Environmental corporate social responsibility, R&D and disclosure of “green” innovation knowledge

Juan Bárcena-Ruiz, María Begoña Garzón and Amagoia Sagasta

Energy Economics, 2023, vol. 120, issue C

Abstract: The literature on the environment has analyzed how firms carry out R&D to reduce their pollutant emissions, assuming that they maximize profits. However, empirical evidence shows that firms are increasingly concerned about Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR). Following that evidence, we consider that the objective function of firms incorporates the environmental damage they generate as part of their social concern. We find that how firms perform environmental R&D depends crucially on the degree to which they care about ECSR. If that degree is low enough, firms agree to set up an Environmental Research Joint Venture (ERJV) under which they coordinate their R&D investments and fully share their technological knowledge. This is the result obtained when firms maximize profits. If the degree is high enough, firms enter into an ERJV in which each fully shares its technological expertise but they do not coordinate their R&D investments. Finally, if the degree is intermediate, firms neither set up an ERJV nor disclose information. Social welfare is the highest and environmental damage the lowest if firms form an ERJV and coordinate their R&D investments. Therefore, the way in which firms organize their R&D activities is not always the most socially preferable.

Keywords: Environmental corporate social responsibility; Environmental tax; Endogenous spillovers; R&D competition; Research joint ventures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 L13 L22 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988323001263
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Environmental corporate social responsibility, R&D and disclosure of “green” innovation knowledge (2022)
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:eee:eneeco:v:120:y:2023:i:c:s0140988323001263

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2023.106628

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant

More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().