Is Environmental Policy by Public Procurement Effective?

Sofia Lundberg (), Per-Olov Marklund and Elon Strömbäck

Public Finance Review, 2016, vol. 44, issue 4, 478-499

Abstract: Advocates of green public procurement (GPP) argue that the public sector can use its purchasing power to influence producers and consumers to reduce their negative impact on the environment. Our aim is to assess GPP as an environmental policy instrument and its ability to lead to the achievement of environmental objectives. Central to our analysis is the extent to which polluting firms choose to adapt to the public sector’s environmental requirements and to invest in greener technologies. Our theoretical finding is that the potential of GPP to function as an objective effective instrument of environmental policy is limited and can actually be counterproductive. From an environmental policy point of view, it is crucial that the GPP aims for an environmental standard beyond the technology of the polluting firms and is designed with reference to defined environmental objectives.

Keywords: auctions; compliance cost; environmental policy; endogenous entry; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1091142115588977 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Is Environmental Policy by Public Procurement Effective? (2015)
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:sae:pubfin:v:44:y:2016:i:4:p:478-499

DOI: 10.1177/1091142115588977

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Public Finance Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().