Technological change and international interaction in environmental policies

Yuichi Furukawa and Yasuhiro Takarada

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper considers the impact of differences in endogenous technological change between two countries on global pollution emissions under international strategic interaction in environmental policies. First, we demonstrate that an environmentally lagging country's technology may continue to advance through a learning-by-doing effect until it exceeds the environmental friendliness of a leading country that initially had the cleanest technology (i.e., environmental leapfrogging could occur). Whether a country eventually becomes an environmentally leading country depends on the country size and its awareness of environmental quality. Second, we find that global emissions fluctuate despite the fact that environmental technology advances in both countries. Global emissions eventually become constant because both countries cease to tighten environmental regulations when their technologies are sufficiently clean. The final emissions might be larger than emissions in early stages of adjustment under dirty technologies. If environmental leapfrogging frequently occurs, both countries possess similarly clean technologies, thereby reducing long-term global pollution.

Keywords: Environmental policy; leapfrogging; learning-by-doing; strategic interaction; technological change; transboundary pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O30 O31 O33 O44 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-res
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/44047/1/MPRA_paper_44047.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/67898/9/MPRA_paper_67898.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/79820/17/MPRA_paper_79820.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/48400/1/MPRA_paper_48400.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/55653/1/MPRA_paper_55653.pdf revised version (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:pra:mprapa:44047

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().