Environmental Protection by Foreign Firms in German Manufacturing: Does the Country of Origin Matter?

John P. Weche and Isabella Wedl

Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, 2014, vol. 134, issue 3, 271-304

Abstract: Only recently have the aspects of pollution and environmental protection entered into the empirical literature about international firm activities. The present paper is the first firmlevel study on the link between foreign ownership and environmental protection in Germany. We find that, ceteris paribus, foreign owned firms in Germany are more likely to invest in environmental protection. They also invest on a larger scale in terms of addon measures as well as integrated measures. These results are robust against different measures, different time periods, different control groups, and selection issues arising from fractional response data. Once we control for productivity levels, the differences become less straightforward. However, the higher probability of foreign firms’ making general as well as integrated environmental protection investments and the tilt of their composition towards integrated measures remain. We cannot find any support for differences among foreign firms by country of origin. This can be interpreted as support for the new institutionalist hypothesis of international convergence of management practices in the field of environmental management due to normative pressure and de facto standards at the global level. / Die Studie präsentiert die erste ökonometrische Untersuchung des Zusammenhangs von Umweltschutzinvestitionen und Auslandskontrolle in Deutschland auf Unternehmensebene. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass auslandskontrollierte Unternehmen in Deutschland ceteris paribus häufiger und in größerem Ausmaß in Umweltschutzmaßnahmen investieren als aus dem Inland kontrollierte Unternehmen. Dies betrifft sowohl integrierte als auch „end-of-pipe“ Maßnahmen. Die Unterschiede im Investitionsvolumen verringern sich deutlich, sobald individuelle Produktivitätslevel berücksichtigt werden. Keine Unterschiede im Investitionsverhalten bestehen zwischen einzelnen Herkunftsländern der Kontrolle innerhalb der Gruppe auslandskontrollierter Unternehmen. Somit weisen die Ergebnisse auf eine fortgeschrittene Konvergenz internationaler Managementpraktiken im Bereich Umweltmanagement hin.

JEL-codes: F12 Q52 Q55 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.3790/schm.134.3.271 (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:dah:aeqsjb:v134_y2014_i3_q3_p271-304

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.duncker-humblot.de/zeitschriften/schm

Access Statistics for this article

Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften is currently edited by Nils Goldschmidt, Erik Grimmer-Solem and Joachim Zweynert

More articles in Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften from Duncker & Humblot, Berlin
Bibliographic data for series maintained by E-Publishing-Team ().