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| authors | Ralf Martin and Ulrich Wagner |
| title | Climate policy and innovation: Evidence from patent data |
| year | 2009 |
| month | |
| status | |
| abstract | We examine innovative activity of businesses in the UK following the introduction of the Climate Change Levy (CCL) and Climate Change Agreements (CCA) in 2001. This is facilitated by the CEP AMAPAT database, a new data resource that links European Patent Office patent data with business performance data. The CCL is an energy tax levied on all businesses except those who enter a Climate Change Agreement (CCA) that entitles them to an 80% large discount on the tax. In return CCA participants have to accept specific targets on energy efficiency or total energy consumption which are negotiated between the government, the sector associations and the firm. We find that CCA firms have a higher propensity to patent than non-CCA firms. However, when taking into account persistent unobserved differences across firms that pre-date the introduction of the CCL and CCA, we find the opposite result that patenting decline in CCA firms relative to firms paying the levy at full rate. We interpret this as evidence that the price-based conservation incentive imposed on firms by the CCL gives them stronger incentives to engage in innovative activity than the negotiated targets. We also document, for the first time, major trends across time and countries of a wide range of climate change related (CCR) patenting. This suggests that CCR patenting has increased in recent years and that Japan is leading in this area among the G5 economies. |
| downloadinfo | http://www.ralfmartin.me.uk/pub/RM/PatentsCCL/ei_may09.pdf |
| type | Working Paper |
| I | Attachment | Action | Size | Date | Who | Comment |
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 pdf |
ei_may09.pdf | manage | 504.6 K | 12 Mar 2012 - 12:45 | AdminUser |
Topic revision: r4 - 12 Mar 2012 - 12:47:15 - AdminUser
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