IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-04-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Tale of Two Market Failures: Technology and Environmental Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Stavins, Robert
  • Jaffe, Adam
  • Newell, Richard

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Market failures associated with environmental pollution interact with market failures associated with the innovation and diffusion of new technologies. These combined market failures provide a strong rationale for a portfolio of public policies that foster emissions reduction as well as the development and adoption of environmentally beneficial technology. Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the rate and direction of technological advance is influenced by market and regulatory incentives, and can be cost-effectively harnessed through the use of economicincentive based policy. In the presence of weak or nonexistent environmental policies, investments in the development and diffusion of new environmentally beneficial technologies are very likely to be less than would be socially desirable. Positive knowledge and adoption spillovers and information problems can further weaken innovation incentives. While environmental technology policy is fraught with difficulties, a long-term view suggests a strategy of experimenting with policy approaches and systematically evaluating their success.

Suggested Citation

  • Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2004. "A Tale of Two Market Failures: Technology and Environmental Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-38, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-04-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-04-38.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gillingham, Kenneth & Newell, Richard G. & Palmer, Karen L., 2004. "Retrospective Examination of Demand-Side Energy Efficiency Policies," Discussion Papers 10477, Resources for the Future.
    2. Anderson, Soren T. & Newell, Richard G., 2004. "Information programs for technology adoption: the case of energy-efficiency audits," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 27-50, March.
    3. Jaffe, Adam B. & Newell, Richard G. & Stavins, Robert N., 2003. "Chapter 11 Technological change and the environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 461-516, Elsevier.
    4. Goolsbee, Austan, 1998. "Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 298-302, May.
    5. 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.
    6. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2000. "Technological Change and the Environment," Working Paper Series rwp00-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Walsh, Michael J., 1989. "Energy tax credits and housing improvement," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 275-284, October.
    8. Dubin, Jeffrey A. & Henson, Steven E., 1988. "The distributional effects of the Federal Energy Tax Act," Resources and Energy, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 191-212, September.
    9. Paul M. Romer, 2001. "Should the Government Subsidize Supply or Demand in the Market for Scientists and Engineers?," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 221-252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Adam B. Jaffe, 2002. "Building Programme Evaluation into the Design of Public Research-Support Programmes," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 18(1), pages 22-34, Spring.
    11. Kevin A. Hassett & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 1992. "Energy Tax Credits and Residential Conservation Investment," NBER Working Papers 4020, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. van der Zwaan, B. C. C. & Gerlagh, R. & G. & Klaassen & Schrattenholzer, L., 2002. "Endogenous technological change in climate change modelling," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 1-19, January.
    13. Carraro, Carlo & Gerlagh, Reyer & Zwaan, Bob van der, 2003. "Endogenous technical change in environmental macroeconomics," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 1-10, February.
    14. Jaffe, Adam B. & Stavins, Robert N., 1994. "The energy paradox and the diffusion of conservation technology," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 91-122, May.
    15. Anastasios Xepapadeas (ed.), 1996. "Economic Policy for the Environment and Natural Resources," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1012.
    16. N. Gregory Mankiw & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Free Entry and Social Inefficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 48-58, Spring.
    17. Kemfert, Claudia, 2004. "Climate coalitions and international trade: assessment of cooperation incentives by issue linkage," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 455-465, March.
    18. Henk Folmer & Pierre Mouche & Shannon Ragland, 1993. "Interconnected games and international environmental problems," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 3(4), pages 313-335, August.
    19. repec:bla:scandj:v:94:y:1992:i:0:p:s29-47 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Hassett, Kevin A. & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 1995. "Energy tax credits and residential conservation investment: Evidence from panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 201-217, June.
    21. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "The Search for R&D Spillovers," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 251-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Schneider, Stephen H., 1999. "Induced technological change and the attractiveness of CO2 abatement policies," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 211-253, August.
    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. Popp, David & Newell, Richard G. & Jaffe, Adam B., 2010. "Energy, the Environment, and Technological Change," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 873-937, Elsevier.
    2. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2000. "Technological Change and the Environment," Working Paper Series rwp00-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Adam B. Jaffe & Richard G. Newell & Robert N. Stavins, 2004. "Technology Policy for Energy and the Environment," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 4, pages 35-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W. H. Parry, 2008. "Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(2), pages 152-174, Summer.
    5. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Judson & Schatski, Todd, 2007. "Too Good to Be True? An Examination of Three Economic Assessments of California Climate Change Policy," Working Paper Series rwp07-016, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    6. 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.
    7. Pizer, William A. & Popp, David, 2008. "Endogenizing technological change: Matching empirical evidence to modeling needs," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 2754-2770, November.
    8. Jaffe, Adam B. & Newell, Richard G. & Stavins, Robert N., 2003. "Chapter 11 Technological change and the environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 461-516, Elsevier.
    9. Stavins, Robert N. & Jaffe, Judson & Schatzki, Todd, 2007. "Too Good to Be True? Three Economic Assessments of California Climate Change Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-07-12, Resources for the Future.
    10. Parry, Ian W.H., 2003. "On the implications of technological innovation for environmental policy," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 57-76, February.
    11. Jackson, Jerry, 2007. "Are US utility standby rates inhibiting diffusion of customer-owned generating systems?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1896-1908, March.
    12. Hammar, Henrik & Löfgren, Åsa, 2007. "Explaining adoption of end of pipe solutions and clean technologies," Working Papers 102, National Institute of Economic Research.
    13. Henningsen, Geraldine & Wiese, Catharina, 2019. "Do Household Characteristics Really Matter? A Meta-Analysis on the Determinants of Households’ Energy-Efficiency Investments," MPRA Paper 101701, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Gillingham, Kenneth & Newell, Richard G. & Palmer, Karen L., 2004. "Retrospective Examination of Demand-Side Energy Efficiency Policies," Discussion Papers 10477, Resources for the Future.
    15. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2023. "Green technologies, interdependencies, and policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    16. AZOMAHOU, Théophile & BOUCEKKINE, Raouf & NGUYEN-VAN, Phu, 2009. "Promoting clean technologies under imperfect competition," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2009011, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    17. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Can an Effective Global Climate Treaty be Based on Sound Science, Rational Economics, and Pragmatic Politics?," Working Paper Series rwp04-020, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    18. Gerlagh , Reyer & Kverndokk, Snorre & Rosendahl, Knut Einar, 2008. "Linking Environmental and Innovation Policy," Memorandum 10/2008, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    19. Raphael Calel & Antoine Dechezleprêtre, 2016. "Environmental Policy and Directed Technological Change: Evidence from the European Carbon Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 173-191, March.
    20. Cantono, Simona, 2012. "Unveiling diffusion dynamics: an autocatalytic percolation model of environmental innovation diffusion and the optimal dynamic path of adoption subsidies," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 201222, University of Turin.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    technology; research and development; environment; externality; policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    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:rff:dpaper:dp-04-38. 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: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.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.