Environmental Engineering Reference
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in adopting more ef
cient goods re
ects this quicker pace. Moreover,
in the
building sector the party that actually bene
ts from EE performance and pays the
energy bill (the owner) is not the same as the part that constructs the building
(the contractor). This is known in literature as the principal-agent problem: it
describes a framework in which the
'
agent
'
(the builder) may not always operate in
favour of the
s owner or user). In this context, the
builder might sub-invest in building dwellings with suboptimal EE performance,
dumping the higher costs of energy bills on the future users (see also [
41
]).
With respect to the policy effect, in the general model speci
'
the principal
'
(the building
'
cation a modest but
positive impact of EE policies can be noted in regard to generating new patents,
con
rming the important role of public regulation in stimulating new economy-
useful technologies [
45
,
69
]. Moreover, the contribution of EE policies seems to
follow the same trend as the innovation system, with the impact of policies being
ampli
ed in those sectors which are highly-dependent on R&D. For instance, the
elasticity related to public regulation in the electrical appliances sector is almost
three times the
gure for buildings. The same trend can be found using speci
c
EE-R&D expenditures in place of GERD.
The set of estimations shown in Table
4
provides a robustness check, enlarging
the framework of analysis so as also to capture the effect of the energy (estimations
1
-
-
8) as further innovation drivers.
Although the main results remain largely unchanged, part of the variance in EE
inventing activity can be seen also to be explained by the energy system and by
environmental stringency. In more detail, when the energy system is tested, as
represented here by a term showing the interaction between energy intensity and a
dummy variable signalling the presence of nuclear power production, a signi
4) and environmental systems (estimations 5
cant,
negative impact on new patents is noted, but only in sectors that use mostly
electrical power (lighting and appliances). This means that those countries which
make intensive use of energy are also less innovative in terms of EE, con
rming our
hypothesis that energy abundance reduces the stimulus to innovate in EE tech-
nologies. The same pattern, although lower, can be found when environmental
stringency is examined, as measured by CO
2
emissions in the residential sector.
Finally, Table
5
tests the contribution of each single policy instrument to the
total stock of EE patent applications. This last set of estimations provides some
interesting insights for analysing the role of different policies. The
rst important
remark that must be made concerns the size effect of different policy types, which is
found to be rather similar in all cases. This result is particularly interesting, since
economic theory has mainly relied on standard economic instruments (such as
direct investments, taxes and subsidies) rather than on regulations aimed at
improving the level of information and awareness of consumers.
Indeed, although the effect of economic instruments is positive and signi
cant in
terms of invention-related activity, a new point that emerges from our analysis is
that other instruments also contribute just as much to the increase in EE patenting.
Speci
cally, the impact of each policy instrument measured as elasticity is
—
on
average
0.23 %, with the exception of voluntary approach instruments, which are
found not to be signi
—
cant. We believe that the most promising result
is the
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