IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hub/wpecon/200920.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of environmental policy on industrial sectors: empirical evidence from 14 European Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Vanassche, Stella

    (Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Belgium)

  • Vranken, Liesbet

    (Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel (HUB), Belgium)

  • Vercaemst, Peter

    (Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Belgium)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relation between environmental policy and a firms environmental investment expenditure, environmental performance, and international competitiveness using primary survey data. Our empirical analysis illustrates that environmental policies are important drivers of environmental investment expenditure which, in turn, has a positive impact on both environmental and economic performance. Moreover, only investment expenditure in pollution prevention mechanisms (process integrated technologies) results in better environmental and economic performance, while investment expenditure in pollution control mechanisms (end-of-pipe technologies) have no impact on a firms overall environmental performance, nor on a firms competitiveness or strategic advantage. Investment in end-of-pipe technologies even results in less efficient resource use. Finally, also a firms environmental strategy affects environmental investment expenditures.

Suggested Citation

  • Vanassche, Stella & Vranken, Liesbet & Vercaemst, Peter, 2009. "The impact of environmental policy on industrial sectors: empirical evidence from 14 European Countries," Working Papers 2009/20, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:hub:wpecon:200920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://lirias.hubrussel.be/bitstream/123456789/2493/1/09HRP20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dean, Judith M., 1992. "Trade and the environment : a survey of the literature," Policy Research Working Paper Series 966, The World Bank.
    2. Demailly, Damien & Quirion, Philippe, 2008. "European Emission Trading Scheme and competitiveness: A case study on the iron and steel industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 2009-2027, July.
    3. Jaffe Adam B. & Stavins Robert N., 1995. "Dynamic Incentives of Environmental Regulations: The Effects of Alternative Policy Instruments on Technology Diffusion," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 43-63, November.
    4. Feichtinger, G. & Hartl, R.F. & Kort, P.M. & Veliov, V., 2005. "Environmental policy, the Porter hypothesis and the composition of capital : Effects of learning and technological progress," Other publications TiSEM d50730bb-82e1-47a0-9836-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. David Hitchens & Esmond Birnie & William Thompson & Ursula Triebswetter & Paolo Bertossi & Luciano Messori, 2000. "Environmental Regulation and Competitive Advantage," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1996.
    6. Martin Ravallion & Michael Lokshin, 2001. "Identifying Welfare Effects from Subjective Questions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(271), pages 335-357, August.
    7. Xepapadeas, Anastasios & de Zeeuw, Aart, 1999. "Environmental Policy and Competitiveness: The Porter Hypothesis and the Composition of Capital," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 165-182, March.
    8. Wagner, Marcus, 2008. "Empirical influence of environmental management on innovation: Evidence from Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 392-402, June.
    9. Rehfeld, Katharina-Maria & Rennings, Klaus & Ziegler, Andreas, 2007. "Integrated product policy and environmental product innovations: An empirical analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 91-100, February.
    10. Austrian Institute of Economic Research, 2006. "Competitiveness Report 2006," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 28814.
    11. Satish Joshi & Ranjani Krishnan & Lester Lave, 2002. "Estimating the Hidden Costs of Environmental Regulation," Working Papers 02-10, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    12. Karen Palmer & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney & Karen Palmer & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney, 2004. "Tightening Environmental Standards: The Benefit-Cost or the No-Cost Paradigm?," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 3, pages 53-66, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Feichtinger, Gustav & Hartl, Richard F. & Kort, Peter M. & Veliov, Vladimir M., 2005. "Environmental policy, the porter hypothesis and the composition of capital: Effects of learning and technological progress," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 434-446, September.
    14. Xepapadeas, A. & de Zeeuw, A.J., 1998. "Environmental Policy and Competitiveness : The Porter Hypothesis and the Composition of Capital," Other publications TiSEM 574efb6e-556c-43af-b12e-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Rhys Jenkins & Jonathan Barton & Anthony Bartzokas & Jan Hesselberg & Hege Merete Knutsen, 2002. "Environmental Regulation in the New Global Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2256.
    16. Adam Jaffe & Richard Newell & Robert Stavins, 2002. "Environmental Policy and Technological Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 22(1), pages 41-70, June.
    17. repec:bla:econom:v:68:y:2001:i:271:p:335-57 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Requate, Till, 2005. "Dynamic incentives by environmental policy instruments--a survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2-3), pages 175-195, August.
    19. Sandra Rousseau & Stef Proost, 2005. "Comparing Environmental Policy Instruments in the Presence of Imperfect Compliance – A Case Study," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 32(3), pages 337-365, November.
    20. Lund, Peter, 2007. "Impacts of EU carbon emission trade directive on energy-intensive industries -- Indicative micro-economic analyses," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 799-806, September.
    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. Théophile T. Azomahou & Raouf Boucekkine & Phu Nguyen-Vanc, "undated". "Promoting Clean Technologies: The Energy Market Structure Crucially Matters," Working Papers 2008_13, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    2. Tilmann Rave & Ursula Triebswetter, 2006. "Economic impacts of environmental regulations," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 30.
    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. Andr, Francisco J. & Gonzlez, Paula & Porteiro, Nicols, 2009. "Strategic quality competition and the Porter Hypothesis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 182-194, March.
    5. Dominique Bianco & Evens Salies, 2017. "The Strong Porter Hypothesis in an Endogenous Growth Model with Satisficing Managers," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(4), pages 2641-2654.
    6. Dominique Bianco & Evens Salies, 2017. "The Strong Porter Hypothesis in an Endogenous Growth Model with Satisficing Managers," Post-Print hal-02177939, HAL.
    7. Patricia Laurens & Christian Le Bas & Stéphane Lhuillery & Antoine Schoen, 2017. "The determinants of cleaner energy innovations of the world’s largest firms: the impact of firm learning and knowledge capital," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 311-333, May.
    8. Francesco Ricci, 2007. "Environmental policy and growth when inputs are differentiated in pollution intensity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 38(3), pages 285-310, November.
    9. Brian Chi-ang Lin & Siqi Zheng & Nicolò Barbieri & Claudia Ghisetti & Marianna Gilli & Giovanni Marin & Francesco Nicolli, 2016. "A Survey Of The Literature On Environmental Innovation Based On Main Path Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 596-623, July.
    10. Iwata, Hiroki, 2016. "Environmental Regulation and Choice of Innovation in Oligopoly," MPRA Paper 70280, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/vetkngao585gaehs52f2n4fkt is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Patricia Sánchez-Medina & René Díaz-Pichardo & Angélica Bautista-Cruz & Arcelia Toledo-López, 2015. "Environmental Compliance and Economic and Environmental Performance: Evidence from Handicrafts Small Businesses in Mexico," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 381-393, February.
    13. del Río González, Pablo, 2009. "The empirical analysis of the determinants for environmental technological change: A research agenda," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 861-878, January.
    14. Qiu, Larry D. & Zhou, Mohan & Wei, Xu, 2018. "Regulation, innovation, and firm selection: The porter hypothesis under monopolistic competition," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 638-658.
    15. Chen, Shiyi & Härdle, Wolfgang Karl, 2012. "Dynamic activity analysis model based win-win development forecasting under the environmental regulation in China," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2012-002, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/vetkngao585gaehs52f2n4fkt is not listed on IDEAS
    17. 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.
    18. Earnhart, Dietrich & Germeshausen, Robert & von Graevenitz, Kathrine, 2022. "Effects of information-based regulation on financial outcomes: Evidence from the European Union's public emission registry," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-015, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Dominique Bianco, 2022. "Does entrepreneurial behaviour matter for the strong Porter hypothesis?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(2), pages 867-876.
    20. André, Francisco J., 2015. "Strategic Effects and the Porter Hypothesis," MPRA Paper 62237, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Brännlund, Runar & Lundgren, Tommy, 2008. "Environmental policy and profitability - Evidence from Swedish industry," Umeå Economic Studies 750, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    22. Ambec, Stefan & Barla, Philippe, 2005. "Can Environmental Regulations be Good for Business? an Assessment of the Porter Hypothesis," Cahiers de recherche 0505, Université Laval - Département d'économique.

    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:hub:wpecon:200920. 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: Sabine Janssens The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Sabine Janssens to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emhubbe.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.