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

the impact of the eu emissions trading system on low carbon technological change the empirical evidence abstract this paper reviews the empirical literature analysing the effects of the eu emissions trading system eu ets on low carbon technological change the emerging evidence is assessed with references to both relevant economic concepts and the evolving regulation of the eu ets through the years the two most robust indications of the literature are a free allocation grandfathering tended to hamper low carbon investments in phases i 2005 2007 and ii 2008 2012 and b the eu ets appears to have been relatively more effective in stimulating innovation of low carbon technologies than their adoption importantly however a complete general picture of the impact of the eu ets on low carbon technological change is missing the main gap regards the lack of empirical evidence for phase iii 2013 2020 especially econometric studies are only few due to the lack of suitable databases accessible to researchers a problem that the relevant public authorities are urged to address thanks to the recent reforms of the eu ets the incentives for innovation and adoption of low carbon technologies are probably stronger today than ever before

why does the combination of the european union emissions trading scheme and a renewable energy target makes economic sense abstract the european climate and energy mix of targets and policies has been criticised by many economists in particular it is often argued that the renewable energy targets do not make economic sense because they represent an expensive option to reduce co2 emissions within a cap and trade scheme such as the european union emissions trading scheme eu ets in addition it has also been claimed that support for renewable electricity deployment negatively interacts with the eu ets having a dampening effect on the co2 price which favours the dirtiest technologies and is detrimental for the greener ones in this article we argue that this mainstream economic view is short sighted and that a multidisciplinary economic analysis of the climate and energy policy mix is required mainstream economic analysis is based on a narrow approach for the assessment of instrument combinations and neglects relevant insights from several economic disciplines including innovation economics and political economy approaches in reality economic theory supports the combination of an ets and renewable energy targets the existence of different policy goals and market failures the demand pull influence of renewable energy policies on innovation a political economy approach and the different risk exposure of renewable energy technologies call for a policy mix although policy combinations are not a panacea and bring problems on their own the aforementioned negative interaction between renewable energy deployment and the carbon price in the eu ets can be mitigated through appropriate coordination and or instrument choice and design

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

the induced innovation hypothesis and energy saving technological change we develop a methodology for testing hicks s induced innovation hypothesis by estimating a product characteristics model of energy using consumer durables augmenting the hypothesis to allow for the ine uence of government regulations for the products we explored the evidence suggests that i the rate of overall innovation was independent of energy prices and regulations ii the direction of innovation was responsive to energy price changes for some products but not for others iii energy price changes induced changes in the subset of technically feasible models that were offered for sale iv this responsiveness increased substantially during the period after energy efficiency product labeling was required and v nonetheless a sizable portion of efficiency improvements were autonomous

innovation complementarity and environmental productivity effects reality or delusion evidence from the eu abstract innovation is a key element behind the achievement of desired environmental and economic performances regarding co2 mitigation strategies would require cuts in emissions of around 80 90 with respect to 1990 by 2050 in the eu we investigate whether complementarity namely integration between the adoption of environmental innovation measures and other technological and organizational innovations is a factor that has supported reduction in co2 emissions per value added that is environmental productivity we merge new eu innovation and wiod data to assess the innovation effects on sector co2 performances at a wide eu level we find that jointly adopting different innovations is not a widespread factor behind increases in environmental productivity nevertheless even though complementarity is not a low hanging fruit a case where innovation complementarity arises is for manufacturing sectors that integrate eco innovations with product innovations one example of this integrated action is a strategy that pursues energy efficiency with product value enhancement we believe that the lack of integrated innovation adoption behind environmental productivity performance is a signal of the current weaknesses economies face in tackling climate change and green economy challenges incremental rather than more radical strategies have predominated so far the latter have been confined to industrial niches in terms of the number of involved firms this is probably insufficient when we look at long term economic and environmental goals

