Green Technology and Patents in the Presence of Green Consumers

Corinne Langinier and Amrita Ray Chaudhuri

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2020, vol. 7, issue 1, 73 - 101

Abstract: We develop a theoretical framework to investigate the impact of patent policies and emission taxes on green innovation that reduces the emission-output ratio, and on the emission level. In the absence of green consumers, the introduction of patents results in a paradox whereby increasing emission tax beyond a certain threshold leads to a discrete increase in the emission level, which may be avoided by reducing the patenting cost. In the presence of green consumers, this paradox is restricted to an intermediate range of tax rates, and at sufficiently high tax rates, reducing the patenting cost may increase the emission level. Also, higher emission taxes increase green investment only if the fraction of green consumers is sufficiently small, and the magnitude of this effect decreases as this fraction increases. Moreover, a stricter patentability requirement is only effective at reducing emissions if the fraction of green consumers is sufficiently small.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/705565 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/705565 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
Working Paper: Green Technology and Patents in the Presence of Green Consumers (2019)
Working Paper: Green Technology and Patents in the Presence of Green Consumers (2019)
Working Paper: Green Technology and Patents in the Presence of Green Consumers (2018)
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:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/705565

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().