Competition among coalitions in a cournot industry: a validation of the porter hypothesis

We determine the emergence of the Porter hypothesis in a large oligopoly setting where the industry-wide adoption of green technologies is endogenously determined as a result of competition among coalitions. We examine a framework where firms decide whether to be “brown” or “green” and compete in quantities. We find that the Porter hypothesis may emerge as a market configuration with all green firms spurred by environmental regulation, even if consumers are not environmentally concerned. We also single out the necessary and sufficient conditions under which the green grand coalition is socially optimal and therefore yields a win–win outcome. Then, we show that, if the environmental externality is steep enough, the tax rate maximising welfare in the initial industry configuration is a driver of the win–win solution. Finally, the analysis is extended in several directions.

Evaluation of the Green Innovation Efficiency of Chinese Industrial Enterprises: Research Based on the Three-Stage Chain Network SBM Model

Green innovation is an important capability for an enterprise’s sustainable development. Evaluating the green innovation efficiency of China’s industrial enterprises can greatly affect its improvement. Considering the existing research results of green innovation efficiency evaluation, this paper added the impact of environmental factors in the technology industrialization stage. Various negative environmental externality indicators produced by industrial enterprise activities were incorporated into the undesired output, and an index system and model were constructed for evaluating the green innovation efficiency of China’s industrial enterprises. Combined with the actual data, a three-stage chain network SBM (slack-based measure) model was used to dynamically evaluate and analyze the industrial enterprises in 29 Chinese provinces. The results show that the overall efficiency of green innovation in China’s industrial enterprises has an upward trend, and the rise fluctuates during the technological development, achievement transformation, and industrialization stages. In the three major regions of China, industrial enterprises in the eastern area have the highest green innovation efficiency, and the industrial enterprises in the west and central regions have lower efficiencies. Based on the evaluation results, the corresponding countermeasures are proposed.

Altruism, environmental externality and fertility

We investigate the interaction between environmental quality and fertility in an altruistic bequest model with pollution externalities created by the aggregate production. Despite the negative externality related to the endogenous childbearing decisions, parents may choose to have fewer children in the competitive economy than in the social optimum. To achieve optimality, positive taxes on childbearing are required even with an insufficient number of children, if the social discount factor equals the parents' degree of altruism. On the other hand, child allowances may constitute the optimal policy if the social discount factor exceeds the parents' degree of altruism.