Giovanni Marin

A Survey of the Literature on Environmental Innovation Based on Main Path Analysis

This paper reviews the literature on environmental innovation (EI) and systematizes it by means of an original methodology identifying the main directions in which the literature on EI has developed over time. In order to do so, two algorithms are adopted and used to analyze a citation network of journal articles and books. The main path analysis reveals that this literature revolves around the following topics: i) determinants of EI; ii) economic effects of EI; iii) environmental effects of EI; and iv) policy inducement in EI. Each of these topics is discussed and implications from the main findings as well as possible future research extensions are outlined.

Matching of PATSTAT applications to AIDA firms: discussion of the methodology and results

This paper is a brief methodological note on the matching of Italian firms in the AIDA database with applicants at the European Patent Office from the PATSTAT database. The need to match data on patent applications with balance-sheet information stems from the importance of patent statistics as a source of information on the innovative performance of firms. Starting from recent efforts to match applicants in PATSTAT with firms in the Bureau van Dijk databases (ORBIS, AMADEUS, FAME), we added an improved cleaning routine to maximize exact matches, followed by an approximate matching based on multiple combination of similarity scores. Starting with 272,475 firms, we matched 49,369 EPO applications in the period 1977-2009. The matching covers 68 percent of EPO applications by Italian firms for the entire period and 89 percent for 2000-2009. Finally, we describe the time, sector, size, geographical location and technology distribution of the matched applications.

The Greener the Better: Job Creation and Environmentally‐Friendly Technological Change

This paper investigates the link between environment related innovation and job creation at firm level. Employing Italian data on 4,507 manufacturing firms, matched with patent records for the period 2001-2008, we test whether “green” innovation, measured using the number of environment related patents, has a positive effect on long run employment growth that is specific with respect to non environmental innovation. Results show a strong positive impact of “green” innovation on long run job creation, substantially bigger than the effect of other innovations. Our findings are robust to a number of additional tests including controls for cost differential between generic and “green” innovation and endogeneity.

Environmental Regulation and Green Skills: An Empirical Exploration

This paper provides new evidence on the workplace skills most relevant in the transition toward environmentally sustainable economies. Using a novel data-driven methodology, we identify two main sets of green skills, namely, engineering skills for the design and production of technology, and managerial skills for implementing and monitoring environmental organizational practices. Exploiting exogenous geographical variation in regulatory stringency, we also evaluate the effect of environmental regulation on the demand of green skills for a panel of US metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas over the period 2006–14. The main finding is that while these changes in environmental regulation have no impact on overall employment, they create significant, if modest, gaps in the demand for some green skills, especially those related to technical and engineering work tasks.

Technology Invention and Diffusion in Residential Energy Consumption. A Stochastic Frontier Approach

Traditional large appliances absorb a large share of residential electricity consumption and represent important targets of energy policy strategies aimed at achieving energy security. Despite being characterized by rather mature technologies, this group of appliances still offers large potential in terms of efficiency gains due to their pervasive diffusion. In this paper we analyse the electricity consumption of a set of four traditional ‘white goods’ in a panel of ten EU countries observed over 21 years (1990-2010), with the aim of disentangling the amount of technical efficiency from the overall energy saving. The technical efficiency trend is modelled through a set of technology components representing both the invention and adoption process by the means of specific patents weighted by production and bilateral import flows, which allows to overcome the rigid Stochastic Frontier framework in modelling the effect of technical change. Our results show that the derived energy demand and inefficiency trends are both related to changes in the amount of available technology embodied in energy efficient appliances. The effect is significant both in its domestic and international components and suggests an active role of innovation and trade policies for achieving efficiency targets which directly impact the amount of electricity consumed by households.

