Environmental Policy and Technological Change

The relationship between technological changeand environmental policy has receivedincreasing attention from scholars and policymakers alike over the past ten years. This ispartly because the environmental impacts ofsocial activity are significantly affected bytechnological change, and partly becauseenvironmental policy interventions themselvescreate new constraints and incentives thataffect the process of technologicaldevelopments. Our central purpose in thisarticle is to provide environmental economistswith a useful guide to research ontechnological change and the analytical toolsthat can be used to explore further theinteraction between technology and theenvironment. In Part 1 of the article, weprovide an overview of analytical frameworksfor investigating the economics oftechnological change, highlighting key issuesfor the researcher. In Part 2, we turn ourattention to theoretical analysis of theeffects of environmental policy ontechnological change, and in Part 3, we focuson issues related to the empirical analysis oftechnology innovation and diffusion. Finally,we conclude in Part 4 with some additionalsuggestions for research.