IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/slucer/2013_004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Carbon Prices and Incentives for Technological Development

Author

Listed:

Abstract

How to significantly decrease carbon dioxide emissions has become one of the largest challenges faced by modern society. The standard recipe prescribed by most economists is to put a price on carbon, either through a tax or through emissions trading. Such measures can reduce emissions cost-effectively and create incentives for technological development. There is, however, a growing concern that the carbon prices generated through the European Union emission trading system (EU ETS) have been too low to create the incentives necessary to stimulate technological development. This paper empirically analyzes how the Swedish carbon dioxide tax and the EU ETS have affected productivity development in the Swedish pulp and paper industry 1998-2008. A Luenberger total factor productivity (TFP) indicator is computed using data envelopment analysis. How the policy measures affect TFP is assessed using a system generalized method of moments estimator. The results show that climate policy had a modest impact on technological development in the pulp and paper industry, and if significant it has been negative. The price on fossil fuels, on the contrary, seems to have created important incentives for technological development. Hence, results suggest that the carbon prices faced by the industry through EU ETS and the carbon dioxide tax have been too low.

Suggested Citation

  • Lundgren, Tommy & Marklund, Per-Olov & Samakovlis, Eva & Zhou, Wenchao, 2013. "Carbon Prices and Incentives for Technological Development," CERE Working Papers 2013:4, CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:slucer:2013_004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-sekon.slu.se/~gbost/CERE_WP2013-4.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Broberg & Per-Olov Marklund & Eva Samakovlis & Henrik Hammar, 2013. "Testing the Porter hypothesis: the effects of environmental investments on efficiency in Swedish industry," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 43-56, August.
    2. Brännlund, Runar & Lundgren, Tommy, 2009. "Environmental policy without costs? A review of the Porter hypothesis," Umeå Economic Studies 766, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    3. Commins, Nicola & Lyons, Seán & Schiffbauer, Marc & Tol, Richard S. J., 2009. "Climate Policy and Corporate Behaviour," Papers WP329, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    4. Brännlund, Runar & Lundgren, Tommy, 2009. "Environmental policy without costs? A review of the Porter hypothesis," Sustainable Investment and Corporate Governance Working Papers 2009/1, Sustainable Investment Research Platform.
    5. Alonso-Borrego, Cesar & Arellano, Manuel, 1999. "Symmetrically Normalized Instrumental-Variable Estimation Using Panel Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(1), pages 36-49, January.
    6. Ralf Martin & Laure B. de Preux & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2009. "The impacts of the Climate Change Levy on business: evidence from microdata," GRI Working Papers 6, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    7. Stefan Ambec & Mark A. Cohen & Stewart Elgie & Paul Lanoie, 2013. "The Porter Hypothesis at 20: Can Environmental Regulation Enhance Innovation and Competitiveness?," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 7(1), pages 2-22, January.
    8. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    9. William L. Weber & Bruce Domazlicky, 2001. "Productivity Growth and Pollution in State Manufacturing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 195-199, February.
    10. Brännlund, Runar & Lundgren, Tommy, 2008. "Environmental policy and profitability - Evidence from Swedish industry," Umeå Economic Studies 750, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    11. Maurice J. G. Bun & Frank Windmeijer, 2010. "The weak instrument problem of the system GMM estimator in dynamic panel data models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 13(1), pages 95-126, February.
    12. Makiko Nakano & Shunsuke Managi, 2010. "Productivity Analysis With Co2 Emissions In Japan," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 708-718, December.
    13. Lundgren, Tommy & Marklund, Per-Olov, 2010. "Climate Policy and Profit Efficiency," Sustainable Investment and Corporate Governance Working Papers 2010/12, Sustainable Investment Research Platform.
    14. Chambers, Robert G., 1996. "A New Look at Exact Input, Output, Productivity, and Technical Change Measurement," Working Papers 197840, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    15. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Newey, Whitney & Rosen, Harvey S, 1988. "Estimating Vector Autoregressions with Panel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1371-1395, November.
    16. Croissant, Yves & Millo, Giovanni, 2008. "Panel Data Econometrics in R: The plm Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i02).
    17. Fischer, Carolyn & Newell, Richard G., 2008. "Environmental and technology policies for climate mitigation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 142-162, March.
    18. Lundgren, Tommy & Marklund, Per-Olov, 2010. "Climate Policy and Profit Efficiency," CERE Working Papers 2010:11, CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics.
    19. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    20. Rolf Färe & Shawna Grosskopf & Carl A Pasurka, Jr., 2001. "Accounting for Air Pollution Emissions in Measures of State Manufacturing Productivity Growth," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 381-409, August.
    21. Lundgren, Tommy & Marklund, Per-Olov, 2012. "Environmental Performance and Profits," CERE Working Papers 2012:8, CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics.
    22. Unknown, 1998. "Minutes Of The Annual Business Meeting, Northeastern Agricultural And Resource Economics Association, Ithaca, New York, June 22, 1998," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 27(2), pages 1-2, October.
    23. Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul W., 2007. "Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 31-64, January.
    24. Anger, Niels & Oberndorfer, Ulrich, 2008. "Firm performance and employment in the EU emissions trading scheme: An empirical assessment for Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 12-22, January.
    25. Ralf Martin & Laure B. de Preux & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2011. "The Impacts of the Climate Change Levy on Manufacturing: Evidence from Microdata," NBER Working Papers 17446, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Brannlund, Runar & Lundgren, Tommy, 2009. "Environmental Policy Without Costs? A Review of the Porter Hypothesis," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 3(2), pages 75-117, September.
    27. Runar Brännlund & Tommy Lundgren, 2010. "Environmental policy and profitability: evidence from Swedish industry," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 12(1), pages 59-78, June.
    28. Guan Zhengfei & Alfons Oude Lansink, 2006. "The Source of Productivity Growth in Dutch Agriculture: A Perspective from Finance," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(3), pages 644-656.
    29. Nicola Commins & Seán Lyons & Marc Schiffbauer & Richard S.J. Tol, 2011. "Climate Policy & Corporate Behavior," The Energy Journal, , vol. 32(4), pages 51-68, October.
    30. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    31. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    32. Windmeijer, Frank, 2005. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 25-51, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brännlund, Runar & Lundgren, Tommy & Söderholm, Patrik, 2015. "Convergence of carbon dioxide performance across Swedish industrial sectors: An environmental index approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 227-235.
    2. Brännlund, Runar & Lundgren, Tommy & Marklund, Per-Olov, 2014. "Carbon intensity in production and the effects of climate policy—Evidence from Swedish industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 844-857.