policy stringency under the european union emission trading system and its impact on technological change in the energy sector abstract in this study we use patent count data for overall climate change mitigation technologies and for those related to energy production and distribution to evaluate the relationship between the sizable oversupply of european union emissions allowances and a policy shift marked by the transition from phase i to phase ii under the european union emission trading system on the one hand and on green patenting on the other according to our results the expected negative impact of this oversupply on technological change seems to be confirmed thus stakeholders take the actual supply of certificates into account when determining their innovative activity in the same vein they do so with respect to policy changes related to greater stringency which generated a sizeable increase in patenting activity when controlling for other economic factors our results suggest that a critical evaluation of emission caps and allowances distribution must be undertaken

explaining the attacker s advantage technological paradigms organizational dynamics and the value network abstract understanding when entrants might have an advantage over an industry s incumbent firms in developing and adopting new technologies is a question which several scholars have explained in terms of technological capabilities or organizational dynamics this paper proposes that the value network the context within which a firm competes and solves customers problems is an important factor affecting whether incumbent or entrant firms will most successfully innovate in a study of technology development in the disk drive industry the authors found that incumbents led the industry in developing and adopting new technologies of every sort identified by earlier scholars at component and architectural levels competency enhancing and competency destroying incremental and radical as long as the technology addressed customers needs within the value network in which the incumbents competed entrants led in developing and adopting technologies which addressed user needs in different emerging value networks it is in these innovations which disrupted established trajectories of technological progress in established markets that attackers proved to have an advantage the rate of improvement in product performance which technologists provide may exceed the rate of improvement demanded in established markets this mismatch between trajectories enables firms entering emerging value networks subsequently to attack the industry s established markets as well

the role of policy instruments in the innovation and diffusion of environmentally friendlier technologies popular claims versus case study experiences abstract moving towards sustainability will require that new environmentally friendlier technologies are developed and widely adopted policy instruments that promote eco efficiency are therefore necessary some claims frequently made in the literature on the relationship between policy instruments and technological development are examined the claims concern regulations environmental taxation and funding of research and development the claims are explored on the basis of empirical evidence from two sectors the pulp and paper industry and the marine engine industry little support was found for some of the claims in some cases even contradictory findings and for some claims the findings differed between the sectors and even within a sector depending on the issue

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

measuring the temporal dynamics of policy mixes an empirical analysis of renewable energy policy mixes balance and design features in nine countries abstract complex societal or environmental problems require fast and substantial socio technical transitions for instance in the case of climate change these transitions need to take place in the energy transport and several industry sectors to induce and accelerate such transitions numerous policy interventions are required which interact with each other in policy mixes while several conceptual studies on policy mixes have been published recently there is very little empirical research apart from single case or small n studies it has been prominently argued that the debate about policy mixes has reached an impasse partly due to this lack of empirical work this paper addresses this gap by providing a first analysis of the temporal dynamics of complex policy mixes to do so we develop a conceptualization and measurement of policy mix balance across instrument types as well as policy mix design features in the form of intensity as a general and technology specificity as a technology focused design feature this allows us to answer the question how temporal dynamics of policy mixes differ between countries regarding their balance and design features our measurement approach is developed bottom up i e policies are assessed individually and then aggregated systematically at the policy mix level this enables overcoming the dependent variable problem in the study of policy change i e the problem of measuring policy output more specifically we develop a comparative dataset of 522 renewable energy policies in nine oecd countries our analysis shows that countries policy mix dynamics vary strongly regarding some variables e g technology specificity but less regarding others e g balance as a validity check we also test the effects of these mix dynamics on policy outcome in the form of renewable energy technology diffusion we reflect our findings in light of the theoretical debates around policy mixes and policy design and discuss how our results provoke an agenda for the new generation of research on policy mixes we specifically discuss avenues for future research with a particular focus on the politics of policy mixes

