Article
Does environmental policy stringency foster innovation and productivity in OECD countries?
Energy Policy
(2019)
Abstract
In this paper, we test the weak and strong versions of the Porter hypothesis using data from 14 OECD countries over the period 1990–2011. Our analysis makes two contributions to the literature on the topic. First, we use a newly released environmental policy stringency index (EPS) provided by the OECD as an indicator for the stringency of environmental regulations, which addresses the multi-dimensionality of environmental regulations. Second, as a suitable method to deal with asymmetric distributions of the dependent variables, we use a panel-quantile regression model, which allow us to test whether or not the hypothesis holds for all quantiles of the distribution of the corresponding dependent variable. The findings indicate that in the short term a more strict environmental policy is associated with an increase in the number of patent applications and in total factor productivity (TFP) for the highest quantiles of the …
Keywords
- Environmental regulationsPorter hypothesisPanel-quantile regressionInnovation
Disciplines
Publication Date
2019
Citation Information
Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, Aurelia Bengochea-Morancho and Rafael Morales-Lage. "Does environmental policy stringency foster innovation and productivity in OECD countries?" Energy Policy Vol. 134 (2019) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/inma_martinez_zarzoso/40/