    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. Erik Hille & Patrick Möbius, 2019. "Environmental Policy, Innovation, and Productivity Growth: Controlling the Effects of Regulation and Endogeneity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1315-1355, August.
    2. Tommy Lundgren & Per-Olov Marklund, 2015. "Climate policy, environmental performance, and profits," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 225-235, December.
    3. Anabel Zárate-Marco & Jaime Vallés-Giménez, 2015. "Environmental tax and productivity in a decentralized context: new findings on the Porter hypothesis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 313-339, October.
    4. Arturas Juodis, 2013. "First Difference Transformation in Panel VAR models: Robustness, Estimation and Inference," UvA-Econometrics Working Papers 13-06, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Dept. of Econometrics.
    5. Yongfu Huang, 2011. "Private investment and financial development in a globalized world," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 43-56, August.
    6. Maurice J.G. Bun & Sarafidis, V., 2013. "Dynamic Panel Data Models," UvA-Econometrics Working Papers 13-01, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Dept. of Econometrics.
    7. Brockhaus, Jan & Huang, Jikun & Hu, Jiliang & Kalkuhl, Matthias & von Braun, Joachim & Yang, Guolei, 2015. "Rice, wheat, and corn supply response in China," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205988, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Rahman, Mizanur, 2008. "The Impact of a Common Currency on East Asian Production Networks and China’s Exports Behavior," MPRA Paper 13931, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Chang, Roberto & Kaltani, Linda & Loayza, Norman V., 2009. "Openness can be good for growth: The role of policy complementarities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 33-49, September.
    10. Fløgstad, Cathrin N. & Nordtveit, Ingvild, 2014. "Lending to developing countries: How do official creditors respond to sovereign defaults?," Working Papers in Economics 01/14, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    11. Hayakawa, Kazuhiko, 2019. "Alternative over-identifying restriction test in the GMM estimation of panel data models," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 71-95.
    12. Kazuhiko Hayakawa & M. Hashem Pesaran, 2012. "Robust Standard Errors in Transformed Likelihood Estimation of Dynamic Panel Data Models," Working Paper series 38_12, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    13. Osvaldo Lagares, 2016. "Capital, Economic Growth and Relative Income Differences in Latin America," Discussion Papers 16/03, Department of Economics, University of York.
    14. Tun, yin-li & Azman-saini, w.n.w. & Law, siong-hook, 2012. "International evidence on the link between foreign direct investment and institutional quality," MPRA Paper 65644, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Kruiniger, Hugo, 2013. "Quasi ML estimation of the panel AR(1) model with arbitrary initial conditions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 173(2), pages 175-188.
    16. Jana Stoever & John P. Weche, 2018. "Environmental Regulation and Sustainable Competitiveness: Evaluating the Role of Firm-Level Green Investments in the Context of the Porter Hypothesis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 70(2), pages 429-455, June.
    17. Sigmund, Michael & Ferstl, Robert, 2021. "Panel vector autoregression in R with the package panelvar," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 693-720.
    18. Hayakawa, Kazuhiko & Pesaran, M. Hashem, 2015. "Robust standard errors in transformed likelihood estimation of dynamic panel data models with cross-sectional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 188(1), pages 111-134.
    19. Youssef, Ahmed & Abonazel, Mohamed R., 2015. "Alternative GMM Estimators for First-order Autoregressive Panel Model: An Improving Efficiency Approach," MPRA Paper 68674, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Fajeau, Maxime, 2021. "Too much finance or too many weak instruments?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 14-36.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CO2 tax; EU ETS; Luenberger productivity indicator; GMM;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:hhs:slucer:2013_004. 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: Mona Bonta Bergman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.cere.se .

    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.