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 impact of chinese carbon emission trading scheme ets on low carbon energy lce investment china is planning to introduce emission trading scheme ets to decrease co2 emission as low carbon energy lce will play a pivotal role in reducing co2 emissions our paper is to assess the extent and the conditions under which a carbon ets can deliver lce investment in china we chose wind technology as a case study and a real option based model was built to explore the impact of a number of variables and design features on investment decisions e g carbon and electricity price carbon market risk carbon price floor and ceiling and on grid ratio we compute critical values of these variables and features and explore trade offs among them according to our work a carbon ets has a significant effect on wind power plant investment although it cannot support investment in wind power on its own carbon price stabilization mechanisms such as carbon price floor can significantly improve the effect of carbon ets but the critical floor to support investment is still much higher than the carbon price in china pilot etss our results show that other policy measures will be needed to promote low carbon energy development in china

the impact of environmental policy instruments on innovation a review of energy and automotive industry studies various types of policy instruments have been implemented to reduce local and global emissions but the impact on innovation of different instruments has received less attention this paper reviews empirical studies of the innovation impact of four main types of policy instruments in two high emitting sectors the conclusions are threefold 1 policy plays a key role for the development and diffusion of environmental innovation in the studied sectors 2 different types of instruments promote different types of innovations general economic instruments has primarily encouraged incremental innovation general regulatory instruments has enforced improvements based on modular innovation and technology specific instruments appears to have been needed to support the development and deployment of radically new technologies 3 all types of policy instruments face challenges in design and implementation understanding the selection impact of the chosen instruments implementing increasing stringency levels committing to an appropriate scale and safeguarding policy stability

a comprehensive short run analysis of a possible turkish phillips curve the studies on phillips curves relating the rate of unemployment to the rate of inflation are the results of the search for a reliable tool for forecasting inflation and implementing monetary policy the original phillips curve has attracted considerable attention and since then it has undergone several important changes although the evidence of a negative relationship between the rate of change in a money variable and unemployment rate has not been proven it is still considered to be critical for policymaking and is on researchers agenda niskaken 2002 the existence of a phillips curve for turkey is investigated with the linear and non linear specifications for the conventional and new keynesian phillips curves with inflation expectations and natural rate of unemployment for annual 1980 2001 and semiannual 1988 2 2003 1 data sets the results indicate no evidence of a phillips curve for all specifications and both data sets the semiannual data seems to have a better fit in all specifications

decarbonising the power sector via technological change differing contributions from heterogeneous firms abstract in the power sector technological change is a key lever to address the decarbonisation needed to avoid dangerous climate change policy makers aim to accelerate and redirect technological change by targeting relevant firms via climate policy e g the european union emissions trading system eu ets and climate relevant technology policies e g feed in tariffs changes in firm s behaviour i e their research and development r d as well as diffusion activities are at the heart of technological change however firms are heterogeneous actors with varying attributes which perceive policy differently hence they can be expected to react very heterogeneously to these new policies based on an original dataset of 201 firms we perform a cluster analysis grouping firms along their r d and diffusion activity changes we then compare these clusters with regards to the characteristics of the contained firms our analysis results in seven clusters showing very diverse contributions to low carbon technological change suggesting potential for policy to become more effective a comparison of the firms characteristics allows us to derive indicative recommendations on how to adjust the policy mix in order to induce contributions from most firms in the power sector

corporate climate risk management are european companies prepared abstract in recent years scholars have published numerous studies dealing with the consequences of climate change for businesses activity however a more holistic understanding of companies perceptions of and responses to physical regulatory and market related climate risks across a wider range of sectors is still missing to address this gap this paper provides an empirical analysis of corporate climate risk perception and countermeasures for companies in industries regulated and not regulated by climate policy drawing on data from the carbon disclosure project of a size matched sample of 126 european based companies it is shown that most firms feel less exposed to physical and market risks than to regulatory risks this is because physical risks are expected to materialize in the more distant future and the realization of market risks is considered rather unlikely moreover the results indicate that firms in regulated industries implement more regulatory response measures than firms that are part of non regulated industries while interestingly there are no significant differences between the two groups in exposure and responses to physical and market risks by discussing climate related risks and highlighting the significant role of regulation in spurring corporate action in the context of climate change this paper holds important implications for corporate managers and policy makers

what triggers environmental management and innovation empirical evidence for germany abstract it is frequently hypothesized that environmental management systems emss may improve firms environmental innovation performance whether this hypothesis is true is as critical for environmental policy as questions pertaining to the relevant incentives for 1 a firm s voluntary adoption of an ems and 2 its environmental innovation behavior based on ample empirical evidence for german manufacturing this paper addresses the simultaneity of these issues on the basis of a recursive bivariate probit model that explores the hypothesis that a facility s decision on innovation activities is correlated with the decision on ems adoption our empirical results indicating that environmental innovation activities are not associated with ems implementation nor any other single policy instrument reflect the perceptions of the survey respondents and hence should be interpreted as correlations rather than causal relationships according to these perceptions innovation behavior seems to be mainly correlated with the stringency of environmental policy

how does germany s green energy policy affect electricity market volatility an application of conditional autoregressive range models abstract based on a dynamic model for the high low range of electricity prices this article analyses the effects of germany s green energy policy on the volatility of the electricity market using european energy exchange data from 2000 to 2015 we find rather high volatility in the years 2000 2009 but also that the weekly price range has significantly declined in the period following the year 2009 this period is characterised by active regulation under the energy industry law enwg the eu emissions trading directive etd and the renewable energy law eeg in contrast to the preceding period price jumps are smaller and less frequent especially for day time hours implying that current policy measures are effective in promoting renewable energies while simultaneously upholding electricity market stability this is because the regulations strive towards a more and more flexible and market oriented structure which allows better integration of renewable energies and supports an efficient alignment of renewable electricity supply with demand

business perspective to the national greenhouse gases emissions trading scheme a survey of cement companies in china abstract applying data gathered from 105 cement companies this paper gives an analysis of how business views the upcoming national greenhouse gases emissions trading scheme in china despite a good overall understanding the surveyed companies have not been able to prepare properly for the implementation of this policy they still need training to enhance their related capacity probably due to strict competition it is difficult for cement companies to pass the policy cost on to their clients the sampled companies intend to make self mitigation efforts for compliance it is highly likely that cement companies would mitigate emissions themselves if the carbon price is higher than 108 of the self abatement cost the surveyed cement companies anticipate an increase in the carbon price in china from about 35 yuan t co2 in 2020 to 60 yuan t co2 in 2025 and 90 yuan t co2 by 2030 the analysis provides reference for the smooth introduction and effective implementation of national carbon market in china from the business viewpoint

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

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

rethinking and reshaping the climate policy literature review and proposed guidelines abstract addressing climate change represents a governing the climate commons on a global scale the tragedy of the commons might better be described as the failure of governing the commons hardin s solutions were centralized government and private property which have long been criticized as oversimplified however governing the unprecedented climate commons there is only a global federalism of climate policy the kyoto protocol the kyoto cannot keep atmospheric co2 level below 450 ppm rising 2 c some key evidences of the kyoto failures are identified the kyoto failures do not indicate that the kyoto is a wrong tool of centralized government instead the kyoto failures are derived from the fact that the only centralized government cannot effectively govern the commons which have been proven by the efforts of governing the commons last four decades here we propose a wide diversity of governance systems for climate common to addressing global warming the multi level and multi scale governing system includes but is not limited to i starting at home ii emphasizing the local approach iii efforts of global level focusing these top emitters iv improved information sharing v privatizing the property of climate to avoid free riders vi combination mitigation with adaptive vii improved ecology services to expand carbon sinks we argue that the kyoto failures indicate again that reliance on a single solution may result in more of a problem than a solution in governing the common therefore continuing to wait for another global federalism of climate policy may lead to missing the chance to make significant mitigations and adaptations in time to battling the climate change post 2012 multi level and multi scale approaches could make a difference in collective action for governing the climate commons to meet climate challenge

determinants of environmental innovation new evidence from german panel data sources abstract in most cases empirical analyses of environmental innovations based on firm level data relied on surveys for one point in time these surveys allow for the inclusion of many explanatory variables such as different policy instruments or the influence of pressure groups but it is not possible to address the dynamic character of environmental innovations this paper uses two german panel databases the establishment panel of the institute for employment research iab and the mannheim innovation panel mip of the centre for european economic research zew to explore the determinants of environmental innovations the econometric estimations show that the improvement of the technological capabilities knowledge capital by r d triggers environmental innovations environmental regulation environmental management tools and general organizational changes also encourage environmental innovation a result that has also been postulated by the famous porter hypothesis

