The challenge of green innovation

William Nordhaus

Chapter 22 in Handbook of Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights, 2024, pp 374-395 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Green innovations are ones that lower the externalities of production or consumption. This study emphasizes three points. The first point is that green innovation suffers from a double externality: there are inadequate returns to the production of green goods and services, and also incentives to undertake innovative activities are diluted by imitation. Second, many environmental challenges will require deep technological changes. An example is production for a zero-carbon electricity sector, where key technologies are not yet economical or available on a large scale. Third, technological changes depend upon the activities of profit-oriented firms, and profits primarily drive R&D of these entities. Appropriate incentives for firms can be accomplished by ensuring that major externalities are internalized, such as by putting a price on pollution, and in addition by increasing governmental subsidies, particularly for fundamental research.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Innovations and Technology; Law - Academic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781800880627.00032 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

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:elg:eechap:20438_22

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().