On Backstops and Boomerangs: Environmental R&D under Technological Uncertainty

Arbeitspapier

The literature on environmental R&D frequently studies innovation as a two-stage process, with a single R&D event leading from a conventional polluting technology to a perfectly clean backstop. We allow for uncertainty in innovation in that the new technology may turn out to generate a new pollution problem. R&D may therefore be optimally undertaken more than once. Using and externding recent results from multi-stage optimal control theory, we provide a full characterization of the optimal pollution and R&D policies. The optimal R&D program is strictly sequential and has an endogenous stopping point. Uncertainty drives total R&D effort and its timing.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Discussion Paper Series ; No. 437

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation ; Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling ; Management of Technological Innovation and R&D ; Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
• Thema: stock pollution ; backstop technology ; multi-stage optimal control ; pollution thresholds ; uncertainty ; Umwelttechnik ; Innovation ; Umweltbelastung ; Technologiepolitik ; Umweltpolitik ; Kontrolltheorie ; Theorie

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Goeschl, Timo ; Perino, Grischa
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics
• (wo): Heidelberg
• (wann): 2007

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/127250
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