Data di Pubblicazione:
2018
Citazione:
Essays on enviromental regulation and firms' performance / E. Botta ; Ph.D. supervisor: M. Galeotti ; Ph.D. coordinator: A. Missale. DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE E POLITICHE AMBIENTALI, 2018 Jul 12. 30. ciclo, Anno Accademico 2018. [10.13130/botta-enrico_phd2018-07-12].
Abstract:
The increasing concerns over the environmental sustainability of current development trajectories have brought numerous countries to adopt “greener growth strategies”. However, given the numerous failures that hinder the well- functioning of market mechanisms in relation to the environment, environmental regulations are considered as necessary to align private and public marginal benefit (and cost) curves. This dissertation aims at contributing to the on-going debate in literature on the impact of environmental policies on economic growth.
To this end, the first essay of this thesis reviews the literature on the link between economic performance and environmental policy. The assessment underlines the different views on the effects of environmental regulations on firms’ productivity proposed by the neoclassical economic theory and by the so- called Porter’s hypothesis. The former considers environmental regulations as necessary to cope with market failures related to environmental externalities but as detrimental to firms’ productivity. Michael Porter challenged this interpretation almost 25 years ago by arguing that “well-designed” policies do not necessarily hinder the competitiveness of firms but might actually increase it. Within this context, the essay first reviews the wide empirical literature on the Porter’s hypothesis and highlights the often contrasting results. In fact, the number of studies estimating a negative effect of tighter environmental norms on firms’ competitiveness appears to be almost equal to those finding a positive impact. Then, the multifaceted nature of environmental regulation is discussed as a potential explanation for the non-homogeneous results across studies. In fact, notwithstanding Porter and van de Linde (1995) underline how “well- designed” regulations may lead to higher competitiveness for firms, the vast majority of studies mainly focus on the stringency of enforced norms. Instead, a number of other aspects of regulations are likely to play a key role in determining their overall impact on economic performance. Building on the literature examining what features a “well-designed” environmental regulation should exhibit, the essay finally discusses the role that elements such as stringency, flexibility or policy-induced uncertainty may have in shaping the economic outcomes of environmental policies. The proceedings of this work constitute the backbone of an article published in the journal “Energia” (edited by Stefano Clò, published in Italian) in September 2016
The review of the first chapter underlines the presence of several gaps in the literature in relation to the impact of environmental regulation on innovation. In fact, while market-based instruments are often highlighted by scholars as providing higher dynamic incentives than non-market-based regulation, few papers have been able to empirically test such claims within the same study also given the difficulties of comparing environmental policy norms across countries. Secondly, in a resources-constrained world, environmental policy is more likely to steer the direction of technological change toward rather than increase green innovation. Nonetheless, studies on the Porter’s hypothesis have often omitted to
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consider the impact of environmental policies on the technologies not explicitly targeted by the introduced regulation. To this end, the second essay focuses on the consequences of increasingly stringent regulation on the technologies the environmental policy aims to promote and on other innovation. Building on the discussion of what a well-designed regulation entails, the paper distinguishes between market- and non-market-based policies. In order to capture the full extent of induced innovation,
Tipologia IRIS:
Tesi di dottorato
Elenco autori:
E. Botta
Link alla scheda completa: