IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2025.05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Green Investment in the EU and the US: Markup Insights

Author

Listed:
  • Anastasia Bruni

    (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Catholic University of Sacred Heart)

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of green investments on market power. I measure the market power as markup following the method provided in De Loecker and Warzynski (2012). For green investments, I consider specifically the investments of firms in energy efficient technologies, both as the binary variable and as the continuous variable. This allows the examination of how the presence of such investments as well as their intensity affect markups. I use firm, age, year, sector and country fixed effects with a representative sample of indicatively 12,000 firms from the European Investment Bank Investment Survey (EIBIS) in the panel from 2016 to 2022. I find the positive and statistically significant relationship that holds also when applying the 2SLS-IV methodology. This study is particularly relevant for firms that are willing to increase their market power and to improve their environmentally friendly image in the eyes of their customers without the need of engaging in greenwashing practices. Instead, the firms are invited to consider energy efficiency investments as a concrete way of improving both their markups and the loyalty of their customers.

Suggested Citation

  • Anastasia Bruni, 2025. "Green Investment in the EU and the US: Markup Insights," Working Papers 2025.05, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2025.05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NDL2025-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Yufeng & Ma, Yanbai, 2021. "Does green investment improve energy firm performance?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    2. Schmidt, Tobias S. & Schneider, Malte & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2012. "Decarbonising the power sector via technological change – differing contributions from heterogeneous firms," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 466-479.
    3. Enrica De Cian & Fabio Sferra & Massimo Tavoni, 2013. "The Influence of Economic Growth, Population, and Fossil Fuel Scarcity on Energy Investments," Working Papers 2013.59, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Favero, Carlo & Giavazzi, Francesco, 2015. "The output effect of fiscal consolidation plans," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 19-42.
    5. Maarten De Ridder, 2024. "Market Power and Innovation in the Intangible Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(1), pages 199-251, January.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    7. Jan De Loecker & Frederic Warzynski, 2012. "Markups and Firm-Level Export Status," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2437-2471, October.
    8. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    9. Brutscher, Philipp-Bastian & Coali, Andrea & Delanote, Julie & Harasztosi, Peter, 2020. "EIB Group Survey on Investment and Investment Finance: A technical note on data quality," EIB Working Papers 2020/08, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    10. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Kevin Caves & Garth Frazer, 2015. "Identification Properties of Recent Production Function Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 2411-2451, November.
    11. Zhiyi Meng & Na Zhao & Bin Shen & Chang Zhai, 2022. "Optimal pricing strategy for green products under salience theory," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 2960-2983, December.
    12. Jan De Loecker & Jan Eeckhout & Gabriel Unger, 2020. "The Rise of Market Power and the Macroeconomic Implications [“Econometric Tools for Analyzing Market Outcomes”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 561-644.
    13. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    14. Adam B. Jaffe et al., 1995. "Environmental Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 132-163, March.
    15. Baumol,William J. & Oates,Wallace E., 1988. "The Theory of Environmental Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521322249, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bruni, Anastasia, 2025. "Green Investment in the EU and the US: Markup Insights," FEEM Working Papers 349287, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    2. Sandström, Maria, 2020. "Intangible Capital, Markups and Pro fits," Working Paper Series 2020:4, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    3. Albert Banal-Estanol & Jo Seldeslachts & Xavier Vives, 2022. "Ownership Diversification and Product Market Pricing Incentives," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2023, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Gibbon, Alexandra J. & Schain, Jan Philip, 2023. "Rising markups, common ownership, and technological capacities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Thomas Hasenzagl & Luis Perez, 2023. "The Micro-Aggregated Profit Share," Papers 2309.12945, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    6. Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina & Díez, Federico & Fan, Jiayue, 2019. "Global Declining Competition," CEPR Discussion Papers 13696, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Fieler, Ana Cecília & Harrison, Ann E., 2023. "Escaping import competition in China," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    8. Gupta, Apoorva & Stiebale, Joel, 2024. "Gains from patent protection: Innovation, market power and cost savings in India," DICE Discussion Papers 414, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    9. Hyejin Lee & Johan Swinnen & Patrick Van Cayseele, 2021. "Market power and the volatility of markups in the food value chain: the role of Italian cooperatives," Working Papers of LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance 674093, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance.
    10. Carlo Altomonte & Domenico Favoino & Monica Morlacco & Tommaso Sonno, 2021. "Markups, intangible capital and heterogeneous financial frictions," CEP Discussion Papers dp1740, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Díez, Federico J. & Fan, Jiayue & Villegas-Sánchez, Carolina, 2021. "Global declining competition?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    12. Philipp R. Steinbrunner, 2023. "May It Be a Little Bit More of Market Power? On Productivity Growth and Competition," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 123-170, December.
    13. repec:lic:licosd:42421 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Mr. Federico J Diez & Jiayue Fan & Carolina Villegas-Sánchez, 2019. "Global Declining Competition," IMF Working Papers 2019/082, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Eric Bartelsman & Sabien Dobbelaere & Alessandro Zona Mattioli, 2024. "Non-Compete Agreements, Tacit Knowledge and Market Imperfections," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 24-055/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. Shanks, Olga, 2024. "Increasing returns to scale and markups," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 257-267.
    17. Kuosmanen, Natalia & Valmari, Nelli, 2023. "Renewal of Companies Through Product Switching," ETLA Working Papers 104, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    18. David Van Dijcke, 2022. "On the Non-Identification of Revenue Production Functions," Papers 2212.04620, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    19. Kosuke Aoki & Yoshihiko Hogen & Kosuke Takatomi, 2023. "Price Markups and Wage Setting Behavior of Japanese Firms," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 23-E-5, Bank of Japan.
    20. Viral V. Acharya & Matteo Crosignani & Tim Eisert & Christian Eufinger, 2024. "Zombie Credit and (Dis‐)Inflation: Evidence from Europe," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 1883-1929, June.
    21. Hirsch, Stefan & Koppenberg, Maximilian, 2020. "Power imbalances in French food retailing: Evidence from a production function approach to estimate market power," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304561, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    green investment; markup; market power; instrumental variable;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2025.05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alberto Prina Cerai The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Alberto Prina Cerai to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.