors

innovation and the international diffusion of environmentally responsive technology abstract new evidence is presented on environmental innovation and diffusion over the 1970s and 1980s at a global level a substantial amount of innovations occurred in the united states japan and germany the share of environmental patents in all patents varied between 0 6 and 3 and as such was higher than the corresponding share of pollution abatement expenditure in gdp japanese environmental innovation rates were consistently high certain plausible connections between environmental regulation and innovation also emerge across these three countries and over time innovation responded to pollution abatement expenditure an indicator of the severity of environmental regulations environmental patenting rates in developing countries were also high reaching 2 in many years in brazil developing country innovators obtained a non trivial number of patents most of which appear geared towards adapting imported technologies to local conditions however domestic innovation was only one path to new technologies imports of disembodied environmental technologies foreign patents registered in developing countries were substantial foreign patents were typically important or generic patents evidence also suggests that such patents protected intellectual property in equipment exported developing countries especially in east asia often chose to obtain technologies embodied in pollution abatement equipment

the economics of green consumption cultural transmission and sustainable technological change abstract a model which formalizes the interplay between green consumer culture and sustainable technology is used to revisit the trade off between economic growth and environmental preservation the theory includes i green preferences formed through cultural transmission which involves rational socialization actions ii innovation endogenously directed to sustainable or unsustainable sectors depending on culture through market size effects the model captures an important feature of sustainable innovation processes which is the existence of path dependency the approach allows to examine implications for both market based instruments i e environmental taxes and non monetary interventions i e environmental education the two types of policies are either complements or substitutes depending on the substitutability between clean and dirty goods finally an important disregarded issue is examined the political sustainability of environmental taxes

preferences technology and the environment understanding the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis we derive a simple expression for the income pollution path using the standard static model of the environmental kuznets curve ekc this expression makes it straightforward to identify the general characteristics of utility and pollution functions that lead to such a curve we show that suitable preferences can always lead to an ekc while there is no technology that yields an ekc for all types of preferences and we derive a sufficient condition for technology that leads to an ekc for almost all types of preferences our results hold for a model with multiple goods with different pollution intensities and for a production economy with nonconstant relative price of consumption and environmental effort we derive our results without assuming specific functional forms and we encompass several other models as special cases