The empirical analysis of the determinants for environmental technological change: A research agenda

Technological change is usually considered a necessary albeit not sufficient condition for a transition to sustainability. However, the empirical analysis of the determinants to environmental technological change has not received too much attention in the environmental/ecological economics literature and many open questions remain in this context. Based on a careful review of the literature, this paper argues that further analysis should address several issues at different levels: i.e., regarding the conceptual framework, the thematic scope of the studies, some methodological issues and other aspects related to the environmental policy variable. First, an integrated conceptual framework which takes into account the interplay between relevant variables influencing environmental technological change (i.e., factors internal and external to the firm and characteristics of the environmental technologies) and all the stages of this process, with a greater emphasis on the invention stage, should be developed. Other aspects should then be tackled, including a focus on several themes (i.e., a greater attention to cross-sectoral technologies, the barriers to different types of environmental technologies, the international dimension of environmental technological change and environmental technological change in small and medium size enterprises), methodological issues (combination of case studies and econometric modelling) and several issues related to the environmental policy variable.