Cross-country estimations of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) to empirically analyze the relationship between income and pollution have generally assumed a common structure for all countries. Since this latter feature is not supported by economic theory, this paper uses the Random...

Finland introduced the planet’s first carbon tax in 1990 to experiment with, to most economists, the best policy to reverse carbon emissions. I estimate the causal effect of taxing carbon on Finnish emissions using the Synthetic Control Approach (Abadie, 2021). The results suggest that taxing...

This paper analyses two aspects of environmental regulations triggered by ecoinnovations. First, whether there are long term effects of regulation on innovation. Second, whether the impact of different types of regulation differ by type of the environmental benefit of the innovations. To answer...

This paper empirically examines the determinants of the demand for alternative energy sources and propulsion technologies in vehicles. The data stem from a stated preference discrete choice experiment with 598 potential car buyers. In order to simulate a realistic automobile purchase situation,...

The impact of environmental innovations on firm performance is ambiguous. On the one hand, regulatory-driven environmental innovation may impose additional costs to firms and lower their profits. On the other hand, eco-innovators could profit from lower uncertainty in innovation due to...

We study how the shadow economy affects pollution and how this effect depends on corruption levels in public administration. Production in the shadow economy allows firms to avoid environmental regulation policies; a large informal sector may be accompanied by higher pollution levels. Our...

This paper is concerned with measuring and influencing the direction of technological change. First, it provides a comprehensive assessment of the factor bias of technological change using panel data from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) for 25 EU countries from 1995 to 2009. We measure...

The German Environmental Liability Law (ELL) of 1991 has introduced far-reaching civil liability for environmental damages with the aim to increase firms? efforts to prevent accidents. Previous studies find poor evidence that this goal has actually been achieved. One and a half decades after the...

Germany plays a pioneering role in replacing conventional power plants with renewable energy sources. While this is beneficial with respect to environmental quality, the energy turnaround implies increasing electricity prices for private households and firms. The extent to which this is...

In this paper we study the effect of institutional reform on the decision to hold risky assets at the extensive and the intensive margin. We therefore make use of the natural experiment of German Division and Reunification and, based on savings bank customer data from German savings banks, study...