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Abstract: This paper contributes to the debate on the inducement of environmental innovations by analyzing the extent to which endogenous inducement mechanisms spur the generation of greener technologies in contexts characterized by weak exogenous inducement pressures. In the presence of a fragile environmental regulatory framework, inducement can indeed be endogenous and environmental innovations may be spurred by firms' reactions to their direct or related environmental performance. Cross-sector analysis focuses on a panel of Italian regions, over the time span 2003–2007, and is conducted by implementing zero-inflated regression models for count data variables. The empirical results suggest that in a context characterized by a weak regulatory framework, such as the Italian one, environmental performance has significant and complementary within- and between-sector effects on the generation of green technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Assessing the benefits of climate policies is complicated due to ancillary benefits: abatement of greenhouse gases also reduces local air pollution. The timing of the abatement measures influences both the economic costs and ancillary benefits. This paper conducts efficiency analysis of ten alternative timing strategies, taking into account the ancillary benefits. We apply the approach by Kuosmanen and Kortelainen [Valuing Environmental Factors in Cost-Benefit Analysis Using Data Envelopment Analysis, Ecological Economics 62 (2007), 56–65], which does not require prior valuation of the environmental impacts. The assessment is based on synthetic data from a dynamic applied general equilibrium model calibrated to The Netherlands. Our assessment shows that if one is only interested in GHG abatement at the lowest economic cost, then equal reduction of GHGs over time is preferred. If society is willing to pay a premium for higher ancillary benefits, an early mid-intensive reduction strategy is optimal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent developments in the political, scientific and economic debate on climate change suggest that it is of critical importance to develop new approaches able to compare policy scenarios for their environmental effectiveness, their distributive effects, their enforceability, their costs and many other dimensions. This paper discusses a quantitative methodology to assess the relative performance of different climate policy scenarios when accounting for their long-term economic, social and environmental impacts. The proposed procedure is based on Data Envelopment Analysis, here employed in evaluating the relative efficiency of eleven global climate policy scenarios. The methodology provides a promising comparison framework; it can be seen as a way of setting some basic guidelines to frame further debates and negotiations and can be flexibly adopted and modified by decision makers to obtain relevant information for policy design. Three major findings emerge from this analysis: (i) stringent climate policies can outperform less ambitious proposals if all sustainability dimensions are taken into account; (ii) a carefully chosen burden-sharing rule is able to bring together climate stabilisation and equity considerations; and (iii) the most inefficient strategy results from the failure to negotiate a post-2012 global climate agreement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]