a ten year rule to guide the allocation of eu emission allowances abstract member states in the european union eu are responsible for national allocation plans governing the initial distribution of emission allowances in the co2 emission trading system including rules governing allocations to installations that close and to new entrants the european commission has provided guidelines to discourage the use of allocation methodologies that provide incentives affecting firms compliance behavior for example by rewarding one type of compliance investment over another we find that the treatment of closures and new entrants by member states is inconsistent with the general guidelines provided by the eu we propose stronger eu guidance regarding closures and new entrants a more precise compensation criterion on which to justify free allocations and a ten year rule as a component of future eu policy that can guide a transition from current practice to an approach that places greater weight on efficiency

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

beyond technology push and demand pull lessons from california s solar policy abstract the scale of the technological transformation required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels while minimizing economic impacts necessitates an emphasis on designing climate policy to foster or at least not impede environmental innovation there is only a weak empirical base for policy makers to stand on regarding the comparative innovation effects of various climate policy options however empirical scholarship in environmental innovation is hindered by the complexity of both the innovation process and the interactions between the dual market failures of pollution and innovation that are in play and it appears that the field would benefit from the structure provided by a common lexicon this paper focuses on the issues related to policy categorization in this field these issues have received little attention in the literature despite their importance to making insights gained from empirical studies generalizable the paper reviews the origins strengths and weaknesses of the dominant policy typology of technology push versus demand pull instruments its primary contribution however is to assemble a comprehensive chronology of solar policy in california and its impacts on innovation where known and then use this as a basis for building a new policy categorization that takes advantage of the intuitive resonance of the dominant typology while encompassing the broader range of policy instruments that are employed in practice in order to stimulate environmental innovation the most noteworthy aspect of the new categorization is that it introduces a third category of environmental innovation policy instrument that focuses on improving the interface between technology suppliers and users this reflects developments in the economics of innovation literature as well as considerable evidence in the domain of distributed solar energy technologies that opportunism by some of the actors that work at this interface can be a barrier to innovation

the effects of climate policy on corporate technological upgrading in energy intensive industries evidence from china abstract the innovation effect is an important component when measuring the performance of environmental policy instruments based on a questionnaire survey this research has examined corporate energy conservation and emission reduction efforts in energy intensive industries in china under the pressure of different climate policies and in particular looked into their adoption of those technological innovation and diffusion activities the results show a large variety of corporate adoption of energy saving practical activities in general climate policies have played a greater role in promoting the adoption of managerial energy saving activities in respondent companies while comparatively their influences on the adoption of technology upgrading activities are relatively weak regulatory measures have exerted greater pressure and influence on corporate short term behavioural change as stated by the respondent companies however market based instruments show greater incentive effect in promoting adoption of energy conservation and emission reduction activities that refer to corporate long term oriented strategic planning or adjustment for instance they exert a significant incentive effect on increasing long term research and development investment for technological innovation and also play an important role in optimising corporate organisational structure the econometric analysis further proves the influences of market based instruments in promoting corporate adoption of technological innovation and diffusion activities

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

examining the role of policy design and policy interaction in eu automotive emissions performance gaps in the wake of the 2015 dieselgate scandal the us and european governments publicly confronted automakers about their behaviour which raised concerns about the integrity of the current emissions legislation regimes in this article i argue that flexibilities within the eu s emissions legislative framework afforded automakers the opportunity to legally sidestep strict performance standards laid out in the law and resulted in a significant performance gap in real world driving emissions this article provides a timely examination of eu emission legislation policy design and policy interaction within the european union with the aim of explaining why the eu policy framework failed to regulate the regional automotive industry current research is mostly concerned with the typology and effectiveness of individual environmental policy instruments be it regulatory or economic incentives that aim to influence industry behaviour this article approaches the current eu policy regime in a more holistic manner and focuses on the exploitation of weaknesses in the regulatory framework by private firms which has received little academic attention in the innovation and transition literature a major contribution of this article therefore is a body of primary qualitative interview data from industry elites concerning relevant emissions policies

