Climate Change Legislations and Environmental Degradation

Nicolae Stef () and Sami Ben Jabeur ()
Additional contact information
Nicolae Stef: CEREN EA 7477, Burgundy School of Business, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Department of Accounting, Finance & Law
Sami Ben Jabeur: ESDES Business School of UCLyon

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2020, vol. 77, issue 4, No 7, 839-868

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates how the enactment of regulations and laws dealing with climate change influences CO2 emissions. Using a sample of 83 countries and covering the period from 2003 to 2014, our dynamic panel analysis yields two major results. First, the enactment of new climate change regulations (i.e., amendments, decrees, orders) associated with a strong rule of law significantly diminishes CO2 emissions. This result validates the hypothesis of Gunningham (J Environ Law 23:169–201, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqr006 ), which argues that the efficiency of environmental legislation must be supported by regulatory institutions that can efficiently enforce the law. Second, the enactment of new climate change laws seems to not impact emissions levels independently of institutional quality. It may be possible that private agents anticipate the entry into force of the new law(s) and must consequently adapt to the requirements of such laws, leading to a nonsignificant impact on CO2 emissions.

Keywords: Legislation; Climate change; CO2 emissions; Institutional quality; Rule of law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K32 O13 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-020-00520-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:kap:enreec:v:77:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s10640-020-00520-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10640-020-00520-2

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().