Differentiation Strategies in the Adoption of Environmental Standards: LEED from 2000 to 2014

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Rysman, Marc; Simcoe, Timothy; Wang, Yanfei
• 署名单位: Boston University; Boston University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Renmin University of China
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2019.3399
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 4173-4192
• 关键词: environmental standards; quality certification; green building; LEED

摘要

We study the role of vertical differentiation in the adoption of LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design), amultitier environmental building certification system. Our identification strategy relies on the timing of adoption and shows that builders seek to differentiate from each other by choosing a different certification level from previously certified buildings. A common concern in this framework is that mean-reverting behavior could be mistaken for differentiation. We develop a new method for establishing the importance of strategic interactions based on simulating fromamodel with independent choice and unobserved heterogeneity, and showing that such a model cannot generate the level of interaction that we observe. Finally, we estimate a model that incorporates both differentiation incentives and correlated market-level unobservables and use our estimates from this model to simulate the impact of reducing the number of LEED tiers from four to two. The simulations indicate that environmental investments depend on the location of the threshold between tiers.