Can Environmental Regulations be Good for Business? an Assessment of the Porter Hypothesis

Stefan Ambec () and Philippe Barla ()

Cahiers de recherche from Université Laval - Département d'économique

Abstract: The Porter hypothesis asserts polluting firms can benefit from environmental policies, arguing that well-designed environmental regulations stimulate innovation, which by increasing either productivity or product value, leads to private benefits. As a consequence, environmental regulations would benefit both society and regulated firms. This point of view has found a receptive audience among policy makers and the popular press but has been severely criticized by economists. In this paper, we present some of the arguments in this debate and review the empirical evidence available so far in the economic literature.

Keywords: Porter Hypothesis; Environmental Regulations; Competitiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q50 Q52 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-env and nep-reg
Date: Written

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Related works:
Working Paper: Can Environmental Regulations be Good for Business? an Assessment of the Porter Hypothesis (2005)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lvl:laeccr:0505

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