public policy influence on renewable energy investments a panel data study across oecd countries this paper examines the impact of public policy measures on renewable energy re investments in electricity generating capacity made by institutional investors using a novel combination of datasets and a longitudinal research design we investigate the influence of different policy measures in a sample of oecd countries to suggest an effective policy mix which could tackle failures in the market for clean energy the results call for technology specific policies which take into account actual market conditions and technology maturity to improve the conditions for institutional investments advisable policy instruments include economic and fiscal incentives such as feed in tariffs fit especially for less mature technologies additionally market based instruments such as greenhouse gas ghg emission trading systems for mature technologies should be included these policy measures directly impact the risk and return structure of re projects supplementing these with regulatory measures such as codes and standards e g rps and long term strategic planning could further strengthen the context for re investments

review of proposals for practical power sector restructuring and reforms in a dynamic electricity supply industry abstract south africa s electricity supply industry esi remains a vertically integrated monopoly despite global trends towards restructuring the monopolistic nature of the esi could hinder the development of distributed power systems as penetration of renewable electricity increases the research aims to rationalise south africa s esi evolution propose practical power sector restructuring in the short to medium term and to determine their potential impact the research methodology included a single case study instrument with embedded sub units of analysis primary research data was gathered using semi structured interviews with industry experts in addition to which secondary data from government documents and archival records were used for triangulation research results conclude that south africa s esi grew due to techno economic industrialisation factors while apartheid era policies influenced the esi in only some specific respects the vertically integrated status quo was sustained in the post transformation period due to government s focus on social imperatives lack of regulatory policy certainty and conflicts in political ideology south africa did not experience the pre conditions that triggered global power sector reforms in the late 20 th century but these pre conditions are now becoming evident privatisation of eskom generation and introduction of wholesale and retail competition are not practical in the short to medium term proving the infeasibility of the standard model of reform locally the introduction of an independent system and market operator ismo using a single buyer model is seen as the most favourable and practical option with the ismo owning transmission infrastructure the research suggests that esi changes will increase system efficiencies economic performance and private sector involvement but will not reduce electricity tariffs the scenarios challenges and proposals identified in this research are also applicable to other countries in africa and other developing regions of the world that have similar social and political backgrounds ensuring sustainable supply of electricity

mobilizing private finance for low carbon innovation a systematic review of barriers and solutions this paper analyses the field of innovation studies regarding barriers to low carbon innovation and consequences for finance investment and divestment and contributes to a more holistic understanding of the underlying mechanisms a combination of technological barriers combined with economic barriers institutional and political barriers contribute to sub optimal low carbon investment all along the innovation cycle policy makers need to take a systemic approach to enable the redirection of diverse private financial sources instruments range from cutting dirty r d subsidies and support for clean technology innovation and diffusion levelling the institutional playing field and making risks of high carbon and low carbon technologies transparent to providing a consistent but adaptive long term transition strategy this would allow financiers to gradually shift their investments away from high carbon mainstream markets and scale low carbon technology niche markets however financiers also need to sharpen their competencies with regard to new clean technologies and markets

an empirical investigation of interstate afdc benefit competition claims that states which offer generous welfare benefits attract the poor and that some states pay low benefits intending to drive the poor away are neither uncommon nor entirely un founded this paper employs a two player state generalized game to model states choice of a benefit level in the aid to families with dependent children afdc program migration by the poor in response to interstate differentials in earnings and welfare opportunities and the subse quent changes in afdc caseloads drive this game estimation of the model using 1979 data suggests that states within approximately 750 miles of each other do engage in a benefit setting game the rival s initial number of poor and preference for non afdc consumption appear to be the more influential rival characteristics these findings while derived from a different methodological approach are consistent with previous studies which indicate that welfare recipients tend to move toward higher benefit states such migration may impede the efficient spatial allocation of labor the results also indicate that states will tend to offer lower benefits given recipient migration than would be the case otherwise state jurisdiction over benefits consequently leads to underprovision of afdc federalization of the afdc program would improve efficiency in terms of the spatial allocation of labor and the provision of afdc