Research Institute for Regulatory Economics

The effects of carbon prices and taxes on induced innovation

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Technological change will be key to succeeding in the battle against climate change since current technologies are not sufficient to achieve the necessary greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. This project tries to answer the following research questions: Can technological change be directed through the use of carbon taxes and emission pricing to "green" technologies? Are these "market-based" instruments more or less effective than "command-and-control" policy instruments (e.g. renewable quotas, subsidies, regulation) to direct technological change? More generally, which instruments are most effective to increase "green" innovation in different sectors of the economy, and when?

Our main interests are:

  • Do carbon policies direct technological change towards green technologies

  • and if so, when is carbon pricing more efficient than command-and-control measures?

  • Are there heterogeneous effects across sectors

  • and if so, what determines this heterogeneity (e.g. closeness to the market)?

Supported by funds of the Oesterreichischen Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank, Anniversary Fund, project number: 18470

Supported by funds of the Oesterreichischen Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank, Anniversary Fund, project number: 18470)


© OeNB

In the course of the project, we were able to publish the results in the “Journal of Environmental Economics and Management”. The title of the publication is “Environmental Policies and directed technological change”. In this article, we analyse the extent to which policy measures can drive environmentally friendly technologies. The results show that this is primarily possible with R&D subsidies, although interactions between the individual measures must be taken into account.