In a model where firms face a continuous choice of how much to invest in environmental innovation, we show that an ever stricter environmental policy does not always lead to ever cleaner production methods and ever lower production of polluting goods. It does so when the abatement technology is...

In this paper we study the effect of institutional reform on the decision to hold risky assets at the extensive and the intensive margin. We therefore make use of the natural experiment of German Division and Reunification and, based on savings bank customer data from German savings banks, study...

We develop a three-stage model of abatement technology search, adoption, and deployment. Using this model, which draws on search theory tools more frequently used in labour and monetary economics, we compare market-based and command-and-control pollution control instruments with respect to the...

This paper explores how a principal with time-inconsistent preferences invests optimally in technology or capital. If the current principal prefers her future self to save more, she can increase current investments complementary to future savings and decrease investments in the strategic...

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a project-based carbon trade mechanism that subsidizes the users of climate-friendly technologies and encourages technology transfer. The CDM has provided financial support for a large share of Chinese wind projects since 2002. Using pooled...

Since governments can influence the demand for a new abatement technology through their environmental policy, they may be able to expropriate innovations in new abatement technology ex post. This suggests that incentives for environmental R&D may be lower than the incentives for market goods...

This paper explores cost-effective low-carbon R&D and capital investment portfolios for the electricity generation sector through 2060. We present a novel method for long-term planning by combining an economic model of endogenous non-linear technical change and a generation capacity planning...

The paper analyzes the relationship between CO2 mitigation policy and promotion policies designed to deploy renewable energy sources for electricity production (RES-E). If an emission cap is the only policy target, an optimal mix consisting of high and low carbon use of fossil fuels, deployment...

We study how individual inventors respond to incentives to work on "clean" electricity technologies. Using natural gas price variation, we estimate output and entry elasticities of inventors and measure the medium-term impacts of a price increase mirroring the social cost of carbon. We find that...

This paper revisits one of the rare success stories in global environmental cooperation: the Montreal Protocol and the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances. I show that the protocol increased science and innovation on alternatives to ozone-depleting substances, and argue that agreements can...