Porter Hypothesis and the Economic Consequences of Environmental Regulation

Combining the public choice literature on political decision making with the Neo-Schumpeterian literature on innovation, this valuable new book develops a conceptual model of how environmental regulation is designed. The author presents a novel perspective on the Porter Hypothesis, arguing that the effect of environmental regulation is too weak to induce technological change. This implies that environmental policy intervention has little, if any, economic consequences which has significant repercussions for environmental decision-making. Since radical technological advance is unpredictable, this implies that environmental regulation induces, at the very most, incremental improvements of existing designs. Moreover, due to the high political costs of disrupting existing industry structures, regulation objectives are often adjusted or the compliance costs reduced through subsidies. Due to this limited inducement effect, the author finds that environmental regulation does not produce outcomes consistent with the Porter Hypothesis, nor does it have any palpable negative economic impact. Using detailed case-study evidence, each step of his argument is skilfully illustrated. The book conc