Non-Tradeable Pollution Permits as Green R&D Incentives

Acquired wisdom has it that the allocation of pollution rights to firms hinders their willingness to undertake uncertain R&D projects for environmental-friendly technologies. We revisit this issue in a model where firms strategically choose whether to participate in a lottery to attain pollution permits, or instead invest in green R&D, to show that, somewhat counterintuitively, a desirable side effect of the pollution permit is in fact that of fostering environmental R&D in an admissible range of the model parameters.