Measures, drivers and effects of green employment: evidence from US local labor markets, 2006–2014

This paper explores the nature and the key empirical regularities of green employment in US local labor markets between 2006 and 2014. We construct a new measure of green employment based on the task content of occupations. Descriptive analysis reveals the following: 1. the share of green employment oscillates between 2 and 3 percent, and its trend is strongly pro-cyclical; 2. green jobs yield a 4 percent wage premium; 3. despite moderate catching-up across areas, green jobs remain more geo- graphically concentrated than similar non-green jobs; and 4. the top green areas are mostly high-tech. As regards the drivers, changes in environ- mental regulation are a secondary force compared to the local endowment of green knowledge and resilience in the face of the great recession. To assess the impact of moving to greener activities, we estimate that one additional green job is associated with 4.2 (2.4 in the crisis period) new jobs in non-tradable activities in the local economies.

Sustainable development and industrial development: Manufacturing environmental performance, technology and consumption/production perspectives

ABSTRACT Industrial development has always been seen as the main engine for economic growth due to its large economic multiplier and technological opportunities. However, manufacturing sectors are directly and indirectly responsible for a large share of overall environmental pressures, raising concerns for the environmental sustainability of manufacturing-based development. In this paper, we evaluate the drivers and decoupling trends of environmental pressures arising (directly or indirectly) from manufacturing production and consumption for a large selection of developed and developing countries. As a first step, we decompose changes in emission intensity of manufacturing sectors into a series of components by means of a shift-share analysis to identify the main drivers of change. A second step will compare direct environmental pressures generated by manufacturing sectors (production perspective) with the amount of emissions generated (domestically and abroad) by the domestic consumption of manufacturing goods (consumption perspective). Finally, we evaluate the possible emergence of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) dynamics for production and consumption perspective emissions for the world as a whole and for different continents. Results highlight that first, high income countries are generally more environmental friendly than the average and tend to be specialised in high-tech and greener sectors. Second, emission reduction is driven mainly by unobserved factors such as institutional quality and policy commitment. Finally, while production perspective shows some evidence of EKC dynamics, this result does not hold when shifting to the consumption perspective. Besides, some world area is able to compensate the growth effect exploiting technology dynamics.

Outward Foreign Direct Investments Patterns of Italian Firms in the EU ETS

We consider the role played by the EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) as a possible driver of outward Foreign Direct Investments (FDI henceforth). In particular, we aim at assessing whether EU ETS has any effect on outward FDI patterns of Italian firms. Using a novel panel dataset of about 59,000 firms covering the first two phases of the EU ETS and the pre-EU ETS period, we are able to observe the patterns of FDI by destination country of firms, distinguishing between those with plants covered by the EU ETS and other firms. Results show that, on average, firms in the EU ETS do not increase their presence in other countries. However, EU ETS firms operating in sectors particularly exposed to international competition increase their outward FDI towards countries not covered by the EU ETS.

Catching-up in waste management. Evidence from the EU

This work tests for the presence of convergence in the main municipal solid waste disposal choices across EU countries over the years 1995–2010. We believe this is a relevant exercise, considering that in the last two decades the waste sector has experienced a profound transformation at the European level. In this context, β and σ tests of convergence can tell us more about the distribution of these different rival choices of waste disposal, by assessing on the one hand the presence of convergence and, on the other hand, the role played by environmental policy and green technological change in driving convergence. Our regression results suggest that conditional beta convergence is substantial for both recycling and incineration. For the case of recycling, this convergence is faster for countries characterised by a technological endowment in recycling technologies and stringent waste policies. Finally, heterogeneity across countries (sigma convergence) appears to decrease over time.

Measures, Drivers and Effects of Green Employment: Evidence from US Local Labor Markets, 2006-2014

This paper explores the nature and the key empirical regularities of green employment in US local labor markets between 2006 and 2014. We construct a new measure of green employment based on the task content of occupations. Descriptive analysis reveals the following: 1. the share of green employment oscillates between 2 and 3 percent, and its trend is strongly pro-cyclical; 2. green jobs yield a 4 percent wage premium; 3. despite moderate catching-up across areas, green jobs remain more geographically concentrated than similar non-green jobs; and 4. the top green areas are mostly high-tech. As regards the drivers, changes in environmental regulation are a secondary force compared to the local endowment of green knowledge and resilience in the face of the great recession. To assess the impact of moving to greener activities, we estimate that one additional green job is associated with 4.2 (2.4 in the crisis period) new jobs in non-tradable activities in the local economies.