Can Environmental Policy Encourage Technical Change? Emissions Taxes and R&D Investment in Polluting Firms

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brown, James R.; Martinsson, Gustav; Thomann, Christian
• 署名单位: Iowa State University; Royal Institute of Technology; Stockholm School of Economics
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhac003
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 4518
• 关键词: ABSORPTIVE-CAPACITY; corporate governance; induced innovation; stock markets; 2 faces; panel; TECHNOLOGY; spillovers; competitiveness; PRODUCTIVITY

摘要

Higher country taxes on noxious manufacturing emissions lead to substantial increases in firms' R&D spending. The R&D response is entirely driven by those high-pollution firms most affected by emissions taxes. Pollution taxes increase the marginal value of R&D spending in polluting firms, even when this spending does not lead to new innovation. Pollution taxes have the strongest effect on R&D investment in sectors in which new invention is difficult to appropriate and outside knowledge is easier to acquire, suggesting an important reason dirty firms invest in R&D is to expand their capacity to absorb external knowledge and technical know-how.