Despite growing empirical evidence of the link between environmental policy and innovation, most economic models of environmental policy treat technology as exogenous. For long-term problems such as climate change, this omission can be significant. In this paper, I modify the DICE model of...

Reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change will require dramatic changes in the way that energy is produced and consumed. The cost of technological changes such as alternative energy sources and improved energy efficiency will play a large role in determining the...

Recent efforts to endogenize technological change in climate policy models demonstrate the importance of accounting for the opportunity cost of climate R&D investments. Because the social returns to R&D investments are typically higher than the social returns to other types of investment, any...

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a project-based carbon trade mechanism that subsidizes the users of climate-friendly technologies and encourages technology transfer. The CDM has provided financial support for a large share of Chinese wind projects since 2002. Using pooled...

Because of the long-term nature of the climate problem, technological advances are often seen as an important component of any solution. However, when considering the potential for technology to help solve the climate problem, two market failures exist which lead to underinvestment in...

Although economists cite potential gains from induced innovation as an advantage of using market-based mechanisms to protect the environment, counts of patents related to flue gas desulfurization units ('scrubbers') peaked before trading of sulfur dioxide (SO2) permits began. This paper uses...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, concern over dioxin in both paper products and wastewater led to the development of techniques that reduced the use of chlorine in the pulp industry. Both regulatory and consumer pressure motivated this change. We use patent data to examine the evolution of two...

Recent attempts to endogenize technology in climate policy models have produced mixed results. Models including alternative technologies find large gains from induced technological change. However, technological progress in these models comes through learning-by-doing, which ignores the...

Countries who adopted regulation of coal-fired power plants after 1980 generally did so at a much lower level of per-capita income than did early adopters -- poor countries regulated sooner. This phenomenon suggests that pioneering adopters of environmental regulation provide an advantage to...

This paper uses patent citation data to study flows of knowledge across time and across institutions in the field of energy research. Popp (2002) finds the level of energy-saving R&D depends not only on energy prices, but also on the quality of the accumulated knowledge available to inventors....