Induced innovation and international environmental agreements: evidence from the Ozone regime

Eugenie Dugoua

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Global environmental problems are some of the most pressing issues that humanity is facing. There are few examples of success at resolving them; the fight to protect the ozone layer is one of them. This paper provides evidence that the Montreal Protocol’s restrictions on chlorofluorocarbons ( CFCs) triggered a substantial increase in research and innovation on alternatives to ozone-depleting molecules. I compare CFC substitute molecules to molecules that have similar uses but are unrelated to ozone depletion. After the signing of the agreement, patents on CFC substitutes increased by 400% and scientific articles by 500% compared to the control group. These findings suggest that agreements can indeed trigger the development of technological solutions, thereby improving the benefit-cost equation of environmental protection

Keywords: induced innovation; environmental agreements; difference-in-differences; synthetic control; topic modeling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F53 O31 O33 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2021-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110859/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:110859

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager (lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk).