Do Painless Environmental Policies Exist?

V. Kerry Smith, Randy Walsh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper reports an experimental test of the Porter Hypothesis that environmental regulations create innovation offsets that would not otherwise be undertaken. Using a process analysis framework to consistently account for non-separabilities in production and pollution abatement practices, the findings suggest productivity gains can appear to be greater with environmental regulations than without even though they are not. This result which would seem to support the Porter argument, is the result of inadequacies in the methods used to decompose the influences to productivity change. Thus, the experiments offer one explanation for why it has been difficult in practice to reject the hypothesis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)73-94
Number of pages22
JournalJournal of Risk and Uncertainty
Volume21
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2000

Keywords

  • Environmental regulation
  • Innovation
  • Productivity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Accounting
